Called Up by Jen Doyle Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    The irony of it all was supremely satisfying. The very thing Peggy had hoped would put Fitz in her place actually ended up putting Nate squarely in Fitz’s corner. That moment after the shed was the first civil conversation she and Nate had ever had. The first time in seven months of knowing about each other and walking the same halls that he’d done anything other than glance in her direction before looking away. But he’d come to find her after the shed to make sure she was okay. She’d said she’d be fine if he could keep it from ever seeing the light of day, and he’d somehow buried it deep enough that Fitz had never heard anyone so much as hint at it.
    Until toda—
    She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around to see Deke. She wasn’t big on being touched by anyone other than the kids. And Dorie, oddly enough. Dorie was a hugger. It had put Fitz off completely at first, but she’d kind of gotten used to it by now.
    “Jesus, Fitz,” Deke muttered. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
    “No.”
    She’d never wanted anyone to know it had even happened, especially not Deke. For reasons that changed over time but were as equally important now as they were back then. No way she was about to share the details now.
    She went to the passenger side door and grabbed the handle. “Can we just go home?” She knew he was glaring at her, but she refused to look at him, instead staring out her window once she’d climbed inside.
    The drive back to Lola’s was silent and