Called Up (4 page)

Chapter Six

Fitz gave a little tug on Jules’s arm and brought her into the house. There was no need to start something that would get both Jules and Emily upset, so they avoided the family room and headed straight upstairs instead. And maybe she was a little bit worried about herself, too. She’d spent a long time keeping her past where it belonged, and the key, she’d found, was to neatly pack her emotions away. But it was like Deke was on a Tilt-A-Whirl and he’d forced her to come along.

No, not forced her—he’d made her want to. She’d wanted to kiss him. She’d wanted to cry when he’d knelt down next to Matty, when he’d reined in his anger over Jeremiah.

And oh, God, when he’d almost gone at Jules because Fitz’s feelings might have been hurt... She’d had the urge to throw her arms around him and, well, she didn’t know. She had no idea how to handle any of it. This was Nate and Dorie’s fault for sure. Their whole happy vibe was so strong it was eating up everyone in its path and making Fitz have all these odd
feelings
.

Fitz kept up a steady patter as they walked, something about Nate’s game that day, all the while trying to keep her head from spinning. She got them to the master bedroom and steered Jules to the bed before heading into the bathroom. Her official purpose was to get a cool washcloth in case Jules needed it, but honestly, it was Fitz who needed a minute to splash water on her face.

She’d just turned off the water when she heard Deke come in the room and Jules ask, “Did Emily say anything to you?” Before Deke could respond, Jules went on a bit more about thirteen-year-olds and their mothers. And, honestly, Fitz couldn’t take it. She wouldn’t cry. She’d learned early on how to keep herself from breaking down under all sorts of circumstances. But that didn’t mean she was ready to listen to ramblings about teenage girls and their moms. Preparing herself for however long she needed to wait it out, Fitz sighed and started counting the tiles on the wall, a task she was engrossed in right up until the moment Jules said her name.

“Fitz should hate me, too, you know.”

Um... What?

After a slight pause, Deke laughed. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t mind driving you home, Jules.”

“I wish I could have been like you,” Jules continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “Always part of that crowd but somehow still removed.”

What crowd? Was Jules talking about high school?

Why?

But if so, there was no way this conversation was progressing any further. That crowd, Deke and Nate excepted, had made Fitz’s life even more of a living hell than it had needed to be. She had no interest in reliving even a little of it.

With as much noise as possible, Fitz came into the bedroom. “Here we go.” She brought the washcloth over to Jules, pulled back the covers and plumped up the pillows. “Is there anything else you need?” she asked, hoping against hope Jules would just drop it. She could already feel Deke’s eyes boring into her.

Jules, however, wasn’t cooperating one bit. “How can you be so nice to me?”

Forcing a smile, Fitz said, “You’re my sister. Of course I’m being nice.”

“Half-sister,” Jules corrected gently, “and we never let you forget it back then, did we? Even though what Dad did hurt you as much as it hurt us.” She put her arms around herself. “I wanted everyone at school to hate you. Nate’s blamed Jeremiah for all this time, but he should have been blaming me.”

Jeremiah was a jerk. Fitz had known that from the first time she laid eyes on him, three days after she’d started at her new school. She remembered as clearly as if it had been yesterday, in fact. The tornado happened in July, so the summer itself was mostly a blur, but she’d resolved to move forward as best she could on that first day of school and it had gone much better than anticipated. It was day two when the news about who she was came out and everything crashed and burned. By day three she’d begun to make her list of who to avoid as much as possible, with Jeremiah being at the top, something she’d kept to herself for all of the seventeen years since.

But it was fine. If Jules needed this to process what was going on with the man as part of their divorce, Fitz could handle it. In the scheme of things, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

“I’m okay with the nickname, Jules.”

The nickname hadn’t come until the spring and by that time Fitz had developed a much thicker skin. No, it hadn’t exactly been her favorite moment to sit in her history class and endure an entire discussion on how medieval law handled bastard children. Or to find out that “Fitz” was the surname they’d used at the time. But when her teacher had looked right at her and provided “Fitzpatrick” as an example, Fitz had known the town would never forgive Patrick Hawkins or his illegitimate daughter for what he’d done, and she’d better get used to it. Jeremiah started calling her Fitz and it stuck.

But it was something Fitz had actually come to take pride in. Well, not pride so much as
I don’t give a fuck
, a feeling Nate had helped her perfect.

“Really,” she said. “I wouldn’t have let people call me that for all these years if it was a problem.”

Except then Jules teared up. “Not the nickname.” She shook her head. “I just found out what Peggy did.”

Fitz’s first thought was,
That’s why you drank so much today?

But then she realized the ramifications of that statement and all the air left her lungs as she froze in place.

Please do not be referring to the most humiliating moment of my entire life.

Please do not be referring to it in front of Deke, of all people.

The ground dropped out from beneath Fitz’s feet and her head started spinning, and not in a happy-ish, Tilt-A-Whirl way.

“I think maybe they did it because of Jeremiah,” Jules was saying, “Because he kept teasing you and I didn’t make him stop. But I...I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t kno—”

Deke started toward them, a look of confusion on his face as he started to say, “Know what?” But Fitz spoke over him and asked, “How did you find out?”

“Tristan told me,” Jules said. “Over dinner last night.”

Tristan was Tuck’s younger brother. He’d been a couple of years ahead in school and a friend of Jeremiah’s. More a friend of Jules, apparently, since he’d taken her side in the divorce, but they’d all known each other for a really long time. He’d even dated Peggy for a while after she and Nate broke up. Then again, so had Deke.

Summoning up all the strength in the universe, Fitz briskly said, “It was nothing. Peggy’s a bitch.” Deke went tense and Fitz was momentarily sorry. That was another sentiment she’d kept to herself for half her life, this time out of deference to Deke and his thing for Peggy. His inexplicable thing, but whatever.

“It’s not nothing,” Jules persisted. “If Nate hadn’t gotten there in time, Lyle might have...”

And now they were entering forbidden waters. “Do you need a glass of water?” Fitz asked, hoping Jules would get the freaking
hint
.

But Jules refused to be put off.

“I watch Emily try and protect Geo and Matt from everything,” she said, “and I get so angry because they’re getting so battered by this divorce. Then I think about how Ella did that with Nate and with me, but...” With tears streaming down her face, she looked up at Fitz. “It wasn’t just that you had no one. That you had lost both your parents in the storm when we’d only lost Dad. But I was so...” A shudder ran through her as she looked away. As the
guilt
came over her face. “So awful.”

Fitz had never blamed Jules for any of that high school stuff. Peggy Miller, yes. And Jeremiah for being a complete asshole because he’d wanted to impress Jules, who had made her dislike of Fitz clear way back then? Absolutely. Jules, however? Even back when Jules was being horrible, Fitz had understood how badly she was hurting, too. As devastated and even angry as Fitz had been, she’d never doubted her father’s love for her. She wasn’t the one he had left. Jules was. Nate and Ella and Mama Gin.

More than ready to leave, Fitz turned to Deke just as Jules, in an entirely un-Jules-like meek little voice, asked, “Did they... Did they touch you?”

“What?” Fitz’s head snapped back to Jules. As in
touch
touched? “
No.
”

God
, no.

Yes, Peggy was the meanest of mean girls, as far as Fitz was concerned. And Fitz had been a naive, innocent,
broken
fifteen-year-old girl who fell so easily for Peggy’s whole “Deke likes you” line that her entire being lit up the moment she heard that the object of her crush, the one freaking ray of light after her parents died, might like her, too. That he wanted to actually meet her back out behind the school. So Fitz had gone out to the shed thinking she’d be seeing Deke, but instead got Lyle Butler, the town bully, along with two of his friends, and she realized she’d been had. She’d been so angry and mortified it hadn’t occurred to her until afterwards that they could truly have hurt her. Done so much more.

That day was the first time she’d really understood how alone she was. That she had no one to watch her back, no one but herself to ensure her own survival. Standing there, facing off against three boys, each about twice her size, watching them come at her, getting all handsy and leering at her... She’d taken every ounce of fury at what the world had handed her and unleashed it on them. She’d scratched and hit and kicked enough to startle them, and then Nate had gotten there before they got around to fighting back. They’d been too embarrassed to even look her way again.

But she’d taken care of it. It was done.

“No,” she repeated. “They didn’t touch me.” And she never wanted to talk about this again.

As she was about to say when she felt Deke move beside her. The look on his face was nothing short of murderous.

She’d known the man for seventeen years, sixteen of those as friends. The closest he got to being mad was when his piecrust didn’t come out right. He was an insane perfectionist when it came to pastry. But he tended not to get angry. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him even lose his patience with anyone, much less Jules, who he loved almost as much as he loved Lola. That was even less okay than the weird almost kissing thing. Fitz’s very existence had already almost destroyed one family she loved; she had no interest in upsetting another.

She gave Deke a look he’d damn well better take as a warning, before turning back to Jules. “It was a long time ago. We were kids. We’re not anymore.”

“I don’t need you to pretend to forgive me,” Jules said, her voice wavering. “I just need you to know I’ll make it right someday. Somehow I’ll—”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Discussion closed. “We both got handed a raw deal. You’ve booted Jeremiah out of your life, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes us even.” Then, with every ounce of strength Fitz had, she smiled. “Please. We need to be done talking about this because Deke’s gotten a major overdose of estrogen and God knows how devastating a threat that is to the female population of Inspiration. I think his dick might be shrinking as we speak.”

“Hey!” Deke exclaimed as expected while Jules’s eyes went wide and she gave a shocked laugh. Fitz wouldn’t normally have said something like that in mixed company, but it had to be done. Anything to stop things from getting even more out of hand.

Except Jules surprised them both and said, “It might not be the worst of things for the ladies of Inspiration to get less of Deke,” as she gave a vague wave in his direction.

And now Fitz was the one looking at Jules in shock.

“Really?” Deke said, as Fitz and Jules both burst into laughter. But he seemed relieved, too. Turning to Jules, he asked, “Is there anything else you need tonight? Anything with the kids?”

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Jules shook her head. “Thank you, though. For everything.”

“Okay, great,” Fitz said as brightly as she possibly could. The damage had already been done. “See you tomorrow.” Then she walked straight past Deke and to the door. From behind her, she heard Deke say, “Love you, Jules. You take care,” but she didn’t wait for him. She needed distance. She called out good night to Emily and the boys as she headed out to Deke’s truck.

There was a reason she’d spent the last sixteen years hanging out with guys who had no interest in chatting about anything, much less their feelings. Since that fateful conversation with Peggy, in fact. It was a
don’t ask, don’t tell
, kind of thing and Fitz was good with that. She’d been pathetic and needy back then. She wasn’t now. The last thing she’d needed tonight was a reminder of where she’d been.

It had been a pitiful story, of course; one picked up by the national media over and over again, the tragedy that was the counterpoint to the feel-good story of the scrappy high school basketball team they’d nicknamed The Dream. The fifteen-year-old girl who’d been in the car with her parents on a road outside of Inspiration when the tornado hit. Whose parents had been torn from the car and killed but who herself was left unharmed. Traumatized and unwilling to speak for weeks after that, but with barely even a scrape on her. With no family or even friends to claim her, she’d been placed in the nearest foster home available, with the Jensens on their farm.

That the farm was in Inspiration, the town in which Fitz’s father had left a whole other family was just part of the worst luck ever. A family Fitz had no knowledge of and vice versa. That Mama Gin had even considered adopting her, much less gone ahead and done it, had been just another step in the surreal dream over the course of that year. Fitz wasn’t at all surprised at how Jules had reacted back in the beginning. She still had days she couldn’t believe how soon Nate had come around. Largely, as it turned out, thanks to the Lyle Butler incident. When Nate had come charging around the corner of the shed, she’d even had a moment of thinking he’d been part of it. But then he’d come to a sudden stop and actually smiled when he saw she’d, well, laid them all out. A few days later he made it clear to the entire school that he had her back and he’d been her staunchest supporter ever since.