Page 107 of Julian

To that end, she’d responded to his emails. She’d prepared dinner for them. She’d conversed with him, answering any questions he had.

But in all of that, she had kept at the forefront of her mind that no matter what her feelings might be, Julian wouldn’t feel the same way about her. It had been relatively easy to stay focused on friendship until she’d fallen asleep and woken up to find that Julian had covered her with a blanket and stayed with her in front of the fire.

Now, her heart clamored for all kinds of foolish things that she knew she couldn’t have.

After brushing her teeth and going through her nighttime routine—even though it was three o’clock in the morning—she crawled into her bed and tugged the thick comforter up to her chin.

As she lay in the darkness, she prayed, as she so often did throughout each day, that God would give her strength and wisdom. That He would be with her and help her and Julian to be the best parents possible to their son.

What she didn’t pray for was that Julian would come to love her. That felt selfish. If God only answered one of her prayers, she wanted it to benefit her son, and that would be her and Julian being good parents.

The next morning, Kiara was slow to get out of bed. She spent some time scanning through social media. She wasn’t very active on her accounts, but she loved looking through other people’s posts. Especially now that the majority of her timeline was pregnancy and baby focused. She’d purchased more baby things at the promptings of posts on social media than she probably should have, but some of the stuff was justsocute.

When hunger began to make her feel a bit queasy, Kiara slid out of bed. She flipped the comforter back into place, then began to prepare for the day.

The only thing on her schedule that day was dinner at the main house. It had been awhile since they’d all been together for a meal, so she was actually looking forward to it.

The house was quiet as she came out of her suite, but the aroma of coffee was in the air, so she assumed that Julian was already up.

In the kitchen, she walked to the sink and stared out at the backyard, checking on the weather like she did every morning.

It looked like it was another cloudy and rainy day. A day that spoke of the transition that was to come as they moved through fall into winter. Their second winter in Idaho.

Turning away, Kiara began to prepare her breakfast. She heated a pan, then put a couple of slices of bacon in it. While they cooked, she mashed up some avocado and seasoned it. After the bacon had cooked for a bit, she moved it to the side of the pan and added an egg, scrambling it with a fork.

Once everything was almost done, she cut a couple of pieces of the sourdough bread and stuck them in the toaster. She stared at the small appliance, remembering her horror at how much it had cost. For that price, it should have done more than just toast the bread.

When the toast was done, she carefully arranged everything on the plate. She’d just made herself a cup of tea when the front door opened.

Kiara looked up to see Julian walk in, dressed as if he’d been working out. He wore a pair of sweats and a zippered hoodie that was open over a T-shirt. His hair was disheveled.

“Good morning,” she said.

He gave her a quick smile as he walked toward the kitchen. “Sleep well?”

“Not too bad,” she said. “How about you?”

“My body clock is still dealing with jetlag, so I didn’t sleep much after we woke up.”

“You’re going to be tired,” she said. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“What are you having?” he asked as he sat down at the counter.

“I made some avocado toast,” she said, gesturing to her plate. “Do you want some?”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“It’s no problem. You can have one of those, and I’ll make a couple more pieces.”

She transferred one of the pieces of toast to another plate, then put more bacon in the pan. For as much as she’d hated making food for Jim and Craig, she didn’t mind doing it for Julian.

Julian didn’t start to eat until she had prepared the second batch and sat down beside him.

"Thank you," Julian said, taking a bite of the toast. "This is really good."

Kiara smiled at the compliment, though she tried not to read too much into it. Friends complimented each other's cooking. It didn't mean anything more.

"So what were you up to this morning?" she asked, noticing how his workout clothes clung to him slightly, as if he’d been sweating or had gotten caught in some rain.