Soundtrack for this chapter:
All Apologies—Nirvana
Bless the Broken Road—Rascal Flatts
Won't Go Home Without You—Maroon 5

25

Jules

I lost track of everything that was happening outside of my brain. There was this relentless voice inside my head chanting stupid stupid stupid; it sounded like Will.

I wasn't crying tears of sadness as Theo drove us on towards the hotel. They were angry tears, hot tears, tears that felt as if they'd been brimming under the surface for almost thirty years.

It wasn't Will's hunting trips, nor his threats, nor his duplicity to make me want to leave all of Savannah behind. It was the fact that he'd been able to bribe my attorney to work against me. That was the moment I knew I could never win in Savannah, regardless of all of the evidence I had against him; and, yet, I had no choice.

When I noticed the car had stopped moving, I picked my head up out of my lap and was met with a pitch black sky. The touch screen in the center of the car Theo had rented read 9:00 pm.

I was feeling too many things to look at him.

"How long have we been parked here?" My voice didn't sound like my voice. I'm not sure whose it was, but it sure didn't belong to Jules Calhoun.

Theo cleared his throat. "'bout thirty minutes."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize we were stopped."

"I know. Are you ready to go inside?"

"Mhmm." I had so many more things to apologize to him for that I wasn't quite sure how I was ever going to get the words out.

Theo got out of the car, and when I heard the trunk pop, I finally unclicked my seatbelt and joined him. He had his duffle bag slung over one shoulder and my suitcase in his hand, and I reached forward towards him.

"I can—"

"I've got it, Jules." He turned on his heel and strode into the hotel, me shuffling along behind him.

I must have been a real sorry sight. The hours I spent in hair and makeup were rendered useless after the drive from my parents' house. While Theo was checking in, I tucked myself behind him and our bags, not wanting to be in full view of anyone.

When we made it to our room, the first thing to come off were my heels. I deposited them directly into the little wastebasket in the room. As I reached around to fumble for the zipper of my dress, Theo set down our bags and circled back to me, his fingers pulling the zipper down just enough for mine to be able to grasp it.

He stood in front of me, and it was the first time I looked into his eyes, really looked into them, since he arrived. The only other time I'd seen them so unlike the eyes I'd fallen in love with was the night of his blowup with Aiden.

"I—"

"Need to eat something. Here," he grabbed the room service menu and handed it to me. "Let me know what you want, and I'll order it."

Words seemed to continue to fail me, so I just nodded in his direction. Truthfully speaking, I wasn't hungry in the least, but he was right. I glanced at the menu and settled on a fancy bowl of mac and cheese.

As Theo called down to room service, I took my bag into the bathroom, stripped out of my dress, and turned the water of the shower all the way to the left, hoping the steam would clear my head as the warmth of the water washed off more than just my makeup.

Once I'd thrown on a pair of yoga pants and my Parnassus sweatshirt, I combed through my wet hair and braided it on either side of my neck. I turned to the mirror, still opaque with steam, wiped through the fog with a washcloth and looked at the woman staring back at me. She was beginning to look familiar. Her freckles were dotted across her cheeks, and her honey-colored eyes started to regain their light. I finally felt like my soul was coming back to me.

As I emerged out of the bathroom and joined Theo, I was met with the scents of my cheesy pasta and his bacon cheeseburger. My stomach rumbled, and I recognized that maybe I was hungry.

Theo sat on one side of the bed, and I plopped down on the other and immediately dug into my meal. My mac and cheese was delicious, so delicious that there wasn't a single elbow shaped noodle left in my bowl. The ghost of a smile formed on Theo's lips when he glanced at it.

When he was finished, I gathered up the plates on the tray they'd come in on and set them out in the hall. I came back to the bed to find Theo with his hands around the back of his neck. As I regained my seat across from him on the bed, trying to pull the words together to say something to him, he lifted his eyes to mine and spoke.

"I've got to be honest with you. I was really angry when I realized you kept the party from me. Not because I wanted you to invite me, but because I felt like if you were willing to lie to me about something so seemingly insignificant, then there must have been other things you were lying to me about. And there were. As I sat in the parking lot tonight, I kept replaying the last five months we've been together in my head. I could pinpoint countless times I was open and honest with you, countless times you could have said something, but you didn't. Why didn't you tell me you were still married?"

I refused to allow myself to shrink away from him as he was right on all accounts. "I'm really, truly sorry, Theo. This, this part of my life has been something I've been dealing with for so long, and I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you wouldn't want to be with me. You're good, Theo. So good. You treat me better than I could ever ask for. You are kind to every person you meet. What would you want with a married woman?"

His brows furrowed a bit as he took everything in. "In the car, you said you never meant to fall in love with me."

And then I needed to explain to him why I went home with him that first night.

"The night we met...I was looking for someone to go home with. I wanted someone to be physical with—"

"Bullshit. I've called you out on this before. You're not the type to fuck some random guy you just met, Jules."

"But it was who I wanted to be that night. I wanted someone to break whatever was left of my ties to Will; I needed someone to take away every last emotion that was left in me for him. I wanted to be free and take a risk and do something out of character. I felt a certain level of trust in you that I'd never felt for some random person I'd only just met, and in my heart I knew I wouldn't regret going home with you."

"But then you left in the morning."

"I was still married."

"You are still married." His deadpan expression took me by surprise.

"I know. The night you were called to that accident, and you offered to take me home with you to watch over me...I never had that from Will. Not even in the beginning. Never this sense of caring more about me than himself." I stopped for a moment, a new realization taking hold in my heart. "Given everything he's said in the past 24 hours, I don't think he ever loved me like I loved him. And by the time I realized there was something real between you and me, that you actually cared for my well-being, I was in too deep. I tried to tell you a few times, but every time I did, something stopped me."

"I was open with you about so many things, Jules. I told you about my deployment. I told you about Gabe." He gabbed at something around his neck, and for the first time I saw that he was wearing dog tags.

There was clear pain in his eyes, and it made my chest tight with guilt. "I'm sorry, Theo. I can't turn back time; I can't take it back. Let's be honest, though: if I told you the night we met that I was married, would you have ever taken me home with you?"

The tension in his face broke. "Jules—"

"I'm serious, if I'd introduced myself as Jules Buchanan, wife of Will Buchanan, from Savannah, Georgia, do you really think the conversation would have gone anywhere? I'd been separated from him for over a year at that point. I'd changed my name back. In my head, the fact that I was his wife was only a technicality."

"You could have given me the choice, Jules. You could have explained the situation to me."

"By the time I was comfortable enough to tell you that, I was already in love with you and too afraid to lose you to tell you."

Theo's right hand came up to the necklace around my neck. He pulled the chain out of my sweatshirt and rubbed the image of St. Michael with his thumb.

He kept his eyes trained on the medallion as he spoke, his head gently shaking back and forth. "I'm sorry for the things I said to you the night I walked out. I was angry and hurt and I used my words against you as viciously as I could. I was afraid you weren't going to come back to Boston." His eyes raised to mine.

"And now?"

"When were you going to tell me?"

"When I got back. I wanted to have the signed papers. I wanted to have something to show you that the process was started and would get resolved in time. I don't have that now though...I don't know if I ever will." I felt the tears creeping back up, and I tried my damndest to swallow them down. Theo looked at me and shook his head.

"Please don't cry, Jules. We'll figure it out. My dad could—"

"No, Theo. That's another reason I was afraid to tell you. I won't let you keep saving me. I'm tried of being this poor, defenseless damsel in distress around you. You had to take care of me after the accident, you had to come to my rescue tonight. You can't always save someone; you can't always be saving me." My voice had risen in volume inadvertently. I didn't want to have to rely on him yet again. I couldn't. I just wanted to finish what I'd started on my own.

But Theo's hands came to my cheeks, thumbs resting on my cheekbones as his eyes searched mine. "The first time I came to your side was because it was my job. The second time was because I love you. What I saw tonight was a woman standing up for herself against someone who has made her life hell. I didn't mean it when I said you weren't strong. Fuck, I didn't mean any of the shit I said to you back in Boston. I want to help you, Jules. My dad can help you."

I tried to shake my head in his hands; it wasn't that easy. "Your dad's not barred in Savannah. He can't represent me here. Even if he could, Will promised he'd drag out the proceedings and make it as costly as he could. I can't ask your dad to take on that burden."

"He'd do it, Jules. If I asked him, he'd do it for me; he'd do it for you."

"I know he would. I know he would do it out of the kindness of his heart because your family is the most compassionate group of people I've ever met, but I can't ask him to do that. I need to do this on my own. I have evidence that I could use in court. I just need to get it all together and figure something out."

His hands came up between us. "Wait—what? You have evidence? Of what?"

"Of what a terrible person Will is, of how miserable he tries to make me. If I can't find a lawyer here in Savannah to represent me, I'll represent myself. I'll figure it all out. I'll play one of these for the judge." I turned away from Theo and got my laptop from my suitcase. Once it was up and running, I played one of the soundclips from a conversation I had with Will and skipped to the middle of it.

"...you will. If you don't get yourself back down here soon, I swear to you, Jules, I will come up there myself and drag your ass back here where it belongs...Good. I'm going to take your silence as a sign that you're finally willing to listen to me. I know this is hard for you, honey, really, I do, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a few more months up there to really get the rest of this out of your system. Say goodbye to your friends, give your boss your notice. Then, when you get your annual family Christmas party invitation in the mail, rather than ignore it like you did last year, you're going to RSVP that you're coming, and I'll even buy your one way ticket back to Sav—"

Theo reached forward and tapped the spacebar of my keyboard, stopping the audio. His chest huffed with anger. "I'm sorry, Jules."

"Why are you apologizing?"

He ran his hands over his face. "I can understand why you wouldn't want to say something with a fucking prick like him threatening you in this way. How many of those do you have?"

I closed out the file and showed him my "Divorce is awesome" folder. "And now I have the one from tonight."

His eyes snapped to mine. "Tonight?"

"When I got to my parents' house and was immediately met with them and Will, I made a shortcut on my phone to the audio recorder, just in case. When I heard Will's voice back at my parents' house tonight, I already had my phone in my hands, so I just tapped the little icon to start the recording. I just need to download it to my computer. I think, maybe with all of these, and with the fact that we've been living apart, which I can prove through the university, I think I can convince the judge to—"

"Jules, my sweet, smart Jules! Don't you see?" Theo grabbed at my hands and held them in his. "What's the one thing you told me he cares about more than anything else?"

But I wasn't following. "I mean, none of them want the divorce to happen because it'll shame our families."

"Exactly. What do you think would happen if one of those files got leaked to a local news source?"

I felt my eyes grow wide. "That's...I, I can't do that. I would—"

Theo's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why not? If you could blackmail him with these, you may not even need court. You could convince him to sign whatever papers you need."

"Bla-blackmail? Isn't that illegal?"

"With all the shit he's put you through, with all of the shit your parents have put you through, this could be your way of shutting it all down, once and for all. Why are you even hesitating? This could be your answer, Jules."

"I—I just..." My brain felt like it was backfiring, but before I could think about it any further, Theo's hands were holding either side of my face and his lips were on mine. His mouth worked sweetly against mine, and the tangle of wires in my brain began to melt. He pulled his lips from my mouth and rested his head against my forehead.

"If nothing else, these last few days have proved to me how deeply I love and care about you. I want you to be happy, Jules. I want to make things better for you. That's what you do for someone when you love them more than yourself. It doesn't matter that we've been together for less than half a year; sometimes, you just know, and with you, I know."

My heart felt like it was ready to burst clear from my ribcage. I brought my lips back to his and spoke against them. "I love you, T."

Theo scooped me up in his arms and laid us down on the bed. I nestled into him as tightly as possible and rested my head against his beating heart.

"Can we put this issue to rest just for the next few days? It's nearly Christmas, and I want to spend it with you and forget about Savannah for a little while. I have the recordings, and they're not going anywhere. You have me, and I'm not going anywhere. We'll figure it out when we get back to Boston, together. Okay?"

Theo's free hand came up to my head and cradled the back of it. "I'm on your team, Jules. Whatever you decide to do, I'll be there to back you up."

I fell asleep in Theo's arms, and even though it'd been such an incredibly short time that we were apart, the fact that I missed him as much as I did let me know that he was my person; he was the man I was always meant to be with, regardless of the road it took me to get to him.

***

The next morning, Theo and I were able to get on the first flight out of Savannah. I half expected Will to show up at the airport, but there was no sign of him.

The entire flight home, I contemplated my two options: hire a lawyer to fight Will in a contested divorce battle or twist his arm into signing the papers by threatening to release one of the audio files. I wasn't sure I had it in me to take that second route. Either way, Will was going to be out of my mind for at least forty-eight hours so I could give Theo the Christmas he deserved.

A/N: Hi!

I started listening to Christmas music this week 😳 (#sorrynotsorry).

I think I asked this back toward the beginning of the book, but I'm curious again: who do you picture as Theo and Jules? I always love hearing your thoughts on this!

Any ideas as to where our story will go next? I know I've still got some ends to tie up, but I think we're pretty close to the end.

I've been thinking about Elle and Jude a lot lately, and I'm trying to see if I have it in me to write a third installment concerning the year they spend between the end of Somewhere Else and the epilogue. I have a few ideas, but not enough to fill an entire book, which may just mean that if I do it, it'll be more of a novella length continuation.

Anyways, I'm rambling at this point. Please vote and comment and chat with me! If you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I hope you have a lovely time surrounded by your closest friends and family ❤️

Until the next chapter,
L