Asshole! God, I hate him. God hates me apparently. Deep breaths, just calm down, Jules. Jules? Ugh! He is the only one that has ever called me that. I can still her the disdain my mother showed after the first time he called me that in front of her.
“Son, I did not name my daughter Jules. Her name is Julia and that is what you need to refer to her by. She is not one of you heathens running around on the street. She is a lady and should be referred to by her given name.”
I remember looking at Brian and thinking his head was about to blow off. Honestly, my mother was always a stuck up prude and so was my father. They never accepted Brian but I never really cared. I was willing to give up everything for him. Until he didn’t want me anymore.
“You ready, Julia?” I take one more deep breath trying to let all of the tension and frustration roll off of me. Who am I kidding? That shit never works.
Chapter Nine
Brian
How the hell did this happen? Not only are we in the same damn hotel, but we are right next door to each other! When I left for this vacation I had one thing I wanted to do, forget about Jules. Now she and the douchebag are going to be rubbing it in my face all week.
I walk back down to the pool, and slam onto the chair next to Mason. “What crawled up your ass?”
“You wouldn’t fucking believe me if I told you.” I shake my head still trying to get over it myself.
“Try me.” He doesn’t take his eyes away from the group of girls in front of us the entire time he is talking.
“I went up to the room to grab the sunglasses I left on the balcony, I looked over to the next balcony and saw Jules. “
Mason looks over at me his eyes wide. “You’re fucking shittin’ me?”
“What’s up?” Ryan sits down on the end of my chair.
“Fucking Jules is here,” Mason says before turning his attention back to the girls.
I look over at Ryan knowing that out of everyone he would be the easiest person for me to talk to. “So, this sucks huh?”
“You have no idea. I mean it’s bad enough that I can’t escape her in my damn head. Now I can’t even escape her in real life.” I run my hands over my face in frustration.
“Maybe you should stop trying then.” I look up at him in confusion. “There has to be some reason that you two keep running into each other. Did you ever think of just talking to her and not being such a dick all the time?”
Ryan has always been the most level headed of us, and sometimes I hate how right he is. “No.” I stand up making the chair unbalanced and send him crashing to the ground, before jumping into the pool hoping swimming laps will help me release some aggression.
I don’t know how many laps I do but by the time I’m done my arms and legs are on fire. As I get out of the pool I see Jules and Douchebag set up across from us. Inside my head I take this opportunity to drown his annoying ass in the pool, unfortunately if I actually did that it might be frowned upon. Instead I head toward the pool bar, if I am gonna have to look at them all day then I need to be fucking hammered to do it. “Jack and Coke, make it a double.”
I feel a hand run up my arm and look over to see a sexy red head with a pair of double D’s. “Hard day?”
She almost purrs the word hard and I hold back from laughing in her face. I don’t get girls like this, the ones who are ready to open their legs without knowing your name. The complete lack of respect that they have for themselves is absolutely pathetic. Honestly, right now I could use a girl with no respect for herself and most likely daddy issues.
“It’s definitely been hard.” I whisper close to her ear. Her fingers play with the top of my board shorts as she makes it known what she wants. I have no problem giving that to her but first I’m gonna have a little fun.
“So do you have plans to do anything?” she asks me before running her tongue over her bottom lip. Damn, this girl really wants the D.
“I’m thinking about hanging out here for a little then maybe going to bed.” She raises her eyebrows at me.
“Sounds perfect.”
I grab my drink and walk back to the pool knowing that she will follow me like a trained puppy. By the time I sit down on the chair and put my drink down she is already inbetween my legs. Her hands are tracing up and down my thighs each time going a little further under my shorts. I look up to see Jules watching us from across the pool and I smile at her. I can tell that this is pissing her off but for the first time I see something different in her eyes, pain. Is what I’m doing hurting her? I may have wanted to piss her off, but I never wanted to cause what I just saw in her eyes.
I get up and the redhead quickly follows. “Sorry, sweetheart, I’m leaving alone.”
“What do you mean? I thought you wanted to have some fun.” Her hand grabs my arm and the unwanted contact pisses me off.
“No, I wanted a fucking distraction but I changed my mind. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding another bed to jump into.” I walk away from her hearing her gasp at my comment.
None of the guys say anything as they watch the encounter or me storm away. We have known each other long enough that they know when I’m not in the mood to be fucked with. I get up to the room not really sure what I’m doing there. All I can picture is the look in her eyes, the hurt that my actions put there.
I never wanted to hurt her. She is the only one who knows me inside and out, the only one I’ve told my story to.
“Brian, you can’t do stuff like that! You are going to end up going to jail!” I know that she’s right and that I lost my cool, but the asshole had it coming.
“I know that, Jules, but it was unavoidable.” My voice is low, I’m ashamed that I lost my cool and that she was there to see it.
“No, it wasn’t unavoidable, Brian! You could have just walked away. You could have just hit him once. You didn’t need to keep going ‘til he was unconscious and three guys needed to pull you off of him. What is your aunt going to say when you tell her that you were arrested?” That’s a laugh, Aunt Jenny wouldn’t give a shit.
“Don’t worry about it, Jules. She won’t care.”
“Seriously? You really think that? Of course she is going to care!” She is pacing back and forth in front of me in a frantic pace, and I can’t help but smile at how cute she looks.
“Babe, calm down. She barely even knows I exist and even if she finds out she could care less.”
Her hands wrap around my neck. “That’s horrible, Bri. Why is she like that?”
I lower my eyes to the floor. I don’t talk about this stuff with anyone. Jules, isn’t just anyone though. I know that I can trust her and she is the only person who I have ever wanted to open up to. “It’s better to be invisible, than to be the target for a sadistic asshole on a daily basis.” I hear her gasp but I don’t look up at her. If I do I’ll lose my nerve. “Aunt Jenny took me in when my parents died in a house fire. The firefighters were able to pull me out in time but they didn’t make it. I didn’t take their death too hard considering my father beat the shit out of me on a daily basis and my mother was way to strung out to care.”
Her fingers trace one of the scars on my back. “These scars aren’t from learning how to skateboard?”
I shake my head no. “I told you that so that you didn’t ask any questions.”
Her hand strokes my cheek and I look up into her eyes. She’s looking at me like no one has before, with love. “Tell me.”
I grab her hips pulling her so she’s now sitting on my lap. I need to be close to her, to be able to touch her. “My father was a monster. He would find any excuse to get mad. Most times it was just a smack across the face that sent me flying into a wall. When he would get really mad he would pick up any object close to him, a belt, a bat, a chair. That fire as devastating as it was at the time, was my salvation.” A tear falls from her eye and I kiss her cheek catching it before it can fall off her face. “As a kid I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have love. I had power, vengeance, and pain.” I take a deep breath trying to gain the courage to tell her how I feel. “I love you, Jules. And it scares the shit out of me to say that because that gives you the power that no one else has ever had over me. The power to completely destroy me.”