If This Was a Movie (Evergreen Park #2)

Chapter 9 – Jules

NINE

JULES

Once I’m in the bathroom, I pull my phone out and dial a familiar phone number from heart, not even bothering to find the contact as I pace.

“Hey—” Ava starts, but I cut her off quickly.

“Put your man on.”

“What?”

“Put your man on. I know he’s glued to your side every waking moment; so put him on,” I tell her, no time to stress about niceties or explanations.

“Uh, excuse me?” she asks, her sassy nature coming out. “What am I, nobody? You just call me up to talk to my hot?—”

“I’m in a crisis, Ava, and I need to talk to Jaime. Please, for the love of fuck, put him on the phone.”

A beat of silence before she speaks. “A crisis? Are you okay? Are you safe? Did?—”

I groan to the ceiling before speaking, taking a deep breath before I do. “I’m fine. I’m safe. There’s an issue with my place, and I need to ask Jaime to check someone out before I take him up on an offer. I promise I will call you first thing tomorrow morning to explain, but in the meantime, can you please put Jaime on the phone so I can have him do a quick little search and make sure this person is not a murderer?”

Another pause before she speaks again, and I can hear the smile in her words now.

“Well, is he hot? Because I could maybe forgive a murder—” There’s a scuffle before the phone switches, and Jaime’s deep voice fills the line.

“What’s going on, Jules?” Jaime asks.

“I was talking to her!” Ava shouts from the background, followed by a huff. I picture him standing there, Ava jumping and trying to grab the phone from his hand but failing miserably, and it makes me smile.

“And now I am. What’s up? You got an issue?”

I sigh, knowing Jaime is not going to like this at all. “Yes? No? I don’t know.”

“I don’t like how this sounds,” he says with a grunt.

“A water line broke in my building, flooded my place and the dance studio,” I say, deciding to get right to it is the best point of action.

“Fuck,” the man of few words says, somehow encapsulating everything I’m feeling in one simple word.

“Yeah. And, as I’m sure Ava has told you, Evergreen Park gets crazy during Christmas. So considering how much I’m going to have to shell out to fix my place, I don’t want to spend a ton on a hotel for an indefinite stay. Luckily, a uh…friend of a friend offered me a place to stay in an in-law suite behind his house. I just want you to look him up to make sure he’s not going to murder me or something.”

“No,” Jaime replies instantly.

“No, you won’t look him up?” I ask, confused.

“No, you can’t stay with him. Jesus, I thought that was common sense—not sleeping in someone’s house right after you meet them.”

“Technically, I’ve slept there before,” I say without thinking.

“What? What did she just say? You’ve got that face!” Ava shouts in the background and instantly regrets it.

“How have you slept there before?” he asks.

“She what?”

“Look, I’m not really interested in—” I start.

“Is it the New Year’s guy?” Ava yells.

Why do I tell my friends anything at all? I ask myself.

“What?” Jaime asks his fiancée.

“That guy she slept with on New Year's that has a family! Is it him?”

“Ava wants to know if?—”

“I heard. Tell her yes, and it wasn’t his wife; it was his sister.”

“You are not staying somewhere where a man was caught sleeping with his sister,” Jaime says.

I look at the ceiling of the bathroom and pray for patience as I hear Ava scream in the background.

“He didn’t sleep with his sister,” I say with as much patience as I can put in my words. “I saw him with a kid and a woman at the store, and I came to the apparently incorrect assumption that he had a family and he was a cheater. It turns out the woman at the store was his sister.”

“And the kid?” I sigh, knowing the answer is going to require an explanation that I don’t want to give, mostly because I can’t give that answer. I have no idea why Nate didn’t tell me he had a kid, but if I’m being completely honest, I can see why a single guy might not be willing to info dump that kind of thing right off the bat.

“It was his kid. Can you background check him or not?” I ask, letting some of my irritation seep into my words.

“Whose kid was it!?” Ava asks.

“His. I’m gonna do a background check, and I’ll have more information then,” Jaime says to my best friend before directing the rest to me. “Yeah, I’ll do it. Can you get me his full name and address?”

“I can send you a photo of his license,” I say.

“His license?”

“He knows who you are and told me to call you and give you his information. The background check was his idea.” There’s a beat of silence before Jaime speaks, and I can almost hear the approving nod I know he’s making.

“Got it. Yeah, send it to me. I’ll do a preliminary one now, which should let us know the basics tonight, and start a deeper one after. I’ll probably have the full results in the morning. Though, I’m gonna guess he’s probably fine if he’s got a kid and gave you his license to run him.”

“Thanks, Jaime.”

“No—” he starts, then there’s a scuffle before Ava’s voice is coming through the line clearly again.

“You listen to me, Julianne Everett. You text me as soon as you get settled. You call me first thing in the morning, no questions asked. I don’t care if you wake up at four a.m., you call me.”

“Ava, you’re in California. That would be one a.m. your time.”

“Do I sound like I care?” she asks, and I can almost see her foot tapping.

“Your fiancé would.”

“Jaime won’t care, trust me.” There’s a grumble in the background of disapproval, and Ava whispers something that’s probably much too spicy for my ears but makes the grumbling disappear. “I’m serious. I’m not going to hound you now because Jaime’s going to make sure you’re safe, but my god, Jules, if I don’t find out everything ASAP, I’m going to snap. You hear me?”

On account that my best friend runs a business teaching women self-defense and once incapacitated a man on a live using little more than hair tools, I’m forced to agree.

“Yes, Ava, I’ll call you as soon as possible tomorrow morning.” I expect her to argue, to tell me she means to do so first thing when my eyes crack open, but she doesn’t.

“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.

“Goodbye. I love you.” And then I hang up, giving myself a few more moments of peace and quiet before I head back out to face whatever the next wave of drama is bound to be.