Chapter 3
chapter three
Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: ascend
It shouldn't have surprised me when Jude raked an impatient glare from my shoes up to the hair I wore loose around my shoulders, and the first words from him in years landed like a kill shot.
"Your mother must be pleased."
The unfortunate truth was that my mother was pleased. She was the one who'd cornered me into this gig and she'd added to my servitude by setting me up on a lunch date for tomorrow. This made my response of "Don't get carried away with the assumptions," all the more brittle.
Jude's answering laugh was a dry, rueful sound that sliced into my skin like a paper cut. "I'll see what I can do, Saunders."
Another true thing about me was that I was a thoroughbred good girl.
Good daughter, good student, good dancer, good friend, good person.
I was kind and thoughtful and generous. Quiet and attentive, as all the best people-pleasing doormats were.
I wasn't snappy or sarcastic, and I never argued or sparred with anyone.
Unless Jude Bellessi was around.
It was like a switch flipped inside me when he was within shouting range and I transformed into a blowtorch of a woman. Gone was the constant itch to put everyone at ease, even at the cost of my own comfort. Not only did I invite myself to confrontations with him, I started them.
It was like stepping into someone else's skin—and I'd never made peace with the fact that it fit so much better than my own.
Jude went on studying me, his gaze catching on the damp spot from my earlier run-in with the wine. Introducing red wine to a navy dress was no tragedy but the slight shake of his head made it seem like a moral failing.
He could stare all he wanted. Pin me like a rare yet ultimately unimpressive butterfly. I could take it. I'd endured far worse than some unpleasant moments and hard glaring. And honestly, I wanted this. I wanted him to take all the hurt I'd handed him and throw it right back at me.
For once, I wanted to feel something real, even if it was awful.
Just as long as we maintained a polite distance from each other, because that blowtorch situation of mine?
There was no controlling it when we were close.
I burned through all my safety nets and guardrails, and my mind kicked and skipped, never stopping to analyze every thought or rehearse every word.
I folded my arms over my chest and spent a full minute fighting to keep my emotions from using my face like a billboard as I waited for…
I didn't know. An explanation of whatever it was that'd brought him here tonight.
He responded to my obvious struggle with a tolerant smile that was the equivalent of a pat on the head.
I didn't know what it was called when you knew you owed someone a minimum of seventeen specific apologies and probably needed to throw yourself off the side of a mountain but also wanted to violently remind them how little you enjoyed being patronized.
Whatever that was called, it was my current state of being.
Sincerely apologetic but also not so sincere that I couldn't scratch his beautiful face off.
Through the veil of my bloodlust, I couldn't help but notice the years had treated him well.
As if time would have the audacity to give him anything else.
He'd never had an awkward stage, which was criminally unfair since my entire life was a series of overlapping awkward stages.
But that wasn't Jude. He'd started high school with a full, almost-black beard and the kind of biceps that would've had him under suspicion of steroid use if he'd bothered with sports.
He passed for twenty-something by the time he was sixteen, no fake IDs needed, and now—now he looked the same as always but better.
He was built like an old Gothic cathedral. Ridiculously tall, broad beyond reason, and too damn pretty for his own good.
He'd settled into himself in the years that'd passed.
His dark hair was still thick, a rogue wave running through the strands and snatching back any hint of pretty boy perfection.
He was sun-kissed as always and his espresso eyes gleamed in the soft chandelier light.
Time and distance had done nothing to dim the ever-present buzz of restless energy that tightened his jaw and kept his fingers drumming against his thick thigh.
The suit was a very nice touch. Quality tailoring. Expensive, but not obviously so. No tie, though it didn't matter. He would've gotten away with strolling in here wearing jeans and a leather jacket, his motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm.
Since I wasn't equipped to win this staring contest and I'd evaporate into the night if I didn't fidget with something, I turned to the catering table to busy myself with consolidating trays of blueberry feta crostini.
I hated feta but it hadn't crossed my mind to ask the caterer to switch it out.
I hadn't planned this party to suit my tastes.
It was funny how I was still the last person I took into account.
That was when I noticed the quiet around us. Save for the band's bluesy rendition of a popular Beyoncé song, the tent was almost silent.
Everyone was looking at us. Staring, gaping, whispering as if this was the main stage and we were the evening's headlining act. I swallowed hard. "I should really—"
He held out his bear-paw hand. "Dance with me."
No no no no no.
When a few seconds passed and I was still blinking, he added, "Let them watch, Saunders. Give them the show they came to see."
Except they weren't watching me. They never watched me. It was always Jude. From the start, he'd had an upside-down relationship with this place and everyone in it. They loved him almost as much as he loathed them.
All the things that should've made him an outsider here had turned him into an unlikely hero.
The way he insulted old-moneyed man-children and ignored them and refused to give a shit about any of the silly, posh things they adored?
Nepo babies lived to be negged. When you had everything handed to you, working for the attention of a guy with true, effortless confidence was a dopamine hit unlike any other.
The pieced-together motorcycle he rode to school long before he could legally get a driver's license? Proof he was a champion in an arena built on white-collar crime.
His unpolished arrogance and the canyon-deep chip on his shoulder that cast no doubt as to whether he'd received a full scholarship and just begged them to pick a fight with him?
No one was thirstier for a fight than rich boys who'd sooner hide in the trunk of someone's Audi to avoid actually throwing hands.
Even the teachers loved Jude. They'd never admitted he was one of their favorites since he had minimal concern for dress codes or arriving on time, and not a day went by without him poking holes straight through their course material.
But he cruised to the top of every class, and whenever it seemed like he was becoming too much of a self-righteous jackass, he'd do something like fix a teacher's flat tire or tell that one criminally disruptive kid to shut the fuck up or get the hell out of the class.
And when Jude Bellessi chose me, the bookish girl with a severe ballerina bun and long, knobby limbs I hadn't grown into yet?
Over everyone else? Well, it baffled them.
I couldn't say it helped his ascension but I was enough of a blank slate that I didn't matter much in the end.
That bloodless love of theirs was laced with just enough fear for the boy from the wrong side of Hartford to know better than to cross him when choices had been made.
It was so like him, really, to be invincible.
And so like me to be the opposite.
I eyed his hand for one crackling moment. There was no way for this to end well if we spent the next three minutes pressed together. But I'd imagined this so many times. Not this exactly but seeing him one more time. Talking to him. Maybe even getting the closure I'd craved.
And being that blowtorch without worrying about who I'd burn in the process.
We stood almost at eye level, with my heels adding a few inches to my five-ten frame.
I tipped my chin up and slipped my hand into his.
I forgot how to breathe. Turned myself inside out between blinks.
Then I remembered his comment about putting on a show and I scoffed, asking, "Don't you think you're giving yourself a bit too much credit? "
"Not at all," he replied.
His gaze dropped to my hand and his expression tightened. He stroked his thumb over my knuckles several times. His brow creased and he drew in a breath that pulled his shoulders up like he was bracing himself.
He traced the spot where my wedding rings once sat.
He closed his eyes for a second before he glanced away, toward the dance floor.
As the band transitioned to a slower song, he settled his palm on the small of my back and this familiar comfort sent tears rushing to my eyes.
I fought them off but I knew this was just the beginning of my emotional journey here tonight.
When we stopped at the center of the floor, he pulled me close to him and I had to flatten a hand on his solid chest to keep my footing. My heart stuttered against my ribs, hard enough that I was sure he felt it.
For a second, we just stood like that, wrapped in a moment waterlogged with history. I tried to tell myself that this was just a dance, just a long overdue chat between people who used to mean everything to each other.
But then his thumb traced a careful line down my spine and I forgot all of it. We swayed together, silent as I breathed him in and the years telescoped down to nothing.
Then he went and ruined the moment when he asked, "Where's your husband?"
I could almost hear my nervous system kick into hypervigilance at the mention of that man. "Not here," I said. "Not anymore."
"Good." Jude gave a sharp nod that told me he'd already known the answer to his question and just wanted to hear me say it. But then the corner of his lips quirked in a wry smile and he asked, "Divorced? Or did you finish it off the right way and leave him for dead?"
I rolled my eyes. "Does it matter?"
He cut a glance to the side and surveyed our classmates as we moved together. I expected a bland comment about the throwback music or the opulent decorations or anything, but he shook his head as if he was already bored with the topic, saying, "Not tonight, Saunders. But you'll tell me eventually."
"Yet another bold assumption."
"If you think that's bold, you need to pick your bar up off the floor."
I stole quick glances at him as I indexed the lines in his forehead and the creases at the corners of his eyes.
There was a faint tan line on his temple, right where the arm of his sunglasses would sit.
A few strands of silver shot through his dark hair now and the utter truth of it, the proof of life after all this time, punched hard into my belly.
I doubted he'd give me a straight answer but still I asked, "Why are you here?"
His brows knit together. "The better question is, why are you?"
I didn't want to admit that my only objective with running in this circus was buying myself some breathing room with my mother. I didn't want him to know that, in too many ways, I still fell in line when my parents demanded it.
"It's our class reunion. I want to be here," I said.
His gaze lingered on me, waiting for me to walk back the lie. The silence stretched taut until he finally broke it. "Let's get back to that husband of yours."
"I'd rather not," I fired back, voice steady even as my chest squeezed tight. "He's not mine. Not anymore."
Jude dipped his head, his brow nearly touching mine. "Isn't that nice for you."
I couldn't bear to be that close to him and maintain eye contact, so I shifted my attention away, over his shoulder. Clusters of our classmates filled in the spaces around the dance floor, though no one else joined in. Most stood with drinks in hand and their faces half turned to catch whispers.
His hand slid higher on my back, thumb drawing a slow, steady circle between my shoulder blades. "When did it end?"
I gave a brittle, not-quite laugh. "It doesn't matter and I have a strong suspicion you already know, so why don't you save us both some time and get to the point."
"I guess it's good to see you didn't let Christopher Wexler the fourth take your tongue and your teeth. A gentleman, after all."
I stepped back, nearly out of his hold. "Is this what you want? To rile up your fanboys and remind me that your default mode is fuck gremlin? Then, bravo. Job adequately done."
Jude's eyes narrowed, his fingers flexed around my hand.
Then he yanked me back into his arms and I resented the wave of recognition he set off inside me with that touch—and the heat that chased it.
"You deserve credit for lasting as long as you did with him.
" There was an edge in his voice, something rough and a little unsteady.
"Did you get it out of your system or is there another heir apparent teed up? "
I'd dreamed versions of this where we yelled at each other. Screamed it all out. And versions where we ran into each other's arms and stayed there a long, long time. I never dreamed up a verbal dagger fight or the overwhelming urge to take off my shoes and throw them at him.
"I'm single," I managed, mentally stepping around my mother's endless attempts at matchmaking. "And I like it that way. I like it very much."
He leaned in until his lips brushed over my ear. "I don't believe you."
"And isn't it funny how I don't care?" I gave him a stubborn shake of my head that succeeded only in bringing my cheek to his lips. Oh, god. That simple contact almost knocked me flat on my ass.
He drew back just enough for his gaze to search mine. "Except you do," he said flatly. "Don't forget, Saunders: no one knows you better than I do. I can tell when you're lying to me. Always have, always will."
I stumbled back a step, then another. Words caught somewhere in my chest, clunky and sharp like scrap metal, and I let my silence say what I couldn't—that he was right, and he knew it.
And then I sprinted out of the tent.