Twisted Hate

Josh notes Jules’s absence from lunch. Their ski lesson “hadn’t been as terrible as [he’d] expected” (98), and he felt arousal from their forced proximity. When Ava mentions Jules isn’t feeling well, Josh is disturbed by his concern for her. After lunch, Ava stays with Jules. Josh attempts to alleviate his and Alex’s tension by suggesting races down the advanced slopes. The men temporarily enjoy themselves.

Josh prods Ava about Jules’s condition, and she mentions Jules’s period cramps. When he enters their shared bedroom and sees Jules in pain, he wishes to help. He massages her abdomen, and she relaxes. Josh is both intrigued and unnerved by “seeing Jules so unguarded” (111). They share a moment of sexual tension that Josh interrupts by leaving to bring a warm compress. When he returns, she’s already asleep. He places the warm compress before showering, disturbed by his recent attraction to Jules. Josh reluctantly returns to the room and slips into bed beside her.

Jules wakes to Josh cuddling her. In her groggy state, she sinks into his embrace, “strong, solid, and comforting, like it could protect [her] from anything” (114). When she realizes she’s cuddling Josh, she screams and jumps from the bed. Though Jules scolds him, she still admires his shirtless body. She becomes self-conscious of her morning appearance under the heat of Josh’s gaze. The moment is broken when Ava knocks on the door to summon them for breakfast.

Josh and Alex ski while Jules and Ava relax at a spa. Jules is unable to fully relax, too unnerved by Josh’s behavior, as “there had to be a catch for why he’d been so nice” (118). At dinner, she banters with Josh until she receives a text from an unknown number. The text is from Max, asking to talk after seven years of silence, and she feels sick.

Jules avoids Max’s texts as she returns to work at LHAC following the ski trip. Josh visits the office, and Jules is bothered by her coworker, Ellie, flirting with him. She is also disgusted by her “butterflies, flutters, and skipped heartbeats” (124) at the sight of Josh in scrubs. Ellie convinces Josh, Jules, and another coworker, Marshall—who is in love with Ellie—to grab drinks after work. While there, they play Truth or Dare. When Josh dares Jules to kiss someone at the table for at least 30 seconds, she leans toward him before making out with Marshall. Ellie and Marshall head home, leaving Jules and Josh alone at the bar. Jules and Josh insult each other over Ellie and Marshall to brush off their own jealousy. However, they begin to flirt, each trying to bait the other into admitting their mutual attraction. Their flirting is interrupted by Todd, the man who stood up Jules in Chapter 1.

Josh hates the way Todd looks at Jules—at her chest instead of her face. Then Josh hates how much he cares and feels satisfaction when Jules rejects Todd’s advances. Josh questions Jules’s standards, which provokes defensiveness; she questions his own ability to pull women. They bet on who can gather the most phone numbers in the next hour. Jules impresses Josh with a cunning strategy that results in her victory.

On their walk home, Jules and Josh hide their mutual jealousy at the possibility of either one calling the numbers they received for their bet. Jules realizes Josh hasn’t been hooking up with women lately. Jules’s only long-term relationship was with Max, which turned out disastrous. The reminder of Max’s texts causes her to lose focus and wander into the street, prompting Josh to save her from an oncoming car. Josh walks her home, frustrated with her ability to laugh off near-death experiences. He calls her selfish for being reckless, and she does the same. Their fight ends in Josh yanking Jules into a kiss.

Jules is shocked but aroused as Josh “kissed the way [they] fought. Hard. Rough. Explosive” (148). They have sex while trading insults, neither willing to be vulnerable: The exchange is cathartic, “a purge of everything dark and ugly that’d festered over the years” (154).

Josh views his sex with Jules as “rawer, more primal” with “every shadow and jagged piece of [him], laid bare” (157). Days later, he craves more. However, he is plagued with guilt when a new letter from his father, Michael, arrives. With each letter, Josh’s self-control lessens: “it was only a matter of time before [he] opened one of [the] letters, and [he] hated [his] future self for it” (160). As a distraction, he proposes an enemies-with-benefits agreement with Jules. She agrees, under the condition that their arrangement is strictly physical (i.e., no sleeping over, getting jealous, and falling in love) and kept a secret.

A week has passed since Jules and Josh’s pact, and they’ve yet to have sex again. Jules blames the intensity of law school for killing her sex life. She’s out clubbing with Alex, Ava, and Stella in celebration of her and Stella’s official move into their apartment at the Mirage when Josh texts for a hookup. She reschedules for tomorrow. She’s pulled from their text exchange by Max calling her name over the music.