Star-Crossed(84)

and see how many pounds Wyatt was talking about. She reached under her jacket, feeling the waistline of her pants, trying to decide if they were tighter than they were last year.

“You want a birthday present?”

“Yes,” Jules said, now fidgeting with her jacket, tugging at it and seeing that the buttons did bulge a bit across her chest. “Make it something good for calling me fat.”

“I didn’t call ya fat,” Wyatt said with a laugh. He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and forced her into it. Then he set their father’s old mug in front of her and drew an envelope out of the back pocket of his jeans. He set it in front of her. “For you.” Jules picked up the envelope, staring at the front of it, seeing Wyatt’s messy scrawl, Ju Ju Bean. She opened it, finding one of those cheesy best sister cards and a gift card to one of her favorite department stores for five hundred dollars. She tilted her head back, giving him a surprised look. “This is a new kind of gift. I really love it.”

“And I made sure you could use it online,” Wyatt went on, giving her a smile.

“It’s not your only present, but I just thought I should get something that let you know I like you how you are. Next year dress how you want on our birthday. You’re my sister; I wouldn’t change ya, even with all the flash and glitter.” Jules’s lip jutted out again, and the words on the card bled out to a watery blur as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I didn’t do anything this thoughtful.”

“Good, that means I win,” Wyatt said triumphantly as he pulled a chair up to hers and sat next to her. Knee to knee, he leaned over and pressed another kiss against her forehead. “You need to go to the doctor.”

“I ain’t talking ’bout the doctor anymore on our day.” She turned to Wyatt, hugging him once more. “Happy birthday.”

Wyatt hugged her back. “Happy birthday.”



* * * *





Jules was having a top-notch birthday.





217

It turned out the reason Wyatt was wearing jeans was to follow her to work and do all the little things around the office she’d been putting off. By noon he’d fixed the broken drawer at her desk, the leaky sink in the downstairs kitchen, and helped her purge all last year’s files and store them in the attic.

Even Chuito and Alaine were getting into the spirit of things. Ordinary office work had been pushed aside to the fever of spring-cleaning. Alaine sat on the floor, going through the bottom filing cabinets, still looking for old files that could go into the attic while Chuito stood on a ladder, helping Wyatt hang the ceiling fan that Jules had bought over a year ago and stored in the shed when hanging it turned into too big of a project.

“You sure you ain’t gonna electrocute yourself?” Wyatt said in concern. “Maybe we should call a real electrician.”

“I got this.” Chuito leaned against the ladder with his head tilted back as he worked on the wiring. “I moved from Puerto Rico to Miami. I know how to install a ceiling fan.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Alaine asked.

“We didn’t have any air conditioning in Puerto Rico,” Chuito said simply. “And Miami is hot as fuck. Both places make ceiling fans a necessity. Okay, hand me the mounting bracket.”

Wyatt frowned as he studied the fan that was out of the box and bleeding parts all over Jules’s expensive Oriental rug in the front of the office. “It’s still attached to the fan.”

Chuito laughed. “Then unattach it.”

“Are you sure this thing ain’t used?”

“They gave me a discount,” Jules said defensively. “It ain’t broken, is it?” 218



“I dunno,” Wyatt said as he worked on unattaching the mounting bracket from the ceiling fan. “I do know this is gonna take a while, and we were gonna go to lunch

’round two. This fan could end up messing up our plans.”

“I’ve got to run a few errands. I can pick up lunch for everyone on the way back, and we can eat here,” Jules said as she stood up from her desk. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Um, maybe.” Wyatt hesitated. “Why dontcha stop by Dr. Philips’s too? Have him check you out.”

“I made an appointment with the specialist,” Jules said defensively, giving him a look.

“Not till next month.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll run out now,” Jules announced as she grabbed her purse.

She didn’t want to argue with Wyatt when he’d gone out of his way to be nice. She knew he’d probably waited until their birthday on purpose to press his point. “And I’ll stop by the doctor’s. It can’t hurt.”