All That Remains (26 page)

“Why does she stay then?”

Dani’s story is Dani’s story and West doesn’t feel right telling it for her, even to Jules. Instead, he explains it the best he can. “Remember all the guilt you felt after Tanya’s death? Dani’s family died and she feels the same. She hasn’t gotten over it yet. She wants to, though. She’s smart, baby,” he tells her when he sees the sadness overcome Jules. “She stays at CVC because she wants to get better.”

“When we first walked in there, I started to feel sick to my stomach because it felt cold and lonely and I hated knowing you had to be there,” she explains, and he nods, recalling her quiet looks before she met Dani. “Dani changed that. I could see how much she cares about you and I’m glad you were able to be there for her and her for you.”

So many things happened over the last fifteen months; each bad moment leading to something good. The realization puts a smile on his face. The tornado brought them together. The car wreck got him help and introduced him to Dani.
There is a purpose to the madness,
he allows. He’d stop believing in the purpose for a while but now he is reminded of Jules’ words at the vigil two months ago. Studying her sitting next to him in his truck, he feels a peace he’s never felt before and he repeats her words to her.

“Sometimes happy endings take time.”

* * *

“I have one last thing for you,” West tells Jules a few hours later when he’s bringing her back to her dorm after dinner. He’d given her a leather bound journal at the restaurant for her to keep at her bedside, but he wasn’t done.

They park and West gets out, pulling his seat forward and producing a white box with a pink bow on top. He’s smiling at Jules as she walks around the front of the truck.

“Another present? You shouldn’t have,” she says as she claps her hands greedily. “Give me!”

“Ha! Hang on. Come with me.”

They walk past her building and West searches for a place to take her. It’s a little after nine and the campus is still buzzing with students hanging around, couples walking together, people drinking coffee and groups chatting on benches. It takes them ten minutes before they finally find a bench where he sits her down and hands her the box. She pulls the top off with giddy excitement.

“What in the world could this be?” she wonders aloud as she moves the tissue paper. When her eyes see the gift, she laughs and pulls the blue and white Freemont number twelve jersey out of the box.

“I figured my girl should wear my number. It’s a woman’s cut, especially for you.”

She holds the jersey up and turns it around to look at the back where his name is written.

“Awww, you signed it!” her voice breaks and West lowers her arm to see her eyes wet with tears.

He’d written ‘I love you, always’ in his number and signed his first name for her. He’d signed the jersey as something of a joke – the big shot QB signing something for a fan – but afterward he realized he didn’t want people to think she was just “another fan”. So he wrote ‘I love you’ to show everyone she is more than some chick that he’d autographed a shirt for. He’d started to think it was stupid to be so territorial, but her tears tell him he did the right thing.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that right?” She asks.

He shakes his head, not needing her praise tonight, but it doesn’t deter her.

“I mean it, West. I want you know how amazing I think you are. You came back to this sport and you’ve rocked the hell out of it. Your mom would be so proud of you.”

He touches the jersey in her hands and smiles at her comment. “Did I tell you about the plan?”

“The plan?”

“Dr. Steel had this plan. It was her idea to get me to try to walk-on here. Before I would even open up to her about my feelings, about you or my mom, the only thing we talked about for the longest time was football. The only reason I agreed at first was because I thought it would get my dad off my back and -” He stops, not wanting to put pressure on her with the truth.

“And because you thought it would help win me back,” she finishes for him softly. He looks at her, startled that she already knows.

“Mindy told me I was your motivation,” she admits.

“Yeah, you were at first. Then when I thought you were with Austin, I kinda snapped out of that. I threw myself into training even harder to prove to myself that I could do it. That first game it hit me like a ton of bricks, babe. There are two things in this world I don’t want to live without - you and football. I know how much it sucks for me to be so busy all the time and us not getting to see each other-”

“No.” She reaches out and presses her fingers to his cheek as she shakes her head. “I don’t care how hard it is, you are living your dream and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Theres a tense quiet in the air between them and West smiles to break the unexpected seriousness this moment has taken. “You know, those colors might be a bit dangerous for an A&M girl to have.”

She laughs, holding the shirt up in front of her. “This is so perfect. I will be honored to wear these colors, even here on campus.”

“Don’t go overboard now, babe. I promise to give you an A&M jersey once I make the team.” West coughs and nods his head toward the box. “There’s one more thing in there.”

Jules tucks the jersey in her lap and sets the box on the bench, looking in and pulling out a simple brown box and she looks at him.

“Katie knew where you kept it and snuck it to me the other night.” West takes it from her fingers. “You’re not mad, are you? I was hoping you’d consider wearing it again,” he explains as he takes the lid off and pulls out the rose gold anchor ring he gave her for her eighteenth birthday last year. “I thought about buying you something new, but this one has so much meaning.”

She sits there, staring at the ring, and West begins to think he’s made a terrible mistake when she finally speaks.

“Again, I think it’s perfect. I loved that ring. You know I didn’t take it off until June.” West looks at her, his pulse racing. “I took it off right before I left for school. That’s why I got the tattoo, actually. I needed something to remind me of you, of us.”

He holds the ring up, his brows lift as he meets her blue eyes, “May I?” She nods and he slides the ring back onto her ring finger where it belongs.

Thirty-One

Jules

Jules throws her bag down on the table in the large library next to Cassie on Wednesday afternoon, startling her and earning dirty looks from those around them.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” she says, sitting down and propping her chin in her hands...

“Ignoring you? Why would you think that?” Cassie asks innocently.

“You have a thing for Austin, don’t you?”

“What!” she gasps, and again dirty looks are thrown their way with a chorus of shushing. Cassie mumbles an apology to a girl glaring at them nearby before turning back to Jules. “I didn’t even know his name until Saturday night. No, I do not have a thing for him.”

“Then why did you give him the cold shoulder? He totally likes you, it’s so obvious and he even told -”

“Jules!” she whisper-shouts, interrupting Jules. Pushing her chair back, she prepares to stand. “Don’t. I’m not interested, okay? He’s wasting his time with me. I need to get something, I’ll see you later, okay?”

Cassie hurries away without waiting for Jules to say anything and Jules is thoroughly confused. She twirls her ring, and then smiles when she realizes she’s doing it.

She meets Jess and Katie for lunch in the commons, having a hard time holding in her thoughts when Jess mentions that Cassie has been acting strange the past few days.

“Do you mind if I stay here this weekend?” she asks Jules. “If there’s something going on with her, I’d hate to leave her here alone.”

“No. I agree. I wish I could put the visit off, but Jase begged me; he wants to go trick or treating with me one last time. He says he’ll be too big next year.” She grimaces and Katie laughs.

“Did you not remind him how we were still going when we were in high school? Free candy, man.”

“Yeah, he’s funny about things.”

“Well, I’d go home with you, but I’ve got the DZ party.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m leaving Friday after class and I’ll probably get up super early Sunday to get back and spend time with West. God, I will be so glad when football is over,” Jules says with a sigh.

“I don’t know why you don’t stay at the house with him. It’s not as if you’re saving it for the wedding,” Katie points out with a teasing wink.

Jules shrugs. The thought has crossed her mind to stay with him, but he’s never asked. They’d agreed to go slow and then shot that to hell when he’d shown up at the frat party two weeks ago. Apparently, it wasn’t in them to go slow. The feeling of need she remembered from high school was back in full effect. Every moment they are apart is another winding twist of the second hand on a clock; the tension getting wound tighter and tighter until she’s ready to explode if she doesn’t see him. West describes their being apart as sweet torture and he is right. The misery and anticipation is some of the best foreplay ever, but she’s ready to have him all the time.

* * *

Jules is still thinking about the misery of only seeing West one day a week when she pulls up to her house a little before five p.m. Friday afternoon. Obviously watching from the front windows, the front door is yanked open as she’s pulling her weekend bag out of her backseat, and she finds Jase rushing out to greet her.

“Jules!”

“Hey, bud,” she calls back, facing him as he throws his arms around her waist. “Have you gotten taller?” she asks honestly, messing with his hair. He reaches her chest and she’s amazed at how much she misses while she is away at school.

“You haven’t been home in three months. Of course I’ve grown. Lost a tooth, too.” He smiles, showing her the new gap in his mouth.

“Dude, quit growing up.”

“I wish that worked,” her mother calls from the front steps, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “I tried it with you for years.”

Jase takes the small laundry bag she’s carrying from Jules’ hands and starts up the walk with Jules behind him. She stops at the bottom of the steps and looks up at her mom. This is the woman who laid with her night after night after the car wreck and let her cry on her chest over West. The woman who held her hand when she went to her first counseling appointment and cheered her on when she took her first steps in therapy after her fracture and breaks healed. Yet, looking at her now, the only thing she can see is the woman who knew the truth about West being sent away and never told her. The betrayal runs deep for Jules. She’s not sure how she will get past it, but she gives her a smile and speaks as if everything is fine.

“Hey, mama.”

They step into the house and Jules sniffs the familiar scent of her mom’s famous pot roast in the air. Her stomach growls on reflex and she excuses herself to put her stuff in her room. She pulls out her phone while upstairs and shoots a quick text to West, letting him know she made it to Tyler fine. He replies quickly with a heart.

Jules joins her mom and Jase in the kitchen where they fill her in on all the local gossip while they wait for her father to get home from work.

“Did mom tell you I’m the fastest in my class?” Jase asks out of the blue. Obviously, the gossip over the town floozy isn’t enough to keep him entertained. She shakes her head and he excitedly explains.

“We have to run laps, right. Remember doing that? So, the other day Ms. Furman named who had the most laps in the class and said I did. Well, Nick got mad. He said it didn’t matter because he was still faster than me.”

Jules frowns, knowing this Nick kid to be a brat who always bosses Jase and the other boys around, but Jase just smiles at her.

“So, Ms. Furman heard him and decided to let us all race and I won. Twice!” he finishes and laughs evilly. Her mother shakes her head ruefully while Jules joins the laughter and gives Jase a high-five.

“Well, that’s not a sound I hear every day,” Jules father booms as he opens the garage door off the kitchen. “I could hear you all laughing from the garage.” He smiles, putting the computer bag he carries on the floor inside the door as he meets Jules’ eyes.

“College girl doesn’t give her dad a hug anymore?” he teases when Jules doesn’t get up as she usually would.

Reluctantly, she slides off the bar stool and meets her dad halfway, letting him hug her. Her father ruffles Jase’s hair and kisses her mom hello. A short while later, they all sit at the table for dinner, as if it’s a normal night.

“So, tell me about school. How are your classes?” her dad asks once they’ve passed the food and are eating.

“They’re fine.”

“Good, can you elaborate?”

“Not really,” she replies smartly as she focuses on Jase. “Hey, Jase, when we’re done, why don’t we go outside and toss the ball around? I’ve been brushing up on my playing skills.”

“You’ve been playing football at college? I thought all you got to do was study.”

“Nah, I’ve got lots of friends who play football, you know that,” she says meaningfully, shooting a quick glance her dad’s way. “In fact, I have a signed jersey in my bag for you.”

Jase’s screech makes her ears ring as he jumps up from his seat. “Can I get it? Please?”

Jules smiles happily, telling him it’s in her bag. She can tell her parents are not happy without looking at them. Her mom’s fork is arrested halfway between her plate and her mouth; her dad’s is on his plate, having clattered against the porcelain the moment Jules referenced all of her football friends and she glares at him.

“Could that not have waited until after dinner, honey?” her mom finally asks when Jules keeps eating silently, looking at Jase’s empty seat.

“What? The jersey? It just occurred to me and I couldn’t help it. You know how I can’t keep secrets,” she murmurs, stuffing a bite of roast in her mouth. “Mmmm, this is really good, mom. As always.”

“This is awesome!” Jase yells as he comes back to the kitchen with the jersey pulled over his clothes. “And you got Austin’s number. That’s so cool Jules, thank you.”