The Future of Our Past (The Remembrance Trilogy) Page 5

  Hearing her say she wanted me turned me on beyond comprehension.

  “I know; me too…but you feel so good, we fit so perfectly…I can feel your heart beating against mine. I can tell how amazing we’ll be together.”

  Her hands moved up my chest and one of mine moved down between her legs never taking my eyes from her face. Her mouth fell open and her eyes closed as my hand rubbed her over her clothes. “God, Julia, you’re so hot, you drive me crazy.” Her body arched against my hand and my dick literally ached as it twitched against her hip. “I’ve wanted you, to touch you like this since the day we met.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?” she moaned before she raised her head toward mine, clearly seeking my kiss. I was only too willing to oblige her as my mouth took hers again in a series of hot, wet kisses, our tongues laving and playing with each other.

  Yes, why the fuck didn’t I?

  Her hand moved down to grasp around me and I was lost. “Julia…baby…”

  There was a loud knocking on the door. “Ryan…” Aaron opened my door and came inside, the light in the hall flooding the room and blinding me. Julia tried to move away from me, but I held her where she was, shielding her so Aaron wouldn’t see her behind my body. Her breathing was as heavy as mine as she looked up into my eyes.

  “What is it, Aaron?” I struggled to keep my voice even.

  “Um, Jen is sick and I can’t find the box with all of the medicine in it. Where is it?”

  “I don’t think I brought it in yet. It’s in my car.”

  “She’s puking in the bathroom, and I’m not dressed, so can you get the Pepto Bismol?”

  Ugh! Of all nights for this to happen…shit! “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Thanks,” Aaron mumbled and closed the door.

  I gathered Julia close and kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’ll be right back.” I pushed off the bed and hurried down the hall, grabbed my keys from the table by the door and ran outside. It was dark and I couldn’t see what I was doing. It took a few minutes to find the box of supplies and I ended up hitting my head on the hatchback.

  “Holy hell!”

  It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and I put my hand to my head to find the warm ooze on my temple.

  “It looks like Jen isn’t the only one who needs medical attention,” I muttered to myself as I tried to avoid the rocks beneath my bare feet. “Shit.”

  Back inside, I set the box on the kitchen table and turned on the small light over the sink. Digging through it I found the stomach medicine and padded down the hall to Aaron and Jenna’s room. I knocked and handed it to him when he opened the door.

  “Thanks, man. I hope we didn’t wake up Julia,” he said.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I’ll check on her. I hope Jen feels better.” I said as I turned toward my room and wiped at the blood on my head. The wound was beginning to drip, but I wanted to let Julia know I’d be a few minutes more while I tended to the gash on my head.

  “Julia…?” I whispered as I pushed open my bedroom door. I moved to the bed, but she wasn’t there.

  I walked back to the living room and found her laying back on the couch, covered up to her chin, so I went to kneel beside her. “I’m sorry it took me a while to find it…”

  She looked at me and gasped. “Oh my God, Ryan! What happened?”

  “I bashed my head on the hatchback.”

  Her hand came up to my forehead and she frowned. “It looks bad. Let’s go into the kitchen so I can clean it up. You may need stitches.” The concern in her voice was clear. “Come on.” She got up and I followed her.

  Julia motioned for me to sit down on a chair and then turned on the light over the sink. Julia arranged the kitchen when we unpacked so knew her way around. She took a towel out of the drawer and wet it before dabbing at the cut.

  I winced at the pain. “Sorry, sweetie.”

  She worked to clean the wound, but all I could do was stare at her breasts rising and falling in an even rhythm with her breathing. Her breasts that not fifteen minutes before had been bare and underneath my tongue.

  I felt my body spring back to life as I let my thoughts wander.

  “It doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches, but you should have a butterfly bandage. Do you have any?” she asked.

  “I think in this box.” I shoved it toward her. “I thought I was the doctor here, but you’re doing a damn good job.” I smiled up at her as she placed the bandage on my forehead and placed a kiss next to it. Her lips felt so soft and warm against my skin.

  My hands moved up to her hips and I drew her closer to me, tilting my head up to nuzzle her chin with my nose as she stood in front of me. “Hey…” I said softly

  “Ryan…we should sleep. You have an important day tomorrow, and you’re injured.” She leaned her head on mine and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to have her here, in my arms, in my life…in my heart. Her hand fluttered along my jaw.

  My head was starting to throb. As if she read my mind, she reached in the box behind me on the table, found some Tylenol and handed it to me. She pulled away from me to get a glass of water.

  I put two pills in my mouth and swallowed. “You always take such good care of me, baby.” Setting the glass down, I pulled her to stand between my legs and wrapped her in my arms.

  “Listen, Julia…the interruption just now was the biggest case of bad timing in my life, but I need you to trust me. What’s happening here is really us, okay? I don’t want the light of day seeing you pull away from this.”

  She nodded silently and kissed me softly. When she moved away, my hands drew her back closer and I took her mouth harder, my tongue sliding into the warm recesses of her mouth as she opened to me. We kissed again until finally she pulled away.

  “You need sleep, Ryan, okay?” I sighed and dropped my forehead to her shoulder.

  “Will you sleep with me if I promise to be good?” I smiled up at her, but felt the sadness in my heart as I looked at the clock on the stove. It was 2:37 and she would need to leave by 7:30. My throat tightened as I held her close. I felt a huge loss at not being able to make love to her as I wanted, but more, the loss of her coming departure with all this uncertainty between us left a hole in my chest.

  “Yeah, ok. I’m really going to miss you.”

  I pulled her close again and rubbed my hands up and down her back as her arms wrapped around my shoulders in a tight hug. It felt so great to hold her like this and know she wouldn’t pull away. That she allowed me to touch her as a lover and not just a friend.

  “Missing you is…I can’t even talk about it. There are no words for how much it hurts.”

  I took her hand and shut off the light. She followed me down the hall to my room and we crawled into bed together. I reached for her under the covers and pulled her close. She snuggled into my shoulder and her arm slid around my waist.

  I sighed and pressed a kiss to her temple. I felt content as I let myself fall asleep.

  *****

  In what seemed like 5 minutes, the alarm was beeping and Julia was sitting up and running her hands through her hair before getting out of bed. Again, loss and panic rose in my chest. She wouldn’t look at me as she hovered at the foot of the bed.

  “Can you come here for a minute, please?” I asked uneasily. I didn’t really know what was going on, but I needed to make sure we were okay.

  She sat next to me and I reached for her.

  “Are you upset about what happened between us last night?” I was terrified of her answer, but I had to ask.

  She shrugged. “Not upset, exactly…I just worry…”

  I squeezed her hand. “Stop. I thought it was incredible and something I’ve wanted for a very long time. I wanted to finally make love to you, Julia. Please don’t regret one of the most beautiful moments of my life. Please.”

  “I don’t,” she said softly as she gave me one of our nudges. “It felt amazing, but I’m scared…of the distance, scared of missi
ng you more than I already will,” her voice broke on the last word and she lifted her liquid green eyes to mine. “I’m afraid I’ll make the wrong choices, turn down jobs I should take or any range of other stupid things. Maybe distract you from medical school when you need to focus.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll do what I need to do, and nothing could make me miss you more than I already will. So can we just be us, and roll with this please?”

  She nodded and I pulled her close to me. My eyes closed as love flooded through me. I wondered if I should tell her how I felt but didn’t know if she was ready to hear the words. Last night was a huge step, even if we hadn’t made love.

  “Just don’t forget to remember me while we’re apart. We’ll work it out, Okay?”

  “I could never forget you, Ryan,” she said softly as she hugged me back and turned her head to kiss me. “You’re burned into me forever.”

  ~3~

  Gross.

  A truer statement had never been made. Two months in and I still gagged every time I walked into my Gross Anatomy lab. The smell was more than any normal person could stand. Our professor had passed out little jars of Vicks ointment on the first day of class, telling us that this would become our very best friend. He laughed at the looks on our faces when he instructed us that we were to put it just inside our nostrils before we ever walked into the room.

  I’d laughed at the time, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be that bad. It fucking was. It was worse.

  First semester med students were no doubt weeded out if they couldn’t make it through that damn class. If you were one of the lucky ones who didn’t run home screaming with your tail between your legs, you got a reward. And what could possibly be better than dissecting a human cadaver over the course of three and a half months?

  Oh, right. A study in recycling. We’d continue to dissect the same fucking one for the second half of the year. I was so looking forward to that.

  Aaron, on the other hand, made a joke out of it, naming his cadaver Marcy and referring to her as his baby.

  Ugh!

  I felt bad for the poor bastards that we chopped up, but I guess it was all in the name of science. The cadaver in my group was male and we called him Joe. In the beginning, Aaron taunted me about getting his dick to stand up so he and Marcy could get it on, touting that he didn’t need Viagra anymore since now he had rigor mortis.

  The sick bastard. I shook my head as laughter vibrated through my chest. Funny, but sick.

  During the first few weeks, I couldn’t get the smell out of my clothes and ended up burning them on a regular basis. Sure, we wore scrubs, but doing so didn’t leave the clothes underneath unscathed.

  It became an expensive problem until one Sunday morning, the genius voice on the other end of my cell phone found the solution.

  “Why don’t you just wear the same clothes and shoes every day and get a locker in the gym to store them in? Go change before and after class. Gyms are stinky anyway.”

  “And never wash them Julia?” I’d mocked her.

  “Gah! Of course, wash them, but they’re ruined anyway, right? So bleach the shit out of them. That should help with the smell.”

  I smiled as I laid the clean, snow-white scrubs on the locker room bench. I changed into my lab clothes, which consisted of a plain white t-shirt and now bleached out jean shorts. After donning the scrubs, I shoved my street clothes in a plastic bag, sealing it to keep the stench out before I threw it back in the locker. Even so far away, she was still taking care of me.

  It had been two months and I missed her. Sometimes so much, I couldn’t even breathe.

  She was still in L.A. with Ellie, who had gotten a job as an apprentice with a prominent stylist.

  Julia got the position with Condé Nast publishing and was working as a junior content and style editor for Glamour Magazine.

  Of course, she got the first damn job she applied for. She’s brilliant and gorgeous with an insane work ethic that kept her from trekking to Boston for a visit. To be fair, I hadn’t been able to get to L.A. either. The situation sucked.

  I sighed on my way toward the Health Sciences building for my Human Body class. That was the more politically correct name for it, but Gross Anatomy was so much more apropos. I took the stairs to the 5th floor two at a time.

  Julia. She was all I could think about.

  After that night in my room, we hadn’t really defined our relationship as anything different than best friends. I was terrified that it was somehow a dream and was left wondering if it really happened. We both had a lot going on and I’d been very disappointed when she didn’t come to New York. We seemed to avoid the topic when we did talk and it left me uneasy and confused.

  When she took the L.A job, I picked a fight instead of doing what I should have done by offering my congratulations and support. But damn it, I was upset!

  After almost making love to her and telling myself that we would finally be together as a couple, I didn’t handle it well.

  She’d hung up on me with a trite, “Thanks for the support, asshole.”

  We made up after two weeks of my pouting and then another of her ignoring my calls. After that we avoided the subject of us. And now, two months later, it seemed like years.

  I buried myself in school and she was working to establish herself as indispensable. My heart constricted. The better she did her job, the less likely she’d be able to leave it. And Julia never did anything half-assed. Then, where would I be? “Hmmph.” I let my breath out. Missing her desperately, more and more as the time passed.

  I took out my trusty vial of Vicks before walking into the lab. The other five members of my group were already waiting for me. I wasn’t late, but I wasn’t so damn eager either.

  The group was quite diverse. Min Sing, a little Korean girl who barely spoke, except to answer the professor’s questions, had a sad homesick look about her all the time. I tried to engage her in conversation, but she was so introverted it was practically impossible, so after the first couple of weeks, I’d given up.

  Tanner Cromwell was friendly and jovial. His personality was a lot like Aaron’s, always poking fun at the dead guy on the table. Sometimes the professor had to ride his ass, but he made the class bearable.

  James Davis was a conundrum. He looked like a biker, with long hair and tattoos, but was smarter than hell. Claire Morris was sort of pretty, but was always bitching about something and emotionally very immature. Two traits bad enough on their own, but combined, it made her completely unlikable.

  Then there was Liza Nash. I inwardly cringed when I walked up to the table and she put her hand on my arm. I’d take Claire’s bitchy ways over Liza’s constant flirting any day.

  “Hi, Ryan.” My eyes made brief contact with hers at the greeting before quickly looking away. I guess you could say she was beautiful in a conventional sort of way, but she seemed so artificial. Hard, cold and unapproachable; which was weird considering she was constantly pursuing me. She batted her eyelashes as I withdrew my arm from her hand.

  Long, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, big tits and a good figure. I wasn’t blind, but I just wasn’t interested. I was civil to get through the class, but her obvious attempts had gotten old and monotonous. Constantly brushing her off had not deterred her one bit.

  “Hey, you guys.” I said as I pulled on the latex gloves and stood in my spot at the side of the table.

  Tanner met my eyes and wagged his eyebrows at me. He was well aware of Liza’s efforts; always ready to throw it in my face. He thought I should just take what she so flagrantly offered and not think about it too much.

  Not likely. I mean, it wasn’t like I wasn’t a normal guy with physical needs. I was. There were ways to deal with that when necessary, but the last thing I needed was to complicate my life with something meaningless. Liza could’ve been a Greek goddess and it wouldn’t have mattered. Even though the situation with Julia was a little shaky, I wouldn’t risk it by screwing around with some twit
.

  All I could think about was Julia and, despite the precarious state of our relationship, I loved her beyond reason. I only hoped that she loved me as much.

  Stupid ass. Why didn’t you just tell her?

  After class, when Liza ran up behind us, Tanner laughed when I muttered under my breath, “Walk faster.”

  “Ryan! Wait!” She panted. She finally caught up and it was rude, but we kept walking.

  “Oh, hi.” I said, hoping my obvious lack of enthusiasm would have the desired effect.

  “Do you want to get some coffee? I have some questions about microbiology.”

  So much for her getting a fucking clue.

  We didn’t have any other classes together, but still had some of the same cores. She’d gotten my entire schedule out of me through small talk in HB lab before I realized she had an ulterior motive.

  “Uh…I’m sort of swamped, Liza. I promised to do something with my roommate and I only get coffee on Sunday morning.”

  Me and my big mouth.

  She smiled. “Sunday morning? Okay, I can meet you Sunday morning,” she said hopefully. Tanner looked between the two of us with a knowing smirk.

  “Well…it’s sort of something I do by myself.” I moaned inwardly.

  “Ryan, Claire told me that you were brilliant in micro. I’m almost failing! Please help me.”

  Am I really going to fall for this bullshit?

  I looked at her sappy face and gave in. I didn’t want her failing on my conscience.

  “Okay, look, Liza. I’ll meet you in the lower level of the library at 11 am on Sunday then.”

  “No coffee? Wouldn’t we be able to talk better at Java Joe’s than at the library?”

  Java Joe’s is my place to call Julia.

  “Nope. I need to go to the library later in the day so that works better for me. I’ll see you there.”

  I turned and motioned with my head for Tanner to continue walking, leaving her there on the sidewalk with her mouth hanging open.

  “Bye, Liza,” he murmured.

  After we got a few feet further across the commons, Tanner finally spoke up.