When we finally came to back to Earth, Julian was pretty tired from his fight with nature's fury, so we decided to go to his house until it was time for me to go to class. We hadn't been on the beach that long when all of this happened and it was only just before noon now. I could still spare a little time and it wasn't like I wanted to be anywhere else. My insecurities were still hovering somewhere close to the surface of my consciousness, but the endorphins in my brain from being in Julian's embrace were still firing heavily. I wanted Julian, had wanted him for years and now that I had allowed myself to admit it, all of the immediate confusion I had been feeling for the last couple of days, just seemed to slip away, well most of it.
I suppose seeing Julian's beat up pick up, I expected us to pull up to a track home, like the one I lived in, but when we turned right off the coast highway into a stand of trees and started up a long driveway, I was about to get a eyeful of surprise and wonder. Against the backdrop of pines and an occasional redwood, stood what I assumed was Julian's house. What lay before me was a crisp English Tudor style house with brick and stonework everywhere my eyes could see. As if I didn't have enough to contemplate already, now I discovered Julian was rich. This didn't fit with the "persona" that he projected however and I tried to reconcile the teenager I knew with a spoiled little rich boy who apparently lived here.
I stared at him across the bench seat of the Nissan pick-up.
"What?" He looked back into my eyes and got the answer I need. He wasn't the stereotype, either in thought or deed. His sexuality wasn't what it appeared and based on the reaction I got, neither was his station in life.
"Nothing," I said. "Nice House." I winked at him and he rolled his gorgeous hazel eyes back at me.
"It's my dad's house, not mine. Don't go thinking I'm some rich kid or anything." He had a far-away look on his face and I deduced that his relationship with his father was not at all wonderful. He parked the truck at an angle, askew from the front of the garage. (it had five bays...wow!)
"You comin'?" He winked at me and I caught on to the double entendre.
"Yeah, right behind you." I was having some slight misgivings about my sudden surroundings. Self-doubt, after all, was my strong suit.
When he traipsed through a side door to the house, I assumed we were going in the back way because it didn't look anything like a front entrance. He kicked off his checkerboard Vans and pushed them under a bench in what someone on the East Coast would refer to as a "mudroom" and continued into a brightly lit kitchen. An older woman was standing at the sink in front of a huge window overlooking the ocean, cleaning fresh green beans. As she snapped the ends off and peeled the string from the vegetable she was working on, she glanced over her shoulder at us, lingering momentarily on me. I wondered who she was, but assumed if Julian wanted to introduce me to her, he would say something soon.
He continued through the house and I followed, leaving a bit of distance between us not wanting to look like his little lost puppy. Julian stopped in front of what I assumed was his bedroom door, pulled a note off the bulletin board plastered there and flung it open. Tentatively, I poked my head around the corner to see what a "rich kid's" room looked like. Although it was a lot bigger than my room, it pretty much looked like any teenage boy's room; desk, computer, TV, bed, posters (mostly of surfers and one of Orlando Bloom). The thing that struck me was how dark it was in here. If I hadn't known for a fact that the sun was high in the sky at this time of day, I would have thought it was night in here.
"Don't be scared, Jody. I won't bite you..." Julian's smile turned to a little sneer as he muttered, "not yet anyway."
I had to admit, I was a little bit scared. Julian had been the center of my universe for four years and now here I was in his room, his bedroom...where he slept, dreamed and possibly jerked off??? It was almost more than I could handle. I wondered if Julian had many guys in his room before this.
Of course he has, don't be such a dweeb Jody
.
Julian had taken his wetsuit off at the beach before we drove to his house, donned a pair of bright swim shorts that hung off his hips loose and revealing and now he was shedding them in favor of only his tight Speedo. My eyes, free from the guilt and turmoil of a high school locker room, consumed the sight of his beautiful body with gusto.
