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Her fingers are fast over the keyboard and she presses send before thinking; before her brain gets to warn her this is a bad idea, Julie. It’s always been a bad idea. She’s always gone for it.
His text comes immediately: I’ll be there in 20, and she feels a certain weight fall off her chest. Nick’s voice is still ringing in her ears, pleading with her in between the shouts that have become a commodity; Julie coughs out the sob in her throat. Her hands are wrapped around her middle, trying to shield herself from the wind as she walks down the street, a block away from Nick’s house.
This is not right. This is not what she is supposed to be doing.
Work things out with Nick, that’s what she needs to do. Go back there and apologise, explain herself, forget about the one who’s going to pick her up and take here anywhere but here.
She shoots Flynn a text, too. Her friend gives her a call a moment later, already mid-sentence when Julie picks up. “—you keep doing this to yourself?”
“I don’t know,’ Julie responds, figuring the beginning must’ve been ‘why do’. She bites her lip, her heeled boots clicking against the pavement. “I don’t know.”
“Do you seriously want to do this again? Aren’t you still at Nick’s?”
“I just left.”
There’s a sigh, and Julie can see the picture clearly – Flynn, sitting on her bed with her head in her palm, eyes closed. “Julie, girl, I love you, but you need to get your priorities straightened. You know what I’m saying.”
You need to sort right from wrong.
You need to figure out if you want to be with Nick or not.
You need to stop playing fetch with your feelings.
You need to stop texting Luke.
She’s heard it all before. From Flynn, from Carrie, from herself, and herself mostly. In the odd days when her head is clear and she’s able to see herself from an outsider’s perspective, she sees how fucked up it is what she’s doing – how selfish. How egoistic. How pathetic, childish, irresponsible—
“Earth to Julie?”
“Sorry.” She kicks the curb on the road lightly, consciously lowering the tension in her shoulders. “I was just thinking.”
“You should do more of that.”
“Flynn.”
“I’m just looking out for you!”
There’s a pause. Julie looks at the time on her phone – it’s not even been five minutes since she got his text. Her mind is racing and not in a good way. “Distract me.”
“Distract you?”
“Tell me about what happened after I went to Nick’s. Tell me what’s going on at home.”
There’s another sigh, and Julie sits down on the pavement, even though it means she’ll be freezing her butt off. The cold is taking her mind from the races her thoughts are doing around her head, at least, while she waits for something to happen.
“Okay,” says Flynn, “but you have to promise me something.”
“What is it?”
“Figure your heart out.” She lets the words hang for a moment, then adds, “I want my Julie back, and she hasn’t been around for a while.”
It’s the words – it’s the earnest pain in Flynn’s voice – it’s everything that they’ve been dancing around for the past two years. Julie knows exactly what Flynn is talking about, and as her best friend goes to tell her how the rest of the party went down and how she found Carrie rehearsing with Kayla, Julie’s mind travels into a different direction.
Things went to shit when her mom died. It’s as simple as that, and it’s the only thing in her life Julie has been sure of. Everything else is a muddled, dirty consequence of that event – the before and the after. Julie from the before couldn’t stand the Julie from the after, but she can’t undo what happened. She can’t go back in time.
Nick was the first good thing that happened to her in the after.
She doesn’t quite remember how it began; he’s been around since high school, since his brief fling with Carrie, and he’s always kind of stuck around on the edges of their big circle. They’d see each other at parties, flirt from time to time, but it was when they met at a grocery store, of all places, that he asked her to come hang out with him.
It was all innocent. He cooked lunch, they shifted through the books on his shelf, they had a couple drinks until she remembered her groceries, and they stuffed it into his fridge because they were both too drunk to drive. It was fun, and she found herself asleep in his bed with him on the couch, and was none the wiser when she kissed him in the morning.
The rest is history, as they say. Or really – the rest is a mess. Two months in, straight out of honeymoon phase, Julie started getting into her moods again and Nick couldn’t draw her out of them, couldn’t understand, couldn’t get through to her, and they argued until it all just blew up. Julie feels like there’s words in her throat that have been stuck there since that night, since Nick told her he can’t go on like this—with her shutting him out—and that he’s done, and Julie…
“Jules, you listening?”
She clears her throat, nodding to the air. “Yeah, I am. So Carrie’s planning on doing Dirty Candi seriously?”
Nothing comes from the end of the line, for a few moments. “I was talking about my internship. Were you even listening? Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“Flynn, I am so sorry. There’s just— There’s a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah, I know.” She hears the familiar sound of Flynn’s desk chair creaking, and then her floorboards making similar sounds. “It’s not long till he comes get you, huh?”
“Any moment now.”
“Okay.” Another sigh, another cupboard opening. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret in the morning.”
“I won’t,” Julie promises; it rings half-hollow.
She doesn’t have regrets. There’s only the heavy, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thinks of what she’s doing, of how it might be perceived by anyone other than herself, and it’s not regret – it’s guilt, judgement, anything but regret.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t do some things with a heavy heart.
They say goodbye and Flynn wishes her good luck and to keep her head clear. Julie doesn’t think she’s at the point where the only thing clear in her head is her almost insatiable desire, need to be wrapped up in someone else’s arms.
His car pulls up a minute later.
Julie doesn’t greet him when she enters, because she never does. It’s the unspoken agreement – if they don’t acknowledge that something is beginning, then it exists out of time, out of the narration of their normal lives. Or maybe it just doesn’t let them acknowledge it’s ending, when it comes to that.
Something that doesn’t have a beginning cannot end.
Her fingers fiddle with the radio; he always has rock on, and she always switches it to RnB, something that she wouldn’t usually listen to. Something that makes her heart beat along its rhythm, something that takes the situation from happening to maybe it’s a dream.
He’s dressed down, when she looks at him, wearing the same thing he was at the party. Jeans, cutoff band tee, and a plaid sweater that somehow makes him look cool and like a grandad at once. His hair is sticking out at the sides, shaped by the beanie that’s now nowhere in sight.
He never wears the beanie when he comes to pick her up. She doesn’t want to think about what that could mean.
They drive out of Nick’s neighbourhood and Julie finds herself aching for something; for this flash of breathlessness that she only gets when she’s around Luke The freedom, the endless possibility, the connection that exists out of time and space.
He never makes the first move. She doesn’t know how to read him; doesn’t know when he wants her to do something. Doesn’t know if he feels anything when she does.
Her hand travels to his thigh, shaky fingers circling the rough material. Julie isn’t looking at him. She’s looking out of the window, at the stars, covered by the clouds, muted by the street lights.
Luke’s hand wraps around hers and the warmth takes her in, accepting her.
A shiver runs through her bones.
“Do you want me to turn up the heating?”
Julie shakes her head, giving her a quick glance. It’s funny – he still looks at her the same he did those two years ago. It’s an expression she likes to think is reserved for her only, even if she doesn’t quite understand it. He’s like a painting, almost, when the face is showing little but insinuating a lot.
She’s never been able to decipher him. He held her in his arms the first night they slept together, and it was the first time she managed to fall asleep in someone else’s arms. It felt safe, and she figured it was because being with him was unlike she’s ever been – freer, wilder, bolder in every regard. Her hands worked swiftly and her mouth demanded her needs, and it felt like she’d let go of everything that restricted her.
There was no promises in his holding her. Just two bodies, naked, wrapped up in each other’s heat as the sun slowly rises through the curtains.
It was freeing. She still remembers how in the morning, he looked at her and asked a question that wasn’t a question: “I thought you were with Nick.”
She shook her head, then, slipping out from underneath the covers without the usual shame she feels when she’s naked. “We broke up.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him. She figured it was the matter of principle – what she’s heard of Luke Patterson, the frontman of Sunset Curve, is that he’s got morals. Fucking another man’s girlfriend doesn’t go with his life rules. Fucking another man while being someone’s girlfriend doesn’t go with Julie’s, either.
She never looked into his question. Never wondered if it meant more than that, carried more weight with it. It was good, it was liberating, but it was over.
Nick begged her to come back to him. Apologised profusely, promised to try better, to let her explain and him understand, and she didn’t hesitate.
Until they argued again, and they called it quits, and she ended up in Luke’s bed, liberated again.
And again, she got back with him.
For two years.
Now, Luke’s driving them out of the city. She sees his eyes look up, toward the stars, and he brings them to a place where they can see them clearly. Julie likes the sight – little dots in the sky that would take a lifetime to count. It’s nice to know there’s something bigger than her, that her mistakes are just a little piece of many.
It’s not like Julie to be this… thoughtful. Not recently. Usually she just packs it all in the back of her mind, in a little, neat box that she keeps hidden until it’s too late. (Or she’s with Luke.
She doesn’t want to think about the implications of how safe and free he makes her feel.)
“Do you want to talk about it?”
No, she thinks as she looks at him, the defence mechanism quick to react. She sees the guard cover his eyes, too – the way he flinches at her stare, then apologises.
They end up talking about it. Not a lot, because Julie might break if she says one word too much, but she hopes he knows how much she appreciates him. How much even just his presence puts her at ease. She can’t even think back to the way Nick trying to talk her out of their break today made her feel. It’s all distant now, as if from another world.
In this world, there’s just Luke and her, and the billions of stars.
She doesn’t let herself take these moments for granted, so when he caresses her cheek and kisses her, Julie savours the moment, painting the melody ticking inside her heart into something firm inside her head.
(He’s addictive. Everything about him is, from the way his fingers are hot against her back, tentative, careful, to the way her hands find their home in his hair, tugging lightly until her neck’s muffling his moan, to the way he kisses her as if she were everything he ever wanted.
She’s just good at holding on. Her heart won’t break again.)
It’s not fair, but she compares them sometimes. Nick was born into a good family, brought up to be polite and proper, caring, tentative. When he kisses her, touches her, it’s always perfect. He’s a better kisser than Luke, and he’s better at giving her exactly what she needs when she needs him, but there’s no… There’s no freedom about it. He’s guarded, worshipping her, always putting her first. Luke is the opposite – Luke kisses how he wants to, sloppy and ferocious, touching her in a way that keeps her getting what she wants and it drives her crazy, and she adores every moment she looks at him and he’s got the look in his eyes that tells her that he knows exactly how much she’s enjoying it. How much she likes working for it, how much she likes giving him the same treatment. He’s honest; he’s unreserved; he’s going after what he wants and he makes her do the same.
It’s not fair to compare them because she knows who she prefers. (She shouldn’t. She can’t. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair, but it’s her heart, and she’s never been able to tell it how to feel.)
Luke’s hands reach a little underneath her bra, brushing over the bottom of her breasts, and she lets out a shaky sigh. He smiles against her lips. “Hey.”
“Shut up,” she says. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re doing.”
He creates some distance between them, glancing with that look in his eyes in which she can see right through the feigned innocence – even under the starlight, his pupils are dilated, and he’s flushed in his cheeks, just the way she is.
“What is it that I’m doing?”
Julie rolls her eyes. “Asshole.”
“Mhm.”
He does the brushing thing again and Julie bites her lip, feeling her back arch into him at the contact. She decides to fire back, at the challenge in his eyes, the way she’d never do to Nick; her hand flies to his hair and she tugs it back, and reaches forward until she’s leaving tiny bites on his neck, feeling him squirm underneath her lips.
Luke’s open. Luke likes trying things. He lets her read him, sometimes, and she knows what he likes and what he doesn’t, and he’s always willing to let her do something she hasn’t before, and there’s never judgement. Never anything but sheer fascination, infatuation, on both sides.
(Has it ever been just sex? She recalls his eyes the first time she climbed on top of him, palms flat over his chest; how he looked at her with glazed eyes, seeping with desire, looking as if he’s never seen anyone quite as glorious as her.
He’s never not looked at her this way, ever since. Even if it’s just accidental eye contact. Even if they’re not touching. Even if she can’t read anything apart from the want that mirrors her own.)
As they drive to his place, she doesn’t let herself wonder if he’s this good at what he does because he does it often. She’s not a fool – she’s heard the stories—rumours—and she sees the way girls look at him. What’s there not to want? Handsome, smart, good reputation, well-built, plays the guitar and is the frontman of a local rock band? She’s not a fool, thinking she’s the only one.
This is why she always goes back to Nick. It’s not easy to admit, not when her hand’s on his thigh and he’s holding it, thumb brushing the back of her palm, but it’s true. She’s taking these stolen moments and letting him go back to whoever it is that he’s with when she’s not around.
“Where do you think we are going to be in five years’ time?” she wonders out loud.
He glances over, one hand on the steering wheel. Against the stairs, he looks like a dream. “I don’t like to think about that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It sets up expectations. I mean, I don’t know where I’m going to be tomorrow, let alone five years from now.” He brings her hand up and to his chest. She feels his heart beating through the thin fabric; her stomach does a little dance. “Things can change in a moment.”
“I guess.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “In a better place, I hope.”
He squeezes her hand as if he knows exactly what she means, even if they’ve never talked about it. They don’t talk about serious things. Even this is out of the ordinary, and shouldn’t be lulling her further into that sense of security she has around him.
Julie leans her head on his shoulder. He doesn’t hesitate to press a kiss to the crown of her head, and she lets herself close her eyes. Pretend that for a moment, their drive isn’t going to come to an end. They aren’t going to pull up at this place, slip into his bed, and end up sweaty, glistening. They aren’t going to talk any more.
They’re just going to drive, with her head on his shoulder, her hand in his, on his chest, and the stars will be the only guide they need.
Julie doesn’t notice she’s humming along to the song until it’s been happening for a while.
(It only happens when Luke is around. She hasn’t—
It’s been a while since she sang.)
Words come to her, and she lets herself mouth them softly as song wears on, and another one follows. Her eyes are closed and the moment feels like a daydream. Like a moment from a different place in time – from the before.
Julie sings. It’s quiet, it’s whispering, but she sings, and he lets her.
When they get to his place, things speed up. They’re in his bed within moments, clothes off, and she drops off of him after what feels like hours. He catches her when she falls, pulling her body over his chest, fingers rubbing gentle circles into her back.
He falls asleep before her. He always does.
She watches him, now, and wonders if things could be different. Julie might like fooling herself, but she is not a fool. She knows that maybe she would be with Luke if he asked – that maybe she would let herself rely on the freedom he gives her if he offered it to her.
She doesn’t think she knows how to be alone anymore. But when she’s around him, she’s Julie, and not whoever she became in the after.
He looks peaceful. She likes these moments the best – when he’s falled asleep and she can see his lips parting as he breathes, his face flushed and sweaty, hair a tangled mess because of her hands going through it over and over again. She likes how he looks in the afterglow, tired and exhausted, at peace.
She doesn’t know much about his family life, aside from the rumours she’s heard here and there. She wonders if she is an escape for him, too, from whatever it is that he’s bothering him when the sun is up.
(She wonders if he’s feeling freer around her, too. She’s like to be someone’s liberation.)
“I thought you and Nick were done,” he told her when they slept together the second time. “You said you were.”
“We were,” she said, fingers tracing lines on his naked chest. “We got back together again. And broke up.”
“So it’s like that?”
She told herself she didn’t know what he meant. She told herself he was talking about her and Nick. “Yeah. It just is.”
She remembers how he didn’t kiss her that morning and she thought things between them were over, but he still answered her text a few weeks later. He didn’t ask about Nick anymore. She doesn’t know what she would’ve answered – they were always broken up when she slept with Luke, but it was almost like ever once a month or two, she’d get a night off to sleep with him. To be with someone else.
Are they broken up, if she knows she’s going to go back to Nick while Luke’s inside of her?
(I’m a monster.)
Then again, she wishes it was Luke, when she’s fucking Nick.
(A monster.)
Except Luke doesn’t want her like that. And Nick does.
And it makes all the difference.
Julie falls asleep with the sight of Luke before her eyes, with the smell of his sweat and aftershave mixed with the smell of his sheets, with his warm body heating hers on top of it, with their limbs entangled, with a wish she’d never wake up to a morning where she has to leave.
(Flynn was right. It’s just sex, but it needs to end.
It both does.)
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs against his chest, half-asleep. “I didn’t mean to— I never meant to feel like this. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
She repeats the words until there’s tears dripping from her eyes, and she kisses it off his chest. “I’m glad you don’t feel the same. I’m glad you aren’t hurting, because I couldn’t…” she trails off, feeling herself shake a little. “I can’t stand the thought of hurting you. But I can’t— I can’t let this go on. I can’t let myself fall for you, when Nick’s— When Nick’s there. When he wants me.”
(”Don’t say this,” Nick said. “We’re good. We’ve got something— Don’t drop this.”
“We’re not good,” she argued, leaning against the kitchen counter. He was all the way in the living room. “How many more arguments can we have before it all breaks? How many time can we call it off and go back to what we had?”
“As many as we need. It’s all a part of—”
“It’s wrong, and you know it.”
Nick hesitated. “Is there someone else?”
“What?”
He repeated himself, his voice breaking.
“I—” say it, she told herself. Get it out in the open. Admit it to him, admit it to himself, admit it and deal with it. Stop being a coward. “No, there isn’t. Why does there need to be someone else? We’re fucked up enough as it is, Nick. I can’t— I can’t go on like this.”
She doesn’t know if he ever found out about her and Luke. She doesn’t know if she’s letting her have that, or is completely oblivious. They don’t talk about those days. Julie doesn’t know if she would be able to do that.)
In the morning, Luke’s playing the guitar. She wakes slowly and she smells pancakes, too; she smiles into the pillow. If he keeps her eyes closed, she could pretend he’s doing all of this for her, instead of this just being his morning routine. She can pretend she makes a difference in his life.
(Because she’s too afraid to admit how much of a difference he makes in hers.)
When she wakes, he asks her to stay.
When she almost makes a promise she’s too scared to keep, she sings, and god, it’s – it’s everything she’s ever forgotten. It’s dancing around the kitchen in Luke’s sweats and a hoodie, it’s kissing him in front of the window while his hands are wrapped around her, it’s the freedom she hasn’t felt in two years.
He lets her be herself. He doesn’t expect anything of her. He kisses her like he means it, and it’s all that matters.
“Are you really going to come tonight?” he asks, lips pressed to her collarbone as they cuddle in his bed.
“I hope so,” she tells him. Her hands are on his back, tracing her own name on it. “I always wanted to see you perform.”
“We’re the best band on the block.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the only band on the block.”
“Hey.” He looks up, pouting. “That’s not nice.”
Julie kisses him. “How about this?”
His lips are soft when he goes in for the kiss. He deepens her peck, his fingers brushing her jaw as they cup her cheek, his other hand anchoring them on the bed.
Julie could spend the rest of her life like this.
He whispers her name.
“Hm?”
“Don’t go back to him.”
“Luke—”
“Don’t say anything,” he says, pressing gentle kisses to her cheeks, her chin, her jaw, everywhere. “Don’t answer. Just— Come tonight. If you’re not going back to him. I don’t think I can…”
He doesn’t say it, but Julie understands it, and she feels her heart be shot through with a straight arrow, dragging a curve behind it. She feels like every moment is being rewritten in her mind, every interaction – every kiss has a different meaning when you know the other person feels the same.
It comes with this: I hurt him.
Not just herself. Not just Nick.
She hurt Luke, too.
“I want to go home.”
He doesn’t ask, just drives her home. Julie feels like there’s a weight pulling her down into the ground and the moment Flynn lets her in, she falls into her arms, the walls broken.
Julie cries for hours. She doesn’t talk – doesn’t tell Flynn what happened – but it’s liberating.
“It’s okay,” Flynn tells her at some point, carrying a cup of steamy tea. Her hands pat Julie’s back, squeezing at her shoulder. “Take your time. I’ve got you. Carrie’s going to be home soon, too.”
Flynn presses a kiss to her cheek, and Julie sobs a little harder.
It’s everything – it’s Nick – it’s Luke – it’s her inability to sing, to be herself – it’s her mom – Julie hasn’t felt this overwhelmed in a long time. Her shoulders shake and her curls are still a mess from last night, but she lets it all out.
It’s everything that she’s kept in for the past two years. It’s the box flying open, and she’s Pandora, trying to keep hope still in.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she whispers, voice hoarse and throat aching. “It’s too much.”
Flynn wraps her arms around her until daises are all Julie can smell. She kisses the crown of her head. “You’re strong, Jules. You’re allowed to be weak every once in a while.”
“I messed up,” she whispers against Flynn’s shirt. Her eyes and nose are leaving wet stains. “I really did.”
“I know.”
“I fucked up.”
Flynn’s voice breaks. “I know.”
“I want to make it right.”
“Okay.” Flynn pats her on the back. She’s rubbing circles into the fabric of Julie’s—Luke’s—shirt. “Tell me how you’re going to do that.”
“I don’t know,” Julie says, stifling another sob.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, then.”
“I don’t know.”
“Julie.”
Even like this, Julie knows that there’s more going through her head than she’s letting on. Resting her head on Flynn’s chest, her hands calm on the small of her friend’s back, Julie tells her, in patches of a story, what happened last night. With the argument, with the realisations, with how being around Luke made—makes—her feel, with how she sang for the first time in two years, and how right it felt to be accompanied by his strumming of the guitar, laid back in the chair by his bed, looking at her with the smile on his face. How he asked her to stay, to not go back to Nick.
She never talked about this. Flynn must’ve figured that there’s something more between her and Luke, but talking about it, admitting it out loud, it’s the same as confirming it. Acknowledging it.
Acknowledging that something has begun, and that something is bound to have an ending, too.
“Tell me now,” Flynn says, “what you are thinking of doing.”
Julie asks to come over to Nick’s. He’s ecstatic, until she texts him before she leaves for his place, telling him she’s going to be packing whatever she’s got lying around.
She doesn’t talk about Luke, because he’s not the real reason why she and Nick haven’t been working out. They’re a mess, they’re not a good fit, and maybe they could be friends, if they hadn’t ruined it by trying to be something more. He doesn’t try to talk her out of it, this time, and Julie appreciates it. She truly wishes him all the best, but they’re over.
Julie decides to take the risk. To brave being alone, if Luke’s words were just pillow talk; to brave not having someone to steady herself upon.
Like Flynn said, she’s strong.
“I think this was the right thing to do,” Julie tells her as they bring the boxes from Nick’s to their flat.
“You think or you know?” asks Flynn. “They’re not the same.”
Julie looks at the box in her arms – it’s filled with letters and notes, a few mugs and pencils and even a baking tray that she forgot to take home that first night. It’s bits and pieces of her that she’s taking back. She doesn’t need someone to pick her up anymore, to scoop up the broken pieces and mend them together, or tape them together until something stronger comes. She’s doing it all herself, now.
“Know,” she says, and a liberated smile graces her lips.
Later that evening, she comes to the Orpheum, like Luke asked her to. She doesn’t come just for him, but he’s a big reason. Flynn and her find themselves a place in the back, close to the bar, but her eyes are trained on the frontman – he’s sweaty, hair even messier than usual, damp and glowing under the stage lights. Julie doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone have this much energy – he’s almost merged with the stage, being one with it and the music. He looks more whole than she’s ever seen him.
“They’re good,” notes Flynn.
“He played me some acoustic versions of these in the morning,” Julie admits. “I had no idea they’re so good. They sound…”
“Proper,” Flynn fills in. “Serious.”
“Yeah.”
She gets a pat on the back, and her best friend is grinning at her. “That could be you, if you get back into music.”
Julie shrugs, rolling her eyes. “One day at a time, Flynn.”
“Right.”
They watch the set, shifting on the tip of their toes at some parts, carried by the energy of the crowd. It’s just as addicting as she is, and their songs feel so raw and bursting with passion that Julie finds herself catching onto the choruses, the melodies, singing her heart out. She’s jumping up and down and so is Flynn, the beat of their hearts drumming to Alex’s lead. Reggie’s baseline goes into her ribcage, into her toes, carrying her thoughts into a time from last night as she watches Luke finger the guitar.
She knows when he sees her, because everything changes. Their eyes lock and he misses a note, catching himself a moment too late. I thought you wouldn’t come, is written all over his face, and she gives him a winning smile.
Surprise, she thinks.
He grins at her and she wishes she could cross the stage and kiss him. She’s always had a thing for musicians, and the stage, and the delirious euphoria of a performance.
He gets even more into it, and by the time the concert is over, Julie’s half-convinced it’s one of the best gigs she’s ever been to.
“You’re just biased,” Flynn tells her as they order drinks at the bar. When she glances over, there’s a worrying crinkle in her eye. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“No,” Julie admits. “I don’t know if this is a thing, anyway. I’m just… Trying to not be so afraid anymore, I guess.”
“And you think he’s the way to get there?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I can’t know unless I try, right?”
There’s no way to argue with this logic. Flynn pulls her into a hug and presses a kiss to her cheek. “I just want the best for you. Are you sure you’re ready?”
Julie thinks about not saying it, about not acknowledging, but then their drinks arrive and the girls sip on them. “It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”
Stolen moments with Luke felt more honest than the permanent ones with Nick.
What she thought was a dream was more real than the rest of the life she built for herself. Reality is freedom, not being locked up in a metaphorical cage.
Flynn is the one who sees him first, and she leaves, making Julie promise to let her know where she’s spending the night. He’s walking to her then, hair still damp but a bit dryer, a bit of a frizz in it. He’s all muscle, all showmanship, all looking at her like there’s no one else in the room.
She doesn’t hesitate to plant a kiss on his cheek, or tell him that they were good, or that she wants to learn more about him.
He kisses her on the lips, full and earnest, like he always does. Julie melts into his touch, like she always does. They don’t think about people seeing them; they don’t think about anything but the two of them.
“Thanks for coming,” he tells her, foreheads resting against one another. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Me neither,” she admits. “There were things I had to do first.”
Luke hums, fingers tentative on her waist. “Is this what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want. Do you?”
“No. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”
“I forgot your philosophy is that you don’t think before you leap,” she giggles. “Rushing into things without fearing consequences.”
“Just because you need to make a big list for everything doesn’t mean others do, too.”
“No more lists,” she says. It sounds like a promise.
They know each other too well for this to be nothing. It has been something for a while now, but Julie doesn’t let herself think about how long.
It ends up with them at his place, and Julie lets herself fall asleep in his arms without guilt. In the morning, she’s the first to wake, and she’s done one who makes pancakes, quietly sings along to one of her Spotify playlists, wearing nothing but underwear and his t-shirt.
He wakes up with a smile on his face.
“I made breakfast,” she tells him, looking at him as she leans on the doorframe into his bedroom. “Want it now?”
Luke opens his eyes and pats the side of his bed, her side, with a whisper calling her to come over. She does, and he tells her she sings like an angel.
It’s the beginning of something, but that something ends up becoming a lot more than anyone could’ve thought. Falling for him has always been an easy, ongoing process that she never had the strength to prevent, or stop, and it’s a process that becomes faster when she isn’t trying to pull the brakes on it.
Having sex turns into making love; morning jamming sessions turn into writing sessions; hanging out with friends turns into jamming out with his band, and Flynn on the side, mixing the new sounds.
At the first concert of Sunset Curve, Julie thought the boys were great. She never thought she’d be inducted into the band, second lead, piano at her side. Their sound changes from garage rock to a more melodic pop-rock, to ballads or unspoken, buried feelings rather than screaming against the injustice. It’s growth, and it’s welcomed by their new label, and their new album, and their new career.
It’s just a kiss, when she’s lying in his bed that morning, with no guilt or burden on her chest, but it’s the beginning of everything else.
Her mom would’ve been proud of her.