Chapter 52
NADIA
Idon’t know at which point I started living again.
Maybe it was the night Jude carried me to bed like I weighed nothing. Or maybe it was the morning his hand found mine before his eyes were even open. It could have even been the first time his laugh, a low, rough, surprised sound, broke open a place in me I thought had died with Lucian.
All I know is… somewhere between that night and now, something in me came back to life.
It’s been a week since we slept together. Seven days. And Jude Mercer has become a permanent fixture in my apartment. Without ever asking, without ever assuming, without ever naming it. He’s just… here. Like he was always meant to be.
Every night he walks me home from the hospital. Every night we fall into step like a rhythm carved into our bones long before we met.
We talk about everything and nothing; old movies I can’t remember the endings of, constellations I used to know by heart when I was a kid, dreams I stopped letting myself have.
We pause on a side street sometimes, amidst the chaos and bustle of people passing us by, staring up at the sky like it’s spilling secrets.
Jude points out the stars like he’s tracing an old map.
Sometimes he gets the names wrong and I correct him.
Sometimes we just stand there shoulder to shoulder, letting the night settle around us like an exhale.
And then we head home. Sometimes grabbing a late coffee. Or sharing a pastry we don’t really eat. At times, we argue over which diner has better fries.
But always, as soon as the door clicks shut behind us, something snaps. Desire or gravity or some ancient hunger neither of us can name. We’re on each other instantly, urgent and clumsy and ravenous. Like two camels who crawled out of the desert and found the same water source.
Clothes hit the floor. My breath catches. His body cages mine against the nearest wall, the couch, the bed. Sometimes we don’t make it to either.
It’s messy. It’s mindless. It’s perfect. Because Jude Mercer is quietly, devastatingly erasing the pain I thought was welded into me without even trying. He just exists, and somehow, in his orbit, I’m allowed to hope again.
It scares me, how much I want it.
Sometimes, I see shades of Lucian in him.
Not the darkness or the violence. Just… the beginning. The soft beginnings. The man Lucian pretended to be before he shattered me.
Careful, which, Jude is much like Lucian was in the beginning. My small, traitorous inner voice whispers to me, but I shut it down. Hard.
No. Jude is gentler. Quieter. Untroubled. The version of a man who loves without leaving fingerprints on your soul.
Every night we make love, and every morning I wake tangled in his arms, one thick arm heavy across my waist, pinning me to that furnace of a body like he doesn’t intend to let go.
Sometimes he makes breakfast, standing shirtless at my stove while I pretend not to stare at the tattoos wrapped around his back like scripture.
Sometimes I drop to my knees in the shower, water running over both of us while he braces a hand on the tile and whispers my name like a prayer he doesn’t think he deserves.
Sometimes we watch TV after dinner, my feet tucked neatly in his lap as he idly rubs circles into my ankles. It feels absurdly domestic - dangerously domestic - for two people who’ve never once talked about what we’re doing.
But God… I love it. I love all of it.
I love the glow on my face. There’s a lift in my step. A warmth in my chest. Like someone flipped the lights back on in a house I thought would stay dark forever.
I still wait for the other shoe to drop. I still brace for the universe to take back what it gave me. But every night Jude walks me home. Every night he unlocks the door for me. Every night he holds me close and makes me feel safer than I have felt in years.
And now… now I’m lying in bed with the sheets twisted around my legs, listening to the sound of him in the shower.
His deep voice hums some off-key melody, and I’m hit with the strangest feeling: I’m happy.
Not the brittle, borrowed happy I’ve faked for years.
Nor is it the careful, rationed happy that always came with conditions.
This is real, reckless, messy happiness.
Jude makes me feel like the world didn’t end after all. And I don’t realize it - don’t allow the word into my mind - but something inside me knows that I’m falling.
Softly. Slowly. Hopelessly.
And for the first time in a long time…it feels like coming home.