Page 28 of Bring You Back

He tenses again, shifting back, eyes straight ahead, wall back in place. “You’re not staying at my house.”

Ouch.My response is an emotional appeal. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Go back to Banks.”

Julian’s reaching with this one. He would never suggest I go anywhere near Banks. The sting jolts me, but reminds me that he’s not himself. He slipped just a moment ago. He slipped back at his house. He’ll keep slipping until he falls back into the Julian I used to know.

“First of all, it’s not your house,” I say, giving him back the attitude. “It’s your mom’s. And she said I can stay.”

“I don’t care what she said.”

This is getting us nowhere, so I move on with a question of my own.

“Why are you suddenly an asshole?”

He chuckles without humor, having heard it before. He gets points for not denying it. “It’s not sudden. If you’d been here, you’d know that.”

If I’d been here, he wouldn’t be an asshole, period. He would’ve had me to help him through this, and he wouldn’t be trying to fill a literal and metaphorical hole with Reyna.

I get it. I get it. I get it.

He asks, “Why do you care?”

I shrug. “We all used to care at one point.”

He shoots up from the bench and slams the bowl into a trash can, a clear message.Try again.

I sigh, my knuckles digging into my legs as my nails dig into the bench, and soften my edges. “I made a mistake.” Because I’m wired to point things out, I add, “But you are, too.”

He starts to walk off, still dissatisfied, and I blurt, “You were going to kiss me.”

I hear the slight emphasis onme, and Julian halts. I stare at the back of his disheveled head for five long seconds thinking about that almost-kiss. As he leaned in, my heart pounded, my lips parted, ready to accept, to give, to feel him.

He looks down at me with dejected heat in his eyes. “And you left anyway.”

He continues to walk away from me, and I stand, call his name. He doesn’t stop or turn around a second time. He increases his pace until he’s swallowed by the crowd.

“I’m sorry.” The words leave my mouth in a defeated mumble and I drop back down to the bench.

Several people have paused to look at me. I glare at the gawking eavesdroppers until they avert their stares. I’m not a tourist attraction. And is their name Julian?

I bet Reyna was also spying from her post in the ice cream shop. She has a clear view from the inside. The view from the outside consists of a lopsided OPEN sign hanging on the door and the reflection of everything around me.

I should walk in.

I’m not against Reyna. Naomi can’t blame Tiffany for Brent’s infidelity any more than I can blame Reyna for being with Julian. It’s Brent’s fault he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and it’s Julian’s fault for … doing whatever he is doing.

I’m not against Reyna. At least I’m not trying to be. I just know she’s with the wrong guy.

I walk in, and my eyes catch Reyna’s right before her head shifts to the girl standing in front of her at the counter.She saw.

“I told you I can’t make it that way, I’m sorry,” she says to the girl who stops yapping long enough to take a breath.

I move closer. The girl is familiar. Long, dirty blonde hair. Skinny everywhere except for her stomach that pooches out from bad genes. A year younger, but several inches taller. A hypocrite.

Aren’t we all?

I step up beside her as she yaps incessantly about how she wants her ice cream today, Reyna readying herself for another apologetic dismissal. She hasn’t told this girl no in the right way. The way most places of employment don’t allow. Don’t sass the customers even when they sass you. Unlike the flushed girl behind the counter trying so hard not to snap already, I don’t work here. I can sass away.

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