Chapter 8
EIGHT
“That was seriously weird,” Nally said breathlessly, glancing over his shoulder and out the rear window into the London night. “I haven’t thought about Quentin in days. There’ve been too many other things on my mind.”
“Yeah,” Jude said, forcing himself to breathe and act normally. “He’s not a member of The Brotherhood, is he?”
Nally adjusted the way he was sitting to stare straight forward. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“That guy?” Clinton, the driver, asked. “He’s been hanging out in front of the club for about half an hour.”
“Why would he stick around for half an hour?” Nally asked. “Are we sure he wasn’t just passing by?”
Clinton shook his head and looked at them in the rear-view mirror. “He asked one of the other drivers if you were inside. Said something about seeing a post on social media?”
Jude swallowed hard. “I might have posted some of the pics I took of us picking out costumes on your socials.”
This was his fault. He knew Quentin was a little obsessed. But what could he do about it? Someone like Nally, whose star was rising, couldn’t just shut down all their socials because of one overeager fan.
“At least it’s over with,” Nally said, flopping back in his seat and rubbing his hands over his face.
“I don’t know,” Jude started.
Before he could go on to share what he knew and offer some suggestions of how they should proceed, Nally rushed on with, “This has been such a weird night. I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore.
It’s like my entire life is spinning out of control right now and I just want everything to stop and be still. ”
Jude pressed his mouth shut, dying on the inside.
What was he supposed to do? Nally needed to know what was going on with his public persona.
He didn’t even know he had one. Jude had built it without really telling Nally anything about it.
But that was his job, wasn’t it? It was his responsibility to manage Nally’s career and his publicity.
They hadn’t agreed on anything formally or signed anything, but Jude felt seriously responsible.
He felt responsible for Nally as if Nally were a part of him. Right now, Nally was upset and stressed out. Telling him a stalker was after him wasn’t going to help anything.
“Clinton, can you just drop me at Victoria Station?” Nally asked, landing another blow hard on Jude’s already flagging spirits. “Seriously, right now all I want to do is go home.”
“Dressed like that?” Jude said with a forced smirk. He hated the feeling that Nally was leaving him because he’d done something wrong.
Nally turned his head and grinned at Jude with exhaustion. “I’ll return the costume to The Chameleon Club tomorrow and pick up my clothes then.” He must have seen the stricken look on Jude’s face, because he reached for Jude’s hand, held it softly, and said, “It’s not you, it’s me.”
An electric chill shot down Jude’s spine. Those were break-up words. Nally was breaking things off with him before there was anything to break off.
Not that he wanted things to begin with. Nally was his bestie, his mate, not his…he couldn’t even make himself think the words.
“Yeah, I get it,” Jude said, answering his friend’s tired smile with one of his own. “Once we drop you, I’ll probably just go home and sleep until next week myself.”
Nally laughed, his eyes drooping with exhaustion despite the intensity hiding there. “It’s too much,” he said vaguely. “All of this is just way too much for me to deal with right now.”
Those words pierced deep into Jude’s heart.
He had to protect Nally at all costs. The premiere and everything after was becoming as much a burden as a springboard to take Nally’s career to the next level.
If he was a good manager, a good agent, a good friend, Jude had to do absolutely everything on God’s green earth to make Nally’s life easier.
That meant keeping his lips zipped about Quentin.
They reached the drop-off area in front of Victoria Station and Nally straightened and let go of Jude’s hand.
“You’d let me know, wouldn’t you?” Jude blurted before he could think better of it. “If something was wrong? Like, with us?”
Something close to panic flashed through Nally’s eyes.
He put his hand on the door handle like he wanted to bolt from the car.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said a little too quietly, eyes slightly lowered.
A second later, he lifted his head and stared dead at Jude.
“You’d let me know, too, right? If something was wrong? With us?”
Jude swallowed. Nally suspected something.
“Of course I would. Everything’s fine.”
Absolutely nothing at all was fine. In the space of a couple weeks, both of their lives had taken a massive turn that might just have them on entirely different paths for the first time in their lives.
“I’ll see you later, then,” Nally said with a tight smile, then got out of the car.
Jude waved to him as he shut the door, then held up his phone as a signal that Nally should text him once he made it home to let him know he was safe.
As Clinton pulled away from the station, Jude flopped back in his seat and buried his face in his hands.
“You two have got it bad,” Clinton laughed.
Jude dropped his hands and glared at him. “Nally is my best friend.”
“Uh-huh,” Clinton said, then continued chuckling and shaking his head.
“There isn’t anything more to it than that, I swear,” Jude sighed, closing his eyes and wishing it were true.
That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? He and Nally were more than just friends. They couldn’t keep dodging the truth, no matter how scary it was.
True to his word, as soon as Jude got home, after Nally’s “I made it home” text came through, he went straight to bed…
where he lay all night, staring up at the ceiling, feeling like the whole thing might fall down on him.
He cared about Nally and didn’t want some crazy stalker hurting him.
That was all. That was what a friend did when another friend had a problem, especially when the one friend had created the problem and was hiding it from the other.
No, Jude hadn’t created the problem. Quentin was just some guy with an unhealthy obsession. Jude couldn’t bring himself to make Nally’s anxiety worse by telling him everything, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t handle the problem himself.
He didn’t wait until morning. In the middle of the night, he got up to check Nally’s socials, and sure enough, there was a DM from Quentin. More than one.
“Why did you run away from me at the club? You know we’re destined to be together.”
“I tried to get in earlier so we could be together, but the bastard at the door said I wasn’t a member and couldn’t come in.”
Thank God for The Chameleon Club. If worse came to worst, Nally would be safe there. Jude made a note to message the club’s manager to tell him all about the situation with Quentin.
There were more messages.
“I keep dreaming of the day we’ll be together without anyone else bothering us. I’ll treat you so good!”
“I turn on your music when I’m wanking and it’s like the two of us are together.”
That one had the hair standing up on the back of Jude’s neck. He couldn’t let things go on like that anymore.
“Quentin, this has to stop. You don’t really know me. It ends here.”
He felt a little bad speaking on Nally’s behalf, but if he could get rid of Quentin without Nally ever finding out how weird the situation was, he would be protecting his friend.
“Please stop contacting me. If you don’t, I’ll have to get the police involved.”
As soon as he sent that message, Jude closed the app and nearly threw his phone on his bedside table. If he was smart, he would go to the police right now and report Quentin. But what would they do? Tell Nally to get off social media and lay low for a while? Right when his career was taking off?
That couldn’t happen. Jude was convinced he had to handle everything on his own. He could do it. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He knew more about social media than most people out there. And unlike the police, he cared about Nally. He really cared about Nally.
That didn’t make the next few days any easier, though.
With only an hour or so of fretful sleep, Jude got up bright and early, showered, dressed, and slapped on a metric ton of make-up, then got to work making a few silly, frothy videos that he scheduled to post across his socials for the next few days.
When that was done, he checked Nally’s socials. Quentin had sent a reply to his middle of the night messages, saying he couldn’t accept no for an answer, not when fate had brought them together.
Jude didn’t reply.
If all that guilt and fear wasn’t bad enough, Nally didn’t contact him at all throughout the day. Not a single call or text, nothing. That hadn’t happened in months.
Finally, after an entire day spent wandering from one part of his parents’ house to the other and going out to ride his scooter around London with no particular destination in mind, after a supper that he only picked at, as he lay restlessly in bed, Jude finally sent a text.
Is everything alright? You’ve been quiet today.
Blessedly, three dots appeared almost right away, followed by a message.
Today was mad. Dad’s been trying to work out the fall class schedule for the arts center. Looks like I’ll only be able to teach one composition class, if that. Plus, I had to go grocery shopping.
Jude let out a breath of relief, but it was short lived.
I kind of just felt like turtling up today, you know? Hiding in my own shell? Everything is a lot lately.
I don’t even know who I am anymore.
That last message sent Jude into a panic. He tapped to start a video call by reflex alone.
Nally answered almost right away. He was lying in bed and looked completely wrung out. “Hey.”
“Shit, you do look like you’ve had a day,” Jude said, relaxing back into his pillows.
“So do you,” Nally said with a frown. “I thought you said nothing was wrong.”