Page 100 of You Were Invited
When Julian didn’t interrupt him, purely out of shock, Clive continued.
“I thought I was okay. Thought I had my shit together. It didn’t take long of sitting in a small cell with a cranky roommate and jumpy-as-fuck neighbors to realize I’d been a fool. I’ll let you live yer life. But just so you know… We’re not going to see eye to eye so long as you hate me, and I wish you didn’t. But I’m your dad. If you need me, I’m here. I can see that this right here’s coming from a place of integrity.” Clive jabbed the tabletop with his pointer finger. “You didn’t have to talk to me. But whatever happens, I won’t forget today, Son.” Clive extended a handshake across the table.
Julian’s gaze drifted to his dad’s weathered hand. After all the letters through the years, Julian knew this still wasn’t the apology he deserved– all wrapped up in a bow of self-pity and woe-is-me– but perhaps it was the only kind of apology Clive was capable of delivering.
Julian felt a twinge in his gut. For reasons he couldn’t explain that felt like… enough. Their temporary reunion wouldn’t end in a hug or tearful reconciliation, as much as Clive probably wanted that, but the line had been drawn, and it wasn’t a complete insult for it to end with a commonplace handshake between two men, right? So long as Clive seemed capable of respecting Julian’s wishes at present. It felt more like striking a deal, rather than sitting and staring as the torch dropped and burned their familial bridge to ash. Like two warfronts with a no man’s land that had been used for diplomacy rather than carnage.
Julian gripped his dad’s hand hard enough that he wondered if it hurt. He got the confirmation when Clive winced. “Mom wouldn’t have wanted me to waste my life. She wouldn’t want you to waste any more of yours. Make it count.”
Clive flinched, but when Julian let go of his hand, his expression was full of determination.
“Well… Dad, it’s Tuesday at lunch. And I’m not supposed to be here,” Julian said, flashing a sardonic smile — the only thing resembling neighborliness that he could muster up.
Clive smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Goodbye, Son.”
Julian quickly left the restaurant and found Annie waiting in his rig with their lunches and their pie. She’d started to eat her fries out of the styrofoam clamshell. He climbed into the driver’s seat.
She leaned on the center console. Her eyes were open, curious. “How’d it go—”
He held the sides of her face, kissing her long and hard. Every bit of turmoil that he’d kept inside for the last fifteen minutes finally caught up with him. His facade broke. When he pulled away, tears streamed down his face.
“W-what happened?”
Julian just shook his head. He put her lunch aside and held her hands. “I love you so much.”
Epilogue
“Where do you want this picture, honey?” At Julian’s cabin–theircabin– Annie unpacked a box with ‘Office’ written on the side with black marker. “In our bedroom?” she suggested.
“Over the bed? We can take turns looking at it.” Julian put a hand on her shoulder, then ran it down to the small of her back. A pleasant tingle went up her spine. Annie laughed and pecked him on the cheek.
“Mur, mur,” Kitty chuffed from a small stack of a boxes. He poked his snout between the crack of the crossed flaps and sniffed. He sneezed before shoving his paw inside. “Meow?”
“Silly boy.” Annie moved to shoo the tuxedo cat away, but Julian only held her tighter.
“Hey, I’m not done with you yet.” He planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Oh? Aren’t you now?” Annie turned around in his arms and kissed his lips.
But Kitty had other ideas. From the box, his claws pulled out the pink yarn Annie hoped to use for the crochet project she wanted to start.
“Naughty!” Annie gasped. Julian let her go. She tried to take the yarn away, but Kitty resisted, gnawing on the web of tangle of threads. “No, this isn’t for you, mister.”
“You sure you want this to be your new hobby?” Julian laid a few strokes down Kitty’s back before picking him up. He held Kitty while Annie cautiously extracted the yarn from his flashing paws. “He’s going to be relentless.”
“‘Tis the season for trying all the new things. There. Now to hide it…”
A couple of weeks before, Annie had happily accepted Julian’s invitation to move in together. She’d missed him so terribly after a weekend trip to visit Molly and Peter that it had felt like it was time to take the next step.
And within the last few months since moving to Northgold, Annie had started working at the diner. Even though she was only a waitress and had only worked there for three weeks, she loved it. She hoped to be in the kitchen soon, just as Ellie promised. At first, Julian was worried — what with his dad being around.
Ellie had conspicuously made Tuesdays Annie’s days off, and she surmised that Julian had had some say in it. But a handful of Tuesdays had come and gone, and according to Ellie, Clive hadn’t returned to NWD even once. It saddened Annie on some level, but overall, his absence made things less stressful.
She still took a few writing assignments, but she’d realized after spending every weekend at the diner as a patron that her passion for cooking was calling her.
Julian had also fully established his furniture making gig. He’d quickly outgrown the space at his home, and had needed to rent out a shop in town to keep up with demand.
Signing the lease, he’d grinned from ear to ear. “Was shaking in my boots when I picked up that pen,” he’d told her later, “but I... It’s all going so much better than I ever could have imagined.”
