Chapter 5
5
[Genie]
H is fiancée . Just what the eff-ity is happening here?
Before a moment to process that Judd went rogue passes, my mother crosses her arms, hitches her hip, and glares between Judd and me. Her processed-blonde coif doesn’t move despite the rapid movement of her head.
“ Real -ly?” My mother draws out the word then pauses for emphasis. “Where’s the ring?”
Instantly, I fist my left hand, debating about wrapping my arm around Judd’s back in order to hide my naked finger.
Here’s the thing; I’m allergic to marriage and standing in front of me is the reason why. My mother is on her fourth husband.
And despite the strange burst of energy between Judd and I, that snap-crackle-pop! sensation I felt last week at his fight, I do not want to marry him. He’s lucky we’re even cordially speaking at the moment.
Plus, he just broke up with his girlfriend, less than four hours ago.
“Could you excuse us a second?” I grip Judd’s suit coat sleeve just above his elbow.
The moment I saw him across the room, my lungs constricted. Judd in a flannel shirt earlier was one thing. Judd out of it with that tight-fitting tank and those colorful arms another. But Judd in a royal blue, custom-made suit that matches is eyes is almost lethal. The material is silky and smooth beneath my grip as I tug him toward a door a few steps from the corner we’d been standing in that leads us outside.
The yard is packed with people for the garden party, admiring my mother’s pre-summer collection of greenery and the potential for future flowers.
Needing more privacy, I drag Judd around to the side of the house into a shaded area which hides us better from the garden viewers.
Glancing up at him, I snap. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I—” Judd swipes his hand through his thick mass of hair and blinks down at me. “I’m sorry. I panicked.”
“Well, panic elsewhere.” Looking at his stricken face, I sigh and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m panicked. My mother is going to have a million more questions, especially if you can’t magically produce a ring.”
“Actually . . .” Judd digs under the collar of the white dress shirt he wears beneath his suit jacket and brings forward a silver chain with two rings dangling from it. Removing the linked chain from his head, he works at the clasp and removes the daintier of the two rings.
Between his pinched fingers he holds out a sliver of a gold band with a small amethyst stone and two diamonds on either side of the gem. It’s pretty and sweet. A bit antiquated and . . .
“Are you fucking serious?”
Judd and I both turn at the sharp loudness of Heather’s voice. In a slinky yellow dress that hugs her curves and slithers down her body like a drizzle of soft serve ice cream, Heather Remington is a vision of brightness. Her boobs almost pop out the top of her strapless contraption and her blond hair even matches her dress.
“You have got to be joking.” She glares at the ring Judd is holding before narrowing in on me.
“And you.” She jabs her finger in my direction.
Judd shifts, partially blocking me from Heather’s menacing glare. The move is protective and endearing but unnecessary. I’ve been dealing with Heather Remington my entire life.
Heather steps closer to Judd, getting right up in his face. He turns his head, giving her his cheek, like a noble man. He’s preparing for her to strike him, and I swallow at the realization he’ll take it.
Instead, Heather attempts to push Judd out of her way and aims at me with a raised palm.
Judd body blocks her, keeping his hands out and upright, the ring still pinched between his fingers. Her chest bumps his.
“Heather,” he warns. “Attempt to touch her and you’ll be sorry.”
Heather instantly snaps her attention back to Judd, narrowing those icy eyes to shard-like slits. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m stating a fact,” he warns, his voice calm but from my view of the set of his shoulders and the stiffness of his back, Judd isn’t letting Heather get anywhere near me.
Hoping to defuse the intensity of their staring-contest, I curl my hand around Judd’s bicep.
Heather’s head whips to her left. “Is that it?” She glares at the ring in Judd’s pinched fingers as if it offends her.
My lack-of-filtering cannot be stopped. “I think it’s precious.”
“Precious?” Heather reiterates like Golem within his dark cave. Spittle might even release from her disgust. “It’s pathetic.”
“It was my mother’s.” Judd’s voice grows bolder, louder, almost menacing. Almost .
Shock strikes me. Why on earth would Judd give me something so special to him?
Heather’s gaze leaps back to Judd’s face. “You’re pathetic, Judd Sylver.”
Spittle actually leaves her mouth but does not quite make it to Judd’s chin, if that was her intention. Instinct tells me to step around Judd. Wedge myself between him and her, but then Heather turns on her spiky high heels that are not conducive for the uneven flagstone and she wobbles toward the back yard.
“Are you okay?” I ask, still standing behind Judd. He hangs his head a second before turning around.
“Yeah.”
We silently stare at one another a second. The snap-crackle between us is missing the pop , but the fizzy energy slowly rebuilds.
He said I was his fiancée. He has a ring.
“You should have just told her it wasn’t what it looked like.”
Judd continues to watch me. “Maybe I want it to look like what it looked like.”
“You want Heather to think you got engaged to someone else on the same day you broke up with her.”
Judd lowers his head. “Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so great.”
“What way would you put it?”
Judd hesitantly lifts his head while holding up the ring between us and dropping his gaze to it. “I was going to ask you to wear my mother’s ring.”
“I don’t know, Judd.” This isn’t a symbol of his love or a sign of future commitment. This would only be as a means of getting out of something complicated. A complete misunderstanding. For a minute, I picture Heather running to my mother like the little tattletale she once was, and the look of disappointment on my mother’s face that I’ve somehow hurt poor Heather’s feelings.
God forgive me, but for once, a little ding toward Heather would feel good.
Most of all, though, I’m not certain I’d feel right wearing Judd’s mother’s ring.
“It’s only for show. For now.” Judd’s voice sounds a little trembly, almost panicked again, like he’s trying to convince me this isn’t for something other than getting out of a messy situation. Not for something real. But then, Judd gently takes my left hand and lifts it between us. “Genie Webster, what do you think? Check yes or no.”
Funny, that’s how I’d communicated with Judd when we were kids. On lined paper with unicorns. My thoughts flash to the tattoo on his bicep. The one familiar and . . . It can’t be, can it?
One thought bulldozes the next and I realize Judd isn’t really asking me anything. He isn’t proposing. He’s simply offering me this ring. His mother’s special ring.
And while I’d be saving face in front of my mother, I’m terrified of losing something that holds so much importance to Judd. Then again, I can always give the ring back to him later, right?
Because Judd is positioning the ring at the tip of my third finger and then I’m watching as it slides down to the notch, settling against the webbing at the base of my finger. I spread all my fingers wide, then pull them back together.
The band is delicate. The stone a pretty shade of purple. The diamonds only pinpricks, but sweet.
The ring feels strangely right on my finger. Too right. I should return it to him immediately. I should demand he take it back.
Instead, I curl my fingers, forming a fist. Just one more minute . I’ll give it back after sixty seconds. Just let me marvel at how good this looks. How nice it feels.
Hesitantly, I glance up at Judd, who is also staring down at the ring.
“Now you officially look like my fiancée.”
Am I? Why am I not contradicting him? Why can’t I negate this strange rumbling in my gut and stop the thumping of my heart?
“Want to get out of here?” Judd asks.
It’s the first sane thing that’s been said in the past twenty minutes, and I do want to leave. I want to shed this dress and skip this party and disappear from my mother’s house despite having just gotten here.
But I don’t want to give the ring back yet, which feels all kinds of wrong.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Then my hand is clasped in Judd’s larger one, and he’s leading me the rest of the way around the side of the house.