Chapter 11

December 31, 2012

"This is Jules! Leave me a message."

Nausea made my mouth feel slick as I dropped the call before it could beep again. After the party I'd assumed the sense of foreboding I felt would go away, but if anything it had gotten worse.

John looked up from reading at his end of the couch. "She still won't pick up?"

"No."

"You've been a nervous wreck since the party. Why don't you talk to me about it? I won't try to give you advice this time, I'll just listen."

"I would if I thought it'd help," I said. We'd had our first, really ugly fight the day after the party. Mom had gone to work and he kept trying to come up with ideas to fix everything. That's when it became really obvious how little we knew each other.

My friendship with Steph went back years, but I'd allowed the crazy lust I'd felt for my cousin destroy it in a single evening. Holly lost her best friend, all because I'd been too scared everyone else would find out what a freak I was. Someone had to have told Jules, because she'd stopped answering my calls and text messages. In the midst of my meltdown about all this, John had started suggesting that we simply call everyone over while Mom was at work and discuss things like adults.

He didn't understand how things like this worked in our group. One time, Steph and Holly had dragged me along to some college-focused church retreat hosted by Steph's church. When the topic of accountability came up, a girl named Monica, who we'd all known since high school, started in on how she was struggling with sexual sin. Monica had grown up in a crazy religious family almost like those whack jobs that picket funerals with hateful signs.

It'd made everyone uncomfortable to listen to her, but something she said must've tickled Steph because she'd snickered. Monica made a comment about how everyone knew Steph was engaged in regular premarital sex. Of course everyone knew it, especially the youth minister Steph was dating at the time, but no one had ever had the gall to call her out on it in public. Steph's only response was to smile, but that was the moment Monica's life became a living hell.

It'd started with a general shunning of Monica by anyone who'd enjoyed having a good relationship with Steph. Then the rumors started about her, everything from genital warts to a secret pregnancy by a family member, even alcohol abuse. The quiet persecution wore Monica down until she was a ragged wreck, and then Steph delivered the coup de grace. No one ever proved Steph was involved, but someone managed to get access to Monica's laptop and posted copies of her badly written, homoerotic fantasies on her family's screed-filled religious blog.

There would be no group discussion to hash things out. John had no idea how bad this was going to get for me.

I put my phone down and leaned back to look at him. "Jules and I never fight. We flare up a little sometimes, but it always blows over quickly. She's never ignored me for days before."

"I feel so guilty about everything that's happened," he said, the dark circles under his eyes seeming more pronounced today.

Ever since the party, Mom had been acting odd. At first I thought she just wanted to hang out with us more, but I realized she was making excuses to keep us from being alone together. She started coming home from work at odd times, without the usual phone call to see if we needed anything. John said he saw her getting up a couple of times a night for a drink of water which she'd never done before. He hadn't risked coming to sleep with me since the party. I hadn't expected to get so comfortable sleeping with him, but neither one of us seemed to be able to rest now.

"It's not your fault. I should have told them," I replied.

"We thought we had good reasons not to."

Even after going over and over that night for the last few days, I couldn't stop myself from saying, "I didn't expect to react the way I did watching the two of you together."

"If she just hadn't talked about transferring to my school, I'd probably have been able to tough it out."

I covered my face with my hands and pressed my palms into my eyes. "What the fuck do we do now?"

John thought for a minute and said, "What do you say we go out tonight and just forget all this crap for a while?"

I wiped my eyes. "I'd love to take you to the bar where Jules works."

"What's it called?"

"The Hickory Hammer, they've been selling tickets for New Year's Eve all month. There's supposed to be live music tonight."

He picked up his tablet again. "Let me check out their website and see if there are any tickets left."

I got up to go to the kitchen, still in my nightie even though it was well into the afternoon. "Want a hot tea?"

"Love one, thanks."

I filled two cups with water and put them in the microwave. As I opened the tea bags I asked, "What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

"As soon as we wake up," he answered. "It's an eight hour drive back to Norfolk and I've got some work to do before classes start."

No matter how I felt about everything that'd happened, the thought of him leaving made my heart ache. I kept trying to focus on the fact that he'd be returning in four weeks, but it didn't seem to help much.

"I can buy tickets online. It'll be forty for the both of us. Do you really want to go?"

"We might as well enjoy our last night," I said. Jules would have to talk to me at some point, and Steph would eventually come after me, but worrying wouldn't stop it from happening. "Yes. Let's do it."

He tapped a few more times and then got up to come into the kitchen. I could see his erection pushing out of his pajama bottoms as he walked. "Have I told you today how much I'm going to miss you?" he said as he put his arms around me from behind.

"No," I whispered, leaning back against him, "how much?"

He didn't answer in words, just put light kisses along my shoulder and neck, causing waves of goose bumps to travel up and down my body. He opened his mouth wider and pressed his lips where my shoulder and neck met, his tongue tickling my skin as he tasted me.

"Oh God," I groaned. "How can you make me feel this way with everything going on?" He moved his mouth up my neck, leaving a wet trail until he reached my ear. When he pulled my earlobe into his mouth, I hissed.

"I'd like to taste you some more," he whispered into my ear, his breath making me shiver.

"Yes, please," I said with heat rising to my face. His fingers slid down my stomach, making me twist in his grip, and I pushed back against his shaft.

He turned me around and lifted me to sit on the counter. It was nice to be able to look him in the eyes, as I put my arms over his shoulders to kiss him. He moved my legs open and pulled me right to the edge and pushed his hard shaft against me. The friction of him grinding me took my breath away.

My phone rang just as things were coming to a head. "Fuck!"

"Just ignore it," he said, his breath tickling me as he spoke.

"I can't," I groaned. "What if it's Mom coming home early?" He let me up and I went back to the couch to get my phone. I looked at the picture and said, "Holly." I pressed the button and said, "Hey."

"Could I please come over and talk?" she asked. "I'm losing my mind right now."

"Of course, Holly, when will you be here?" I asked loudly so John would hear.

"Twenty minutes?"

"That'll be fine."

"Can we talk alone?" she asked.

I looked at John. "Maybe we'll go out for coffee or something."

"Sounds good, I'll see you in a bit."

I hung up and slipped my panties down over my hips. "We have ten minutes."

By the time Holly arrived, I was dressed and John was out running errands. She looked like hell when she came in. After leading her into the kitchen, I got to work making some coffee.

While I filled the coffee pot with water, I asked, "Have you heard from Steph?"

"She won't answer my calls. I drove by earlier today, but her car was gone. I did hear from Jules, though."

I stopped pouring the water into the coffee machine. "Oh?"

"Steph told her everything."

I finished pouring the water and pressed the 'start' button to brew the coffee. My hands seemed disconnected from my body. I went through different emotions as I pulled out cups and got the cream from the fridge.

Holly finally broke the spell. "She didn't tell you she knew?"

"No."

The way I answered must've revealed more than I'd intended. "She won't talk to you at all, will she?" asked Holly.

I looked down at the counter and closed my eyes. "No."

"Look, it's none of my business, but you have to know Jules has always--"

Rage boiled out and I shouted, "Stop it! John is my boyfriend now. I've finally figured out what I want. If she can't handle that, then she can fuck off."

"Kate!" Holly looked shocked at first, and then became angry. "Are you out of your mind? You can't be serious about dating your cousin. I understand you've hit it off, but this can't go anywhere. What do you think will happen when your Mom finds out?"

Hearing my darkest thoughts echoed in her words broke me. The sobs nearly brought me to my knees. Holly came around next to me and hugged me tight. I could still smell his scent on my clothes. After I'd gathered my strength, I told her. "He's coming back next month. We're going to try to make this work."

"But you're related."

"Not by blood. He's adopted," I replied, looking up and hoping it'd make a difference to her.

Her brows wrinkled. "Seriously?"

"Yes. My aunt thought she was infertile, so they adopted. After a few years, she conceived Nate and Alex naturally. John says it happens that way sometimes."

"Is that going to matter to his parents or your Mom?"

"I don't know. We want to see if we're compatible first, before we tell them."

She stepped back and let me collect myself. After a few moments I wiped my eyes and filled our coffee cups. Holly still had a thoughtful look on her face when I handed her a cup. "Did you always know that?"

"No, he told me on Christmas day when he realized I didn't know."

"So have you guys..." she said, pausing with a half grin and wiggled her eyebrows.

"Yes," I answered, feeling the heat on my face.

"Woo-woo?" she asked.

"Dozens of times since then," I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

"Damn," she said, running her fingers through her hair. "The party must've been even harder than I'd thought."

"It was like being trapped in a nightmare, for both of us. No matter what we did, someone was going to get hurt. You have to understand, we didn't expect to fall for each other like this. I fought it, at first."

"Until Christmas?" she asked.

"Yes. He got me a calendar as a present, which I didn't understand until later."

"He worked all day Christmas Eve to buy you a calendar?" she asked with an arched brow.

"Not exactly, the real present was a list of the dates he plans to come back to see me, along with a room on Christmas day at a really nice hotel downtown."

"Holy shit," she replied, staring at me with her mouth open. "If I hadn't met him myself, I'd swear he sounds like a total player."

"Yeah, but if he was, wouldn't he have grabbed at the chance to date Steph? She would have given him anything he wanted just for being nice to her." And saying it soured the mood.

Holly sighed. "I just wish Steph would forgive me. I actually tried to warn her, despite my promise to you, but she wouldn't listen."

"Do you think it would help if I tried to apologize again?" I asked.

"Not after what Jules told me she said."

I winced. "That bad?"

"She hates you more than she hates Monica, if you can believe that."

"Damn, she's going to make my life a living hell. I still have to see her almost every day at school."

"Not for long. Jules said she's transferring to Brown with Carol. The parents of Carol's new fiancé are on their board. Steph's parents are even making a substantial donation to grease the way."

I panicked when a thought occurred to me. "Do her parents know what happened?"

Holly chuckled sadly. "She's told everyone that she caught John fucking me."

I leaned back against the counter and sipped my coffee. "Fuck, I'm so sorry Holly." If she could do that to her best friend, I was doomed.

Holly's eyes filled with tears. "She's my best friend. I know I always talked big about leaving her behind, but I never would have actually followed through with it."

I leaned against her shoulder. "I know it's not the same, but I'll be your best friend."

"I appreciate it," she said with a sad laugh. "Just watch out for Jules. I know you don't want to hear it, but she's really hurt right now."