Later that evening, Nico and Julie had finished a quiet dinner in Downtown Summerlin. It was closer to home and they’d both agreed that the night was not one for the buzzing busyness of the strip after a day spent at the cemetery. The pace was slower and the night was light and romantic out in the open air.
They decided to take advantage of the warm breeze and the easygoing atmosphere. Plus, they weren’t ready to head back home just yet.
Instead, they strolled hand in hand through the outdoor mall, window-shopping and talking as they passed by the upscale stores and small boutiques dispersed among a handful of restaurants.
Though Julie was enjoying the quiet time just being together, she kept going back to the fireworks and Nico’s words in the truck. He had said he was falling for her. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, as scary as it was, she was about ninety-nine percent sure she was falling for him, too.
Ironically, allowing Nico into her heart wasn’t the scariest part. It was the not knowing that left Julie feeling uneasy. Did she really know what it meant to feel something real? Could she let go? She thought she knew what it meant to be in love, but it turned out, she didn’t know the first thing about it—not if she, at one point believed that’s what she shared with Patrick.
This thing, whatever it was with Nico, was nothing like that. This quiet kind of ease and happiness with him? This was what she’d hoped for, wished for. Her hand at home in his was enough. The delicious weight of his eyes on hers filled her up and made her whole.
As they walked under a canopy of sprawling palms draped in twinkle lights, she turned her head toward a gorgeous red dress displayed in a window across the street. For a second it held her attention, but when Nico followed her gaze, it gave her a moment to really look at him without him knowing.
She didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but he was becoming so important to her. This gorgeous man with the magical eyes and magnetic smile. He was sexy beyond any dream she had of the person she’d end up with, but he was more than that. Nico was a man who stayed.
Julie squeezed his hand and he looked down at her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked.
“I was thinking about you?”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? And what exactly were you thinking about me?”
“I was thinking about how much I like having you around,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “And…”
“And?”
“And since it’s Memorial day…maybe we can make some new memories.”
Nico stopped in his tracks and pivoted toward Julie. He placed his hands on her shoulders and cocked his head, leaning in toward her. “Exactly what kind of memories are we talking about here? Like take a selfie by the fountain,” he lowered his voice. “Or, like fantasies and dreams?”
Julie watched his tongue dart out of his mouth to lick his lips and felt a pull low in her belly. “Like, maybe you could tell me about your dream. Like exactly what I was doing in the tight black dress with my hair down and red lips, if I wasn’t hugging you at the bar. And maybe, we could reenact your naughty little dream.” Julie’s insides flooded with warmth and her fingers tingled with the need to touch Nico all over.
A slow smile built on Nico’s face as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple rising to a bulge before dropping. He stroked his throat for a second, then he erased the distance between him and Julie. As he cradled the soft curves of her face in his hands, a jolt of electricity coursed through her at his touch. Every nerve ending on her body stirred and tingled with the craving to be touched by him.
Julie was practically floating on air as he took wide strides, dragging her toward the valet near the movie theater.
“Stay here.” He gave her a wistful look before he covered her mouth with his, kissing her deep and hungry like he was starving and she was his to feast on. One of those, I don’t want to let you go kind of kisses that left her breathless and a little wet. “The line is kind of long. I’m just going to turn the ticket in for the car and I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the curve of the queue and Julie was left standing there just outside the theater entrance. She took out her compact and applied a new coat of Ruby Woo lipstick. Already, she was feeling sexier as she took out her phone to check her Instagram when the one voice she didn’t want to hear called to her.
“Hello Jules.”
When Julie turned, there was Patrick with Celeste waddling behind him in a skintight mid-length dress despite her belly. This one was much the same as the white one she was wearing in Walmart, but in a coral pink that matched the lighter shades on her lips and cheeks.
She was stunning as ever, though her dark roots had grown out, color-blocking her platinum blonde hair in a way that only she could make look chic.
Suddenly, next to her, Julie felt frumpy in her shapeless brown sundress and simple sandals. “Hi,” she muttered, looking back toward the valet line, then flitting between Patrick’s fixed gaze and Celeste on his heels.
Damn, where is Nico when I need him?
Celeste landed on the curb beside Patrick and quickly wrapped her hand around his. “Honey, you know I can’t move that fast with the baby.” She dragged out the word baby like a trophy as her wicked dove-tailed eyes darted over Julie from head toe, before she forced a tight-lipped smile. “Hey, Julie.”
“Hey,” Julie said curtly, stifling the urge to roll her eyes. She wouldn’t give these two the satisfaction of knowing how annoyed she was if she was offered a thousand dollars. She could be cordial, but they were not friends and she wasn’t going to fake it either.
“So…uh, yes. How are you? Uh…how are you doing? You’re looking well,” Patrick said, wiggling free from the hand that Celeste held to push up his rolled sleeve. Which, as far as Julie could tell, was already up as far as it could go.
He squared his body to Julie, thrusting out his chest and exposing his scraggly-haired neck, and for once, she could see him. Really see him for what he was instead who she’d made him out to be in her mind.
Sure, he was good-looking enough, but there wasn’t much else to him besides his height and decent bone structure. He looked dopey and ridiculous, like he was putting on airs. All that confidence she’d thought he had was just labels and height from the pedestal she’d put him on, but now she was seeing him down to earth.
Raising her brows, she said, “I’m fine, thanks,” the annoyance clear in her sharp tone. She was so over him. What did he want her to say? It was just plain awkward.
Julie looked over her shoulder again. Come on Nico.
“We should probably get going, Hon. The movie starts in like ten minutes and I have a craving for popcorn and pickles.” Celeste crossed her arms and released a heavy sigh. She was basically snarling and foaming at the mouth like a rabid nippy little Chihuahua.
She had a bone to pick and she was ready to bite the hand of anyone who got too close.
“Yeah…” Julie breathed the word, but she whole-heartedly agreed. Then, as she looked over her shoulder and saw Nico coming, her heartbeat sped up. She turned back to them, hoping they would say their awkward goodbyes and go fast.
Patrick’s gaze flicked upward and Julie could see the visible tension in his neck and shoulders. He opened his mouth likely about to criticize Celeste, but stopped short. “Well, I guess we better be going then,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his lips. “Wouldn’t want to miss the previews.” He rubbed his brow as if to ward off a headache and turned away just as Nico arrived.
“Should be about ten minutes, the guy said.” Nico slipped his arm around Julie’s waist and kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, I’m Nico, and you are?”
Before things could really get awkward, Julie chimed in to introduce them. “Nico this Patrick and his wife, Celeste—”
“Girlfriend—” Patrick corrected her just as Celeste corrected him.
“Fiancé.” Her lips pressed into a white slash. “Lovely to meet you, Nico. And you are?”
Nico and Julie both stared at each other. They hadn’t exactly decided what they were. What were they? Friends? Falling for each other? Lovers? Were they even in love?
“Julie is my girlfriend.”
Bam.
He’d said it without doubt or question, and almost immediately Julie’s insides flooded with a fluttery kind of excitement and joy. Just like that, she’d become his. He’d claimed her to the one person, who deep down, Julie knew believed he still owned her—believed he could have her back anytime he wanted her.
Softly, Nico brushed his lips over Julie’s. When he returned his glassy gaze to Patrick, who was now glaring at him, Nico jutted his chin out and stood taller.
Patrick was scowling at him, and Julie. He cracked his neck and inhaled a slow, measured breath. His nostrils flared and his murky brown eyes were cold, hard, and flinty. “Ah. Julie hadn’t mentioned that she was seeing anyone.” He folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head, now extremely interested and apparently going nowhere anytime soon. At least, not to the movies.
“That’s because we don’t talk, Patrick,” Julie said plainly and more than a little irritated. She swallowed hard and prayed for them to leave. “Anyway, look at the time.” She didn’t even glance at her watch. “Celeste, weren’t you just saying you wanted popcorn?”
Before Celeste could get a word in edgewise, Patrick continued on his weirdly jealous probe. “I was just telling her the other day at the bank that we should get together soon. I didn’t know you existed, but now maybe we’ll have to make it a double date.” Says the guy with the pregnant, sniveling fiancé beside him.
Patrick made a point to flicker his gaze to Julie’s bare ring finger, which along with her other fingers she was using to draw blood from the skin of her other hand. But, this was the precise reason he annoyed the shit out of her. He’d said it as if she needed pictures of Nico plastered across her desk and a sign on her fucking head to let people know she was taken. She didn’t need a ring or pictures or any other advertisement, plus what concern was it of Patrick’s?
Ugh, Patrick. Seriously, now you want to be jealous?
“When were you at the bank?” Celeste badgered. She was whining with her bottom lip trembling as her eyed bugged out of their sockets. “You didn’t tell me you saw Julie at the bank?”
And just when Julie thought things couldn’t get worse than her jealous ex and her whimpering ex friend about to claw at each other, Nico added another log onto the fire. “No. She didn’t tell me she saw her ex either,” he said calmly, his gaze narrowed on her. This was going to be a thing. God, why did it have to be a thing?
“It wasn’t a big deal. He showed up out of nowhere saying he missed me and I asked him to leave. That’s it. Nothing else happened, so why would we need to talk about it?”
“You miss her?” Celeste asked Patrick. To look at her, she had to be seeing red the way her fists clenched. She was either going to go into labor right there on the sidewalk, or beat the shit out of him.
He clamored backward and raised his hands, palms up, in defense. “We need to get going. I thought you said you wanted popcorn and pickles before the movie starts,” he said deflecting like the coward that he was.
For a split second, Julie actually felt sorry for him. Until, she met Nico’s gaze which was trained on her.
“I think you should get going,” he said to Patrick and Celeste, but his tone was unmistakably directed toward Julie.