Julie inhaled, a breath caught in her throat. She washed it down with a swill from her wine glass. For a beat, she savored the sweetness on her tongue, feeling a sudden boldness surge through her veins. Without turning, she spoke matter-of-factly and met her mother’s gaze.
“There is someone new. Or, at least the possibility of someone new,” she said. Her tone was low and nonchalant, though the admission tugged at her mouth. Suddenly, she was invigorated. She felt damn good. Not an ounce of regret about Nico as she sat up straighter on the sofa.
Her mother stared at Julie with a pinched expression for a pregnant pause. “I knew it.” The words came screeching out, fast and dangerous. “Lordy, I tell you I knew it the second I laid on you.” The words coming out almost in a song of church-style testimony.
“You knew what?” Julie rolled her eyes.
Here we go. Back on the rollercoaster.
“Whenever you start to fall for someone, you go and do something drastic. With Patrick, you went through that whole red-lipstick phase. With whatever his name was before Patrick, you had that obsession with trying to get your breasts augmented.” She ticked the men off on her fingers one by one. “The moment I saw you in the kitchen with your new short hair and this weight loss, I had a mind to tell you exactly what I thought, but I figured I had better let you tell me yourself.”
As the third finger lifted, Julie flushed and she could feel her skin running hot. “For the record, I did all this in spite of Patrick, and before Nico came along.”
Ugh. Julie’s mother had a way of putting all the cards on the table at once and dealing people a hand of their own hang-ups. Ironic, since she never seemed to notice any of her own.
What could she say to that? It hadn’t started out that way, but eventually it was true. She’d set out to carve a revenge body to help Patrick see the error in his ways, but somewhere along the way, she wanted it for herself. When Nico showed up with that look in his hypnotic chocolate eyes, it had only strengthened her conviction to reinvent herself. Albeit, she wasn’t in the same age range as Stella, but nevertheless she wanted to get her groove back, too.
Julie hadn’t realized she was doing it, but when her mother put it like that, it was sort of hard to deny.
Comfy and smug in her accusation, her crazy mom must have seen the wheels turning as Julie contemplated the truth in her statement because she waved it off. Her hands circled frantically, as if to wind the conversation back around to the good stuff. “Ah, so he has a name?” She chimed in, her brows raised in response to whatever expression was smeared across her daughter’s face.
Julie wasn’t sure what look that was exactly, but whatever it was, it was enough to keep the oil in this conversation burning. “Don’t go spending all night trying to make sense of it. Just tell me about your new beau. I want to know everything about this…this, Nico character.”
The way she said his name wasn’t specifically with distaste. After years of her “perfect Patrick,” it was almost like she needed to test Nico’s name on tongue—see what kind of ring it had to it.
“Well, it’s still pretty new,” Julie said sheepishly. “So far, I’ve shown him the worst of me and he’s still sticking around, so I guess that’s a good sign.” Julie cocked a brow at her sordid logic. “All we’ve really done is kiss, sort of,” she said, biting her lip at the memory.
Slippery wet images of their shower fantasy flooded back to Julie. The searing heat. His lips blazing trails of fire over her skin.
There are so many places I want to kiss you right now, she heard him say near her ear.
She couldn’t very well tell her mother the X-rated details. Kissing was safe.
Mirroring her thoughts, her mother said, “kissing is just the beginning.” She inched closer to Julie and wound her hand in a circle again, impatiently urging her to continue.
Julie shifted into the cushions of the couch as her body tensed and tightened at the thought of Nico. You have no idea, Mom.
For the rest of the movie and about twenty more minutes following it, Julie recounted her Nico sightings and blunders leading up to their date tonight. Against her better judgment she even included her alcohol-enthused evening at Frankie’s Tiki Room and waking up in Nico’s bed, minus the adult activity and the run-in with Nico’s mother.
Through it all, her mother remained quiet and only nodded here and there for Julie to continue. If she was judging, she hadn’t let on, and Julie was grateful for it.
When she finished, Julie had expected the questions to pour forth, but her mother only squinted her eyes as if she was still chewing on the new information.
“Well?” Julie asked, the impatient one now.
Her mom finished the last swig of her wine and placed the glass on the end table beside her before pulling one last mom bomb in the span of a few hours. “Do I get to meet him?” Her big amber eyes batted innocently below her thick brows.
Out of all the things she could have asked—all of the things a mother should ask—Julie hadn’t expected that.
She must have seen the confusion on Julie’s face because she clarified. “It just seems like there’s something different about this one. I like him already. A gentleman without being a doormat. He’s got staying power, honey.”
“What makes you say that?”
“This man has been yelled at by you, picked you up off the floor, and had the contents of your stomach on him”—she stressed the word on—“and he’s still sticking around. Most men would be running for the hills by now, and he’s asking to see you. Counting the minutes to see you.” She pursed her lips and gave Julie a serious eye as if to let on that this was the advice she needed to heed. “I like him. He seems to be good for you.”
Yes. He was counting the minutes. Julie was right there with him watching the clock.
The thought of Nico made Julie blush from the inside out. Her nerves buzzed and her skin tingled with the memory of his delicious weight on her. Without warning, he’d come from nowhere and now she was beginning to wonder what she’d do without him.
Julie checked her watch. She did need to know the time, but mostly she needed to look somewhere other than into her mother’s knowing eyes if she was going to ask the question she’d been itching to ask. The two of them were the same that way—facades had no fighting chance with the intuitive bond they shared. Julie was counting on it.
“Mom?” It was almost a whisper.
Her mother didn’t respond. She’d been looking at the television. Some unrealistic lovey-dovey ad for an online dating service. Julie caught the last few seconds of it filled with the membership marriage statistics, when her mother met her gaze.
There really wasn’t a right time to ask.
“When do you think you’ll be ready to find someone good for you again?” Julie asked, dropping an atom bomb of her own.
Later that night when Nico rang Julie’s doorbell, she was surprised by how nervous she felt. He had asked her out and confirmed their plans just after she left her mother’s house, so why couldn’t she keep her clammy hands from fidgeting? Why on earth couldn’t she just stand still, instead of shifting from one foot to the other like an antsy child on Christmas Eve? The man had seen and tasted every inch of her, there wasn’t much else to be nervous about.
Before she opened the door, she checked herself once more. The dress fit well and there were no tears or stains. The heels on her booties were just the right height for her to reach his full lips without climbing. A final glance in the mirror above the entry table showed her makeup was neutral with a tinted hot pink lip.
Perfect for whatever he had planned.
Julie unlatched the lock and twisted the handle. Nico stood on the other side, gorgeous as ever in loose-fit jeans with a long sleeved two-tone blue and white baseball shirt and a light jacket wrapped around his waist. She wasn’t sure what he had planned, but his outfit was a little more casual than what she had imagined. From his text, she figured maybe a meal and a movie, or a little blackjack and getting lost on The Strip. Instead, he was dressed for something that required breaking a sweat. And not the kind of sweat-breaking physical activity she had hoped for.
His large hands gripped two stuffed brown paper bags.
“Change of plans.” He shrugged. When Julie failed to clear the entrance, he bit his lip. “These are kind of heavy, so are you going to let me in?”
As Julie stepped aside and waved her outstretched arm toward the kitchen, Nico hurried over to the counter and hoisted the bags up on it. She watched from the door as he began unloading the whole grocery store and the farmer’s market onto every bare surface.
She finally decided she had better get on board and shut the door behind herself. “Mind if I ask, what prompted this change of heart, Top Chef?” She propped herself up on a barstool, sitting eye to eye, with only the counter between them.
“Uh…given our previous meetings, I kind of felt like it would be a safe bet to stay in tonight.” He winked. “You know, if that’s okay with you…” He raised a brow and smirked. In so many words, he hinted at Julie’s countless fails since their first meeting. No way he’d let her off the hook that easy.
She returned a knowing grin at him and those gorgeous lashes. Hey body was crying and begging her to jump his bones. It was all she could do not to push everything to the floor and take him right there on the bar, and think about food later. And now he cooks?
Who could eat at a time like this?
Somehow, she managed to sit patiently and engage in mindless banter as Nico finished unpacking, only pausing between sentences here and there to guide him in the direction of the utensils and pots and pans. Before long, he was chopping and slicing and dicing and throwing it all into an oversized gumbo-like stew with ground beef and a colorful array of vegetables and spices. The smell perfumed the air, warm and flavorful like some kind of camp fireside adventure soup.
Within a few minutes, he turned the heat down to a simmer and assigned Julie the menial task of stirring while he relieved himself in the bathroom.
Dutifully, she stirred. And in the numbing movement, her mind also stirred.
A few weeks ago, she’d come to terms with the downward turn her life had taken. Both at home and at work she was failing. There was nowhere to turn for relief. Then, one day, it was like her prayers had been sent to processing. While things were nowhere near where she wanted them to be, she’d regained hope.
The stars were working their way into alignment. A change had found its way onto her horizon.