More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You know, if this was a movie—” I start before she cuts me off. “Let me guess, you’d have a group of hot men doing your hair and makeup rather than getting a cramp while doing it over a bookshelf in a messy office?” I pause with the mascara wand once more near my lashes before turning to look at her. “What kind of movies are you watching?” I ask.
“The good kind,” she replies with a smile. “Uh, I was going to say that this is where some rich billionaire would kick down the door and tell me I deserve the world and magically fix all of my issues.”
But I want nothing but true, all-consuming, movie-worthy love. I know down to my bones, one day, it will find me.
The world is chaos and full of disappointment and heartbreak. I like living in the fantasy of that, that two people could meet and go on some grand adventure and fall in love and ride off into the sunset.” I shrug sheepishly, but continue anyway. “I picture everything as a movie. Romanticize it a bit, pretend that no matter what, everything is for the plot, that at the end, the happily ever after is impending.”
“Plus, if you think of every bad moment as a plot twist, everything seems less…consequential. Then you can be excited, waiting to find out what happens next instead of stressing about it.”
“Okay, so if this was a movie, what would happen next?” “Oh, we’d definitely leave together, go back to one of our places. You’d kiss me at midnight, and it would start to snow, probably. We’d be stuck inside and have to spend a few days together. You know, normal romance movie stuff,” I say.
“You know, if this was a movie, this is where you’d kiss it better,” I say with a smile. “Is that the only time?” he asks, his voice low now, his eyes locked to my lips. I shake my head, and when I speak, my words come out breathy. “No, you’d definitely kiss me a lot.”
“So is that what you want? A romance that’s movie-worthy, some invisible string kind of relationship?”
“That’s a lie,” he says low. “Like a bald-faced lie, Jules. Something tells me you always know exactly what you want. You’re just scared someone’s going to belittle you when you tell them.”
“I want…I want to be loved madly. I want to live a movie-worthy life and wake up knowing every single day it’s my reality. I want to find someone I wake up every morning excited to spend time with. I want someone who loves everything about me, even the parts I don’t like. Some people in my life…they think I’m being crazy, that I’m being unrealistic, and that’s fine. I know one day, I’ll find it, even if it takes a lifetime. I refuse…I refuse to settle for less than I deserve.” I stare
“Do you feel it?” he asks in a whisper. “What?” “This…pull. There’s something between us.” My heart skips a beat. “It’s crazy, Jules. I wasn’t planning on going to the bar last night, but I walked past and couldn’t stop it, like there was some thread tugging me right to you.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?”
“Your dream girl?” “She’s not my dream girl, Sloane,” I say, running a hand through my hair. She was just a girl I thought was my dream girl before she ghosted me because I came on way too strong. And now it’s like my fucking sisters are repeating history. “If I remember when you were drinking that tequila, you told me you’d met your dream girl, hung out with her for two nights, and thought you were going to marry her just like Dad did with Mom. Then she disappeared,” Claire recalls with a smug smile.
“Love you, Jules. Remember that sometimes things happen for a reason. If this was a movie—” she starts, a smile in her words, saying my signature words, but I’m not in the mood for it, so I cut her off.
“I know it’s crazy, but he’s my dream man. My love at first sight, knew it from the very first moment I saw him, absolute perfection. He’s my rom-com,” I explain, feeling a bit silly but unable to really care.
Because even if I’ll never have a dream man to spend forever with, the universe did give me the blessing of really good fucking friends.
“And Jules? There hasn’t been a single day in three hundred and thirty-two days when I haven’t thought of you. What you look like, how you made me feel, how you taste. I won’t fuck this up this time.”
It’s not until I take a shower and get in bed and see a text from Jaime telling me Nate is completely spotless that I let myself pull up a calendar and discover the last time I saw Nathan Donovan was three hundred and thirty-two days ago.
He’s kept the syrups I like for my coffee in his house for a year just in case I made my way back into his home. A year of remembering how I like my coffee after barely two nights together. What the fuck does that mean?
“Oh, and Jules?” He looks at me, and I don’t respond, but he still knows I’m listening somehow. “Unblock me, okay?”
A smile lights up her face as she starts to tell me about the classes she taught today, the upcoming recital, and the parents of the kids she teaches while she eats, and I realize I would give just about anything to do this every night: have dinner waiting for her, sit with her after Sophie has gone to bed, and hear all about her day. I just want to spend time with her in any way I can. Ten minutes
“What happened?” he asks. “I don’t know what you mean.” “What happened to the Jules who was searching high and low for her movie-worthy romance? Looking for signs and messages everywhere she looked?” I roll my lips into my mouth and bite, trying to fight the gasp. How much about me does he actually remember? And why? And what does it mean when my heart skips a beat each time he does? “She got a reality check,” I say finally. “Me? Was I the reality check?”
But as soon as that door is closed and locked behind me, I can’t help but do a silly little excited dance because even if he could totally break my heart if I let him in, Nate Donovan so likes me.
“Yup! Daddy got me her when I broke my arm last year. He said she was magical and she’d make me feel better, and she looked like a pretty ballerina he knew. That’s why I knew that Santa could make Ashlyn come to life and marry Daddy.” A rush of heat rolls over me with understanding. “She already existed! He just had to find her again.” A ballerina he knew. “When did you break your arm again?” I ask, trying to be casual. “Uh, I don’t know. The beginning of the year. I was with Grandma and Grandpa at their mountain house, and I slipped on ice.
I wasn’t too sad because even though it was right after Christmas, I got so many presents.”
“You were never just some chick I hooked up with, Jules, and you know that. You were always more. So much more, I didn’t understand it at the time. But then my daughter ran to you on a crowded street, as if she knew too, like she could feel the pull of you to us.”
“If this was a movie, I think this is when I’d kiss you,” he whispers under his breath, mine catching with his words. “Yeah, probably,” I say back, and he smiles again, pulling me in a bit closer. Again, without
I lied, I hung up the mistletoe. And it was so fucking worth it.
I’m learning that with Jules, I need to give her time, ease her into things. If I do that, the overthinking slows, and she doesn’t panic about her fears, instead letting me disassemble her wall brick by brick.
Julianne Everett makes me feel like I’m a teenager again, and I never thought I’d mean that in a good way.
Nate is mine, and I’m his. We’ve already covered that, but the reality is Sophie is mine too. The way she snuck into my heart and stole it is obvious. I want to be in their family, I want to be Nate’s, and I want to be whatever version of a mother figure Sophie is comfortable with me being. I always knew I wanted kids one day, and Sophie is everything and more that I’ve dreamed of.
