Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Jess
J ude Rawlins may have claimed not to be smooth, but he was also not a liar.
The irony there being that I’d thought of him as a liar for years and years—so many wasted years.
And now?
My skin flushed hot as I thought of the earnest way he’d said it. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.
Good grief. That couldn’t be true.
And yet, hadn’t I been chastising myself for not taking the man at his word? Everything he’d said to me thus far had been true.
I rarely slept well these days, but going to bed with his words floating around in my head set me up for a long night. By the time I’d showered and dressed for the day and, oddly, my first date with a man I’d known for more than a decade and had long thought my nemesis, I’d over-analyzed just about everything.
The alternating sensations of genuine excitement to see Jude and sit down together for dedicated time when we weren’t trying to be discreet or work out an argument paired with the total brain bust of this gear shift in our relationship had me dry-mouth-level nervous as I parked at the Saint building and walked across the street.
Beast—Jude—already sat in a booth facing the door, but I’d felt his eyes on me from the moment I stepped out of my car. Diner’s mountain-facing front windows also had a perfect view into the Saint security lot.
I did not fidget. I did not lick my lips more than once or covertly sniff myself to confirm I was wearing deodorant. I was. Put it on twice for good measure because no one wants to be sweating all day and especially not in a suit. I didn’t touch my hair that I normally would’ve worn down for a date but had twisted into a low bun since work would come swiftly on the heels of this little rendezvous, and I resisted the urge to check my teeth in my phone.
So, I was really nailing the calm, collected woman act. I probably even looked like I knew what I was doing as I entered the door and the little bell chimed to alert the entire diner.
Could there be a store that didn’t have a little bell on the door in this town?
“Oh my gosh, hi, friend,” Catherine said, beelining to me after slipping her very full tray of food onto the counter.
“Hey,” I said, fully registering how busy the place was.
My eyes slid toward Jude, where he sat with a steaming mug of coffee and dark eyes shamelessly on me.
“Are you by yourself, or meeting that group?” She notched her head to the side toward the circular booth where a slightly bedraggled crew of Bruce, Kenny, Jack McKean, Eddie James, Cookie, and some other man I didn’t recognize sat.
Oh. Right. So our little breakfast date was not about to be discreet thanks to the early morning crew here. I should’ve considered this since Diner was right across the parking lot from Saint Security and several of these people had an undying love for breakfast food.
They all looked completely cozy, if tired. And they were all already dressed for the day. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought they’d been up all night, but there was no way Bruce would opt in to work overnight if he could help it, nor would Eddie want to be away from her man.
“No, I’m, um… here with Beast.” My gaze flickered back to the man who had evidently not moved a muscle.
Catherine’s brows rose subtly. “Oh. Great.”
Her enthusiasm sat behind a tactful wall, but I could see her eyes light up. She had lovely, expressive eyes and girl wasn’t fooling anyone. I hadn’t told everyone we’d kissed, but they all knew something was up.
And because a month ago, me sitting down with Jude Rawlins would’ve been a sign of the apocalypse, I wasn’t exactly keeping this a secret.
“So I’ll just go sit…” I said, feeling squirmy that not only Catherine but a decent handful of my work colleagues would see me take the seat. Cool. Nothing like a very judgy, gossipy audience to frame a first date.
Sliding into the booth, I gave the bear of a man across from me a wide-eyed look.
His lips twitched. “Yeah. Maybe not my best call.”
I stifled a smile. “Too late now.”
He held up his mug right as Catherine set one down next to me, so I raised mine to meet his .
“To imperfection.”
My stomach flipped. You’re just hungry. It’s fine.
“To imperfection,” I echoed, my throat a little tight with an emotion I wouldn’t focus on right now.
“Do you guys need menus?” Catherine held a bunch in her hands with an expectant smile.
“I’m good. You?”
I smiled up at my friend. “I can do it. I’ll take the farmer’s omelet with whole wheat, extra butter.”
Catherine grinned and turned to Beast.
“I’ll take the southwestern omelet with bacon and whole wheat, no butter. Orange juice and a silver dollar stack.”
“That’ll be right up.” She lingered for a sec, her smile quiet but a little more obvious than the one she gave the average customers, I’d guess.
When she spun around and bustled to another table just sitting down, I took another sip of my coffee.
He did the same.
Silent, drinking coffee, and perhaps most notably, not arguing.
“Extra butter on your toast, huh?”
His usual cocky jerk tone made my hackles rise, though it felt a little different this time.
“Dry toast for you? That tracks.”
His brows dropped low. “How so?”
“I mean it’s just more evidence of your moral deficiencies.”
Those same dark slashes over his eyes rose high. “Oh, yeah?”
I nodded, a regretful smirk on my lips. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure dry toast is one of the most common markers of being a serial killer. ”
A laugh tripped out of him, and my chest warmed.
“Is it now? So all we need to do in order to predict a person’s likelihood of becoming a serial killer is check their breakfast order?”
I shrugged. “I mean, I’m not saying we shouldn’t. ”
He shook his head, and I reveled in the way he pressed his lips together. I wanted to see him smile full out like I had with his friends… but I wanted it directed at me.
I’d also take his lips on me again. I wonder if he ever smiled in those quiet, intimate moments. If he was the kind of man who?—
Whoa there. First date. Simmer down.
“I got dry toast out of habit.” The smile at his eyes faded. “I used to give it to my grandma. She liked jelly only. I eat the pancakes. Guess I can just sub for pancakes now, though.”
My hand shot out and grasped his large one where it rested near his mug. His now didn’t mean because he was here with me… it meant now that she was gone, and it sent a horrible crushing ache into my chest.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. Tease him about something sensitive? Remind him of what he’s lost?
“You couldn’t have known. And…” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a way that made my chest tight, and his hand flipped up to press our palms together. “It’s just the way it goes, I’m finding. Even here, with you, on a good day, it hits without warning.”
“Has Kenny ever shared his car accident analogy with you?” I asked, eyes flicking to the table where the man in question was gesticulating wildly as he told a story to the captivated table .
Hand tightening around mine a little, Jude nodded. “Yes, but I’d hear your version of it.”
This pleased me more than it should’ve. I squeezed his hand back, then released him, because Catherine had circled back to top off our mugs.
“Food’s almost out,” she said, winking at us as she moved away.
I smiled after her, then focused back on the person sitting across from me who hadn’t removed his attention from me.
“So as you know, Kenny likens grief to a car accident. Could be a fender bender, could be a forty-car pile-up with every car in the line totaled.”
He nodded.
“I heard him talking to Cookie in the spring about when his grandma passed, and he said something like, ‘this is the side swipe phase. Feels like it comes out of nowhere, but when you walk away, the car’s still dented. You can’t forget it, and it’s changed the shape of you, and you might not bother to get it fixed right away.’” I cupped my hands around my mug, seeking the warmth saturating the ceramic and wishing it was his skin instead. “It’s not a perfect metaphor, for sure, but I think putting a name to things, or giving ourselves an image like that to work with can really help.”
He nodded again. “It can.” He stared at the swirling black of his coffee for a moment before saying, “It wasn’t a surprise, you know? In a lot of ways, I’ve been grieving her since we got here, but definitely since?—”
His gaze met mine the instant I made the connection.
“ That’s why you couldn’t leave last winter?”
His head dropped a touch. “Yeah. Believe it or not, it wasn’t me trying to be an asshole just to piss you off.”
I cringed and covered my face. “I’m so sorry.”
I’d been so furious with him, feeling like he’d finagled the scenario where I left town for months on an overseas assignment when it should’ve been him. Bruce and Wilder had said things about Beast being on a no-travel agreement, but it’d never clicked until right now.
“I’m so sorry.” Emotion welled up in me so suddenly, I had to clear my throat. No crying on first dates, fun girl!
Jude plucked my hand off the table and tugged it, demanding my attention.
“Hey. No. At some point, we’re going to deal with all that more, but for now, let’s just… not sink down into it. Let’s not fault ourselves for things we’ve done when we didn’t have all the information.”
I scoffed. “So I’m off the hook for acting like a shrew when I could’ve been a compassionate human being?”
His gaze narrowed and his baseball glove of a hand wrapped around my wrist. “No, Jess. It’s not a carte blanche for either of us. But it is grace for our mistakes. And it is…” His gaze flicked around the room before settling back on me. “It’s something new going forward.”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss over the knuckle of my thumb before releasing my hand, and seconds later, our food arrived.
Grace.
Something new.
I liked the sound of that.