Chapter 50
chapter fifty
Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: coincidence
I considered confronting Jude about following my baking blog while I kneaded and rolled out dough. I whipped up a whole monologue about how little I enjoy being the last to know everything while teaching Percy how to make a cream cheese icing.
There was a minute when everything was out of the oven and Percy was busy doing a surprisingly good job at washing some dishes that I considered stomping out to the backyard and standing in the path of the mower until Jude explained himself.
But he sent all those plans out the window when he jogged down to the basement with a Sharpie tucked over his ear and his pen light in hand. I followed him into the utility room and closed the door behind me.
He glanced up from his work at the circuit breaker. "I'm going to take another look at this when you're not using the appliances. I don't like the way it's organized."
He went back to writing something on small labels and sticking them on the panel. "Yeah, okay. Do you think you could explain something to me?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"How is it that your four-year-old child follows my baking blog?"
There was a pause and then I heard the cap of the Sharpie snap into place. Jude turned, shoving the pen light and sticker labels into his pockets. "Percy told you that?"
"He told me a lot of things," I replied. "Among them, the fact that you watch my videos together. I also heard that you attempted one of my recipes. Not well, though."
Jude grimaced at that, muttering, "I should've listened to him about those apples."
I crossed my arms. "I'll just wait until you're ready to explain."
He dropped his hands to his hips and stared up at the ceiling.
After a minute, he said, "I opened social media accounts to keep track of what's going on with Brenda.
She likes posting a fuckton of photos whenever Percy's with her and long, emotional stuff about Penny.
It's good for knowing where her head's at. "
I was pleased with myself for not offering an encouraging nod but simply rolling my hand for him to continue.
"Your account kept coming up as someone I might know.
I ignored it at first. Didn't think anything of it.
But then I opened the app one day when my phone's audio volume had been cranked up and it autoplayed your video.
I heard your voice and—" He laughed to himself.
"I remember leaving the office and going to my car so I could listen without anyone else around.
It was a recipe for these little blackberry peach pies. "
I remembered those pies because I'd made them using an oversized pierogi press. To this day, still one of my finest thrift store finds.
Also notable: that recipe was from three years ago.
I remembered because that was before I managed to get ahead on my posting schedule and the local blackberries had given me hell.
Too juicy. Every test batch came out of the oven looking like a crime had been committed.
I'd tossed in the peaches as a last-ditch effort to save blackberry week.
"I watched it on a loop for at least fifteen minutes," Jude continued, "just listening to you explain how important it was to use cold butter."
"It really is essential," I murmured.
"I didn't actually believe it," he said. "At first. Even though I knew your voice and I recognized your hands, I didn't trust it. I didn't want to."
"Why not?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "It'd been a hard few months.
Percy still wasn't talking and no one knew whether it was a delay or something more significant.
Brenda wanted me to move up to Saginaw and she hated that I wouldn't. I didn't want to believe you were right there, kneading dough and explaining how you made vanilla sugar. Like you'd disappear if I did."
I felt myself softening slightly. Just slightly. "And you didn't think to share this at any point? I seem to recall several long road trips."
His brows winged up. "Yeah, because you were in such an open, accepting place during those road trips, Audrey. You would've thrown yourself out of the car and run into the fucking desert if I'd mentioned watching every video you've ever posted."
It was possible he was right about that. "Then you should've brought it up after the engagement party. When we talked."
"Yeah, probably." He tipped his head to the side. "But I didn't want to spend the whole night on history. Not when it seemed like we finally understood each other again." He ran his knuckles over his chin. "And you were naked. That had a lot to do with it."
"And Percy? How did he get involved?"
"Ah. Well." Jude pulled some of the tools from his pockets, studying them before returning them to the shelving unit where I kept extra light bulbs, lawn bags, and garden clippers.
"Percy picks up any virus within five miles of him.
When he was three, there wasn't a full month that he wasn't sick with something.
He'd only fall asleep if I held him." He patted his chest, right where his son's head would rest. "But he caught me watching your videos one night. He was hooked right from the start."
I wanted to be annoyed. To harp on him keeping this secret for so long. But all I could ask was, "Is there anything else you need to tell me?"
He lifted a shoulder. "Probably."
"Care to unburden yourself while I'm in a forgiving mood?"
He stared at me for a long minute before saying, "Through a strange series of coincidences, one of my closest friends is your boss's brother's business partner."
"My—what? You know Lauren's brother?"
"Not personally, no," he said. "But I know his business partner Jordan Kaisall."
"And how do you know Jordan?"
He yanked the hat off and pushed a hand through his hair. "Remember how I said I got fed up with corporate aeronautics a few years ago? And I thought about giving it all up to manage a fleet?"
I gave him an impatient shake of my head. "Vaguely."
"That's how I met Jordan. Interviewing for a job managing his fleet."
"And you went into this knowing his partner's sister was the principal of my school? I mean, how did you even find that out? And why?"
"No, I had no idea," he said quickly. "No, fuck no.
Jesus. I've done a lot of fucked-up things for you but that's a bit much, even for me.
" He scrubbed a hand down his face, laughing.
"They did a deep-dive background check before the second interview and brought the connection to my attention.
I knew you'd left your ex and moved to Boston at that point but the rest came as a surprise. An awkward one, at that."
"Is that why it didn't work out?"
He shook his head. "It became apparent that I'd get bored with the gig within six months. And I sleep better at night, not knowing all the shit Jordan gets involved in."
"You knew I'd left Chris?"
A muscle in his jaw ticked before he said, "Yeah."
"How?"
There had been no announcements. No social media posts. I'd just gathered the handful of things I'd wanted to keep from our home in San Diego and boarded a flight to Boston to move on with my life.
Another long stare and then, "I used to search the California court filings every few months."
"Oh, yeah. Okay. That's not psychotic at all.
" I paced away from him and toward the washer and dryer stationed at the other end of the utility room.
I started tossing some towels into the washing machine.
We'd accumulated quite the pile with Bagel rolling in every spot of mud he could find.
"I'm not sure whether the most unhinged part is you being so confident that my marriage would crumble, you set a calendar reminder to check for my divorce filing.
Or the fact that you knew it'd ended and you still waited until last month to say anything to me.
Or that when you finally found me, it was to guilt me into a fake engagement. "
"I did say I've done a lot of fucked-up things for you."
I didn't respond to that. I just threw a detergent pod into the basin and banged the lid shut. After I started the machine, I turned around, my lips pursed in a hard line and my arms locked over my chest. "Why did you wait so long?"
"Why did I wait?" He crossed the room toward me, tapping a finger to the center of his chest. "Why the fuck did you wait? Why didn't you call me the minute you were rid of him?"
"What did you want me to do?" I cried. "I thought you hated me for how I left. I thought you never wanted to see me again."
"Don't you get it? After all this time, don't you see it yet? There is nothing you could ever do that would keep me away." He ran his knuckles up the side of my neck and along my jaw, and then brushed his thumb over my lips. "I'll always belong to you, even if you don't belong to me."
I swallowed hard as his hand settled on the back of my neck. "And what if I do? What if I belong to you?"
"Then we start over and we get it right this time."
He leaned in, captured my lips, and brought his free hand to my hip.
My backside connected with the washer as I knotted my hands in his shirt.
His thigh slipped between my legs and I rocked against the solid ridge of him trapped behind his zipper.
All at once, I was hot and wet, my inner muscles aching with the need to be stretched and filled.
He pressed into me, groaning. "Audrey."
These shorts hid nothing at all and with him wedged up against me like this, it felt like he could pull the crotch out of the way and thrust into me. And I wanted that very much. I wanted him inside and—and I didn't want it to end. Not today, not in a few weeks, not ever.
"Say something," he growled, his lips on my jaw, my neck.
"It scares me," I said. "I don't think I could survive if this fell apart again."