chapter 24 #2
I couldn’t possibly fake how my body responds to his. The way I clenched around his fingers. The way I drenched his hand.
“What about last night?” he continues, lowering his voice and leaning his forehead closer to mine, but not close enough to meet. “You didn’t taste like pretend on my tongue.” He pauses a beat. “In fact, you tasted better than anything I’ve ever tasted before.”
My cheeks feel like they are sunburned as he stares at my mouth.
“Jude,” I whisper. “What are we doing? I’m not your type, and you aren’t mine.”
The second I say the words, I know I’m wrong. He could be everything to me.
“I’m not?” He abruptly stands taller, a deep line forming between his brows. He suddenly looks wounded, like I’ve pierced his heart or ripped it out of his chest. He even covers his left pec and rubs over it a second before asking, “What makes me not good enough for you?”
My eyes go wide. That’s not what I’m saying. “I never said you aren’t good enough. You’re plenty good.”
He’s trying so hard to complete the assignment I gave him. The list. He donated a crazy amount of money to A Snowball’s Chance and gave of his time last weekend at the breakfast. He’s different. I can see it now.
“But not good enough,” he counters, his voice like acid. “You want me to be better.”
I don’t want anything from him. I want him to want to be better for himself. Less extravagance and more joy. Less loneliness and more love.
“Yeah, I get it,” he states, though he clearly doesn’t because I’m not explaining myself well.
He takes a giant step back, putting more space between us, and bumps into the edge of the table.
“Everything is always pretend. Never as it seems. Just like Santa Claus, it’s all a lie.” His voice rises.
I gasp at the same time I hear, “Santa isn’t real?”
With shock, Jude and I both turn our heads toward my youngest nephew, who is standing in the kitchen archway in winter pajamas and with wet hair. Crap.
“Devin, what are you doing down here?” I rush to pick him up, pressing a kiss to his temple, catching a sharp whiff of baby shampoo on him, while I glance at Jude.
He closes his eyes, the expression on his face reading, Fuck!
“He just said Santa was a lie.” Devin’s little voice trembles.
“He said Santa likes pie,” I try to deflect.
“Mommy says lying is bad,” he replies, fixated as young children can be.
Shit, shit, shit. My sister is going to kill me for this one, but I can’t take my eyes off Jude, who looks devastated, and I can’t decide if it’s from our discussion or the sudden crush of a child’s beliefs.
“I’m sorry,” Jude mumbles, eventually opening his eyes, which are back to their icicle gaze. I don’t like that I’m the reason for the sudden, distant coldness in his eyes when they were starting to thaw over the past few days, growing warmer, like puddles of hope.
He brushes past me, and I spin toward the dining room as he rips a container of cookies with his name written on it like he is part of the family off the table.
“Jude. Wait,” I call after him, but he doesn’t turn around.
“Maggie,” he states aloofly, addressing Gran, who stands at the opposite end of the dining room as he passes her.
“Christmas,” I hear him say next, knowing my sister must be near the open living room door, seeking her escape-artist child.
“The day has been a pleasure,” he states, sounding like a robot, reminding me how he suddenly shut down the day we’d been shopping.
When moments of fun collided with a hasty exit.
Like the exit he’s making right now.
“What the hell happened?” Aunt Gertie’s voice startles me, and I spin to find her standing in the back exit. The space leads out of Gran’s kitchen to a set of enclosed stairs, like a fire escape. Every apartment building in Chicago has two entrances and exits for fire safety.
I cling to Devin for another second until Christmas enters the dining room.
“Devin,” she groans.
The boy lunges toward his mother, who holds out her hands for him.
“That man said Santa is a lie.” His tiny voice quivers as he lays his head on Christmas’s shoulder.
Christmas glares at me. “What man?”
“Mr. Jude”
What the fuck? Christmas mouths at me over the shoulder of her sleepy boy’s head.
“He didn’t say Santa was a lie.” I try to reroute while smoothing my hand down my nephew’s little back. “He said Santa likes pie.”
I’m a terrible liar.
Christmas raises her brows, her expression once again saying, what the fuck?
I mouth, I’m sorry. I don’t think quickly on my feet, especially when I’m tired from standing on them all day. My back aches. Who knew making Christmas cookies could have such an effect?
Gran stands behind Christmas. “You know Santa doesn’t come to little boys who aren’t in bed when they are supposed to be.” Her intention to distract Devin works as he lifts his head, glancing at his great-grandmother with wild eyes, before he cups his mother’s cheeks.
“Mama, I need to get to bed. Quick, quick.” He wiggles in Christmas’s arm, like he isn’t the least bit tired.
“Alright, alright,” she says excitedly, playing along with her son’s sudden urge to race to bed.
Before she departs, she spares me one final glance. One that says, we’ll talk about this later. Like she’s my mother as well.
As they exit the dining room, Gertie speaks. “Think Santa will make me come if I go to bed when I’m supposed to?”
“Gertrude!” Gran turns on her sister.
I spin to face my great-aunt, who is lifting a bottle of wine to her lips and wiggling her brows. She takes a quick sip right out of the container.
“You’ve raised a bunch of horn dogs, Maggie,” she counters to her sister. “I deserve some fun as well.”
“Horn dogs?” I snort.
“I have proof,” she teases, lifting her phone with her other hand. Holding her screen face out is an image of me against the fridge with Jude in front of me. His hand is at my throat.
“Aunt Gertie,” I bark.
“Gertrude Marie, what did I tell you about taking photos of people?” Gran admonishes her sister.
“You said I could not take photos of random people.” After Gertie figured out the camera on her phone, she’d snap pictures of good-looking men walking down the street or in a restaurant, like most tourists take photos of the scenery.
While she tried to play innocent old lady if men caught her, one time a man didn’t take too kindly to his image being captured without his permission, and Gran had to explain to Gertie, for the tenth time, it wasn’t legal to photograph someone without their consent.
“And this is family.” She jiggles the phone in her hand, like taking our photos without permission does not fall into the no-consent category. We might complain, but we aren’t going to file a lawsuit against her. Or so she thinks.
I snatch the phone from her, prepared to delete the image. But first, I pause to stare at it. Gertie’s angle is surprisingly good. While Jude blocks me for the most part, you still see a sliver of my face in reaction to his question.
Does this feel fake?
I’m staring up at him. My eyes are wide. My cheeks rosy. I look . . . turned on. Whenever he does that throat thing, I strangely am, and I don’t recognize my reaction.
I also don’t recognize me in this image. The way I’m looking at him. I wish Gertie had caught his face, so I had a second glance at Jude. A redo, for a second impression. Because somehow, I’ve misjudged Jude. I’ve hurt him.
He looked so wounded when he claimed I didn’t think he was good enough. Then he shut down. His expression grew hard, and his eyes closed off, like a red alert for a blizzard warning. He froze me out.
His Santa-is-a-lie comment was not intended for little ears. How many times have we, as adults in my family, had to double-check ourselves when talking about the white-bearded man around any of the kids? I don’t believe Jude is so cruel he’d ruin Christmas for children.
I brush my thumb over the image once, then seek the trash can icon to delete it from Gertie’s phone.
Without a word, I hand the phone back to her. My aged aunt stares at me.
“Keep up on that protective skin.” Her voice turns harder than her typically teasing tone. She winks. “You don’t want wrinkles.”
By wrinkles, she means a lapse in judgment. Falling in love again.
I love my aunt. She’s flirty and fun, and gives no fucks, but her reckless behavior hides a deeply scarred woman. One still aching from a decades-old betrayal.
Which I completely understand.
I’ve also worked hard to guard myself against it ever happening again. I don’t have one-night stands or chase men or take random photos of ones I ogle. I don’t drink straight from the bottle of wine or cry late at night. Been there, done that.
Most of all, I don’t want to harbor bitterness in my gut like she has. Her heart was shattered once upon a time. Mine, too. The difference is, I patched mine back together. I still choose love over everything else. I want to love again.
I’m just pickier this time.
“Are you ready to discuss why you didn’t mention you have a boyfriend?” Gran says, stepping up to my side.
“I don’t have—” I freeze at the hopeful expression on Gran’s face.
Unlike her sister, Gran experienced the love of a lifetime until Gramps passed a few years ago.
She has always believed in second chances at love, and she’s held her breath with every date I’ve been on in the last decade, hopeful that love has found me again. Or rather, that I’ve found it.
When I consider her question, it also gives me pause. While Jude might not be my boyfriend, something is happening between us. Maybe it isn’t as formal as relationship labels. Maybe we are just building a friendship. One that might include some benefits.
Only I don’t do friends-with-benefits, so I’m confused.
Does it feel like pretend to you? His finger stroking along my neck is turning into my new favorite move. His eyes were the thing that caught me off guard. They didn’t look like ice caps as much as clear pools, allowing me to see inside him, but I hadn’t looked hard enough.
I didn’t know how to pretend to touch someone, but I worried Jude did. All those broken-hearted girls in high school. The ones he so easily discarded. I even think of Sabrina, and how he so casually said he didn’t care about her anymore.
Hadn’t that been my experience? People fall in love and then stumble out of it.
I promised myself I’d never project my fears on another person. I had a protective skin, sure, like Gertie called the necessary shield to her heart. But I’ve been wanting to shed that layer for a long time. Too long.
Noticing Gran is still staring at me, waiting for some kind of explanation, I clear my throat.
“We’re still new. No formal declarations or labels yet,” I offer, along with a tight smile. One I’m certain Gran can see right through, but she doesn’t press.
“Declarations?” Gertie snorts, pulling the bottle from her lips like she’d just taken another drink. “Write your own declaration.” Her voice sobers while deepening to poorly imitate a masculine tone.
“I do solemnly swear that I can take care of myself and provide my own orgasms— Hey!”
Gertie cries out as Gran swipes the bottle of wine from her hands. “I think that’s enough of that.”
Then to both our surprise, Gran takes a drink directly from the bottle.
“Gran.” I chuckle.
“Thatta girl,” Gertie encourages.
“Yes, well, this girl has a kitchen to tackle.”
Her comment pulls me back to the current state of the other room. Disaster.
“I’ll help clean up,” I offer, holding back a heavy sigh when I recall the mess. When I make chocolates in my apartment, I clean as I go. Gran has always been the opposite, saying not to fuss.
Cleaning the kitchen while baking is like shoveling snow during a blizzard, she’d say.
As I step toward the kitchen, Gran lays her hand on my forearm. “Sweetie, go home.”
“I can help.”
She’s already shaking her head. “You worked tirelessly today, and I appreciate you.”
I chuckle as Gran has picked up the modern phrase for praise.
“Now,” Gran continues. “I just want some quiet.” Without mentioning it, her statement implies having great-grandkids is wonderful, in theory. In practice, the mayhem is a lot.
“Cleaning the kitchen won’t take me long.”
When Gran has something on her mind, she says, it’s nothing cleaning a dish won’t solve. The expression was her way of explaining how handwashing dishes cleared her thoughts.
In this case, I worry about what might be on Gran’s mind.
“Let me help,” I say again. “Many hands work faster, or something like that.” I wasn’t as good as Gran with wisdom off the cuff.
“And too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil a pie. Or cookies.” She glances at the multiple plastic containers of cookies covering her dining room table.
“At least let me put these in the freezer.” Gran has an upright freezer down in the laundry room, and she will save most of her cookie collection for distribution to friends.
“I’ll do it tomorrow.” She pats my arm, punctuating her request. She wants me to let it go.
“If you’re sure?” I hesitate, taking another peek toward the kitchen where I can see the mess splayed out on the kitchen table from where I stand.
Gran raises the bottle of wine in her hand a little higher. “I’m sure. Plus, I have Gertie to help me.”
“Me? I was hoping if I went to bed, Santa might visit me early.” She wiggles her brows.
In so many ways, I wish I was like my great aunt with her carefree attitude and the ease with which she lets things roll off her tongue.
Still, I recognize the coverup, and I don’t ever want to appear as broken as I know she is.
I also don’t want to break someone else, which has my thoughts returning to Jude.
As much as Gran wants me to go home, I have a stop to make before I do.