Page 87 of Entirely Yours
“I—”Shit.I look around at the half-decorated bar. “I have to…”
“You know what,” Thea interrupts. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” I can hear the anger in her voice, coming right alongside her earlier sadness.
“Thea—”
“Tell Gabe the front door is unlocked for him.” And then she hangs up.
Fuck.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asks, having heard my end of the conversation. “Where are you sending me?”
“The power went out at my house, Thea needs help getting it back on.”
“On it.” He salutes on his way out the door.
Ben comes over to help me finish hanging up the banner. “Why didn’t you go over there?” he asks.
I run through several different answers in my mind. “I’ve been so close to spilling the beans on this entire party, I need to keep my distance as much as possible today so I don’t fuck it up.” I also know she’s mad at me, and I don’t really want her to have a reason to push me away. I need to give her some space to calm down.
“We should have thought about the fact that you’re a shit liar before we decided to make this a surprise for Thea.” Ben laughs. I’m glad someone thinks this is funny, meanwhile I’m over here crawling out of my skin in discomfort.
We get the banner hung up, and I hop down off the stool, annoyed that I’m not at the house helping Thea. “What else do we need to do?”
Louie walks in just then. “Wow, boys! Place looks great. Can’t remember the last time it was this clean.”
He’s not wrong, we mopped God knows what off the floor and wiped down half of the table tops so far. The entire place isn’t sticky anymore. Well, except for the corner booth—that one is a lost cause.
Ben puts his hands on his hips and looks around. “Yeah, it does look pretty good, doesn’t it? We’re going to put blue table cloths on all the tables, and I picked up a bunch of centerpieces from Harriet’s. Jules, you have to be at the park in an hour and a half, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, let’s finish cleaning where Gabe left off, and then we need to set up the rest of the decorations.” Ben looks around the space with an assessing gaze.
Louie nods his head. “You both do that”—he points to the back—“I’m going to keep prepping food, but you let me know if you need anything else.”
A little while later, the place has really started to come together. Ben is weirdly good at party planning. Gabe eventuallycomes back and confirms that the breaker tripped but lets me know that everyone was fine and Thea, though stressed, seemed relieved that she’d be able to finish her hair before the performance.
I look at my watch. “Speaking of the performance, I need to get going soon. I have to go back home and shower before I head to the park.” I wipe my hands down my face—I’m so fucking exhausted. “Can you finish up without me?”
Ben and Gabe shoo me out the door. “Go,” Ben says. “Enjoy the festival, we’ll see you later tonight.”
By the time I get home, Thea, Chloe, and Hank have already left. Cat greets me at the door, meowing and pushing up against my leg. He follows me to the bedroom, jumping up onto the bed when I flop down, stomach first.
I have thirty minutes before I need to leave, and it’ll take me about ten to get ready. I scroll through my phone a bit—I’m not much of a doom scroller, but I can see the appeal of turning your brain off for a few minutes. Cattington and I start watching cat videos, he paws the screen any time another animal pops up. I make a mental note to show Chloe later, she’ll get a kick out of that.
As I keep watching, my eyelids grow heavier. Unintentionally, I drift off in the middle of a video of a cat being adopted by a gorilla.
Thea is a goddess as she glides across the stage. Her hair flows around her face, haloing it in blonde waves. A long tulle skirt swishes when she turns, painting even more of an ethereal picture. I’m mesmerized by her, so much so I don’t even register my phone buzzing in my hand.
The buzzing finally becomes incessant enough that Cat butts his head up against my cheek. Vaguely, the thought crosses my mind that Cat shouldn’t be in this theater with me.He should be at home. Yet, he continues head butting me while my phone shakes the entire seat, the entire room. The whole world.
I wake so suddenly, I nearly fall off the edge of the bed.Fuck!
What time is it? I look down at my phone, which is buzzing in my awake state too, “Mom” flashing across the screen. Quickly swiping, I answer her call.
“Julien, where are you?” she asks, trying to hold back disappointment, but I can hear it seeping through.
“I—fuck, I fell asleep.” I stand, stepping into my shoes, not giving a single shit that I’m still disgusting from cleaning Louie’s. “Have I missed it? I’m coming. I can be there in five minutes.”
