Chapter 18 Gracie #3
“I kissed you when I said I wouldn’t,” he goes on, backing away so I can close my wide-open legs and yank down my equally complicit skirt.
“I’ll tell him what happened. I’ll tell him it’s my fault.
” Misery etches every line of his face. His hair’s a mess, and somehow, there’s pink frosting on his cheekbone that my lizard brain still wants to lick off. “God, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It wasn’t just your fault,” I say, voice shrill. “In case you didn’t notice, I practically ate your face!”
“Fuck,” Jude says again, pressing a hand over his eyes. He encounters the frosting, looks at his hand, and says “Fuck” one more time for good measure.
Meanwhile, I get an unobstructed view of his crotch and nearly pass away.
This was supposed to be a work errand, not the opening scene of a bakery porno!
I bring a shaking hand up to brush my bangs into place, but it’s covered in the same pink frosting that was on Jude’s face.
Mystery solved. I look down and see that I must have put my hand into the pink-and-white Battenberg that’s half-crushed beneath my butt. GREAT.
Before I can get to my feet, Jude is coming back with a wad of napkins he found somewhere. “Here, let me,” he says, making a move like he’s going to clean me up. But frankly, the last thing I need right now is this man’s magic hands near my ass, so I quickly take the napkins from him.
“I’ve got it,” I say, hopping off the table onto wobbly legs.
“Gracie, we should talk. If this is—”
“I don’t want to talk, Jude!” I say, trying to keep my voice down while shakily wiping cake off my skirt.
“We just… took the ruse too far,” I insist, trying to erase every moment my heart wanted to believe our kiss meant anything to him.
Jude, the so-called one-night stand expert.
Jude, who’s so unavailable that he encouraged his best friend to ask me out.
Regret fills my lungs till I can barely breathe, because now Henry, who’s only ever been kind and actually interested in me, is going to find out what we’ve done and be so hurt.
“Ruse?” Jude repeats, like he’s not following.
“To stop Betty from canceling our tasting! I—I just got caught up in the act. It’s not like there’s anything between us, right?” I give a slightly maniacal laugh. “I live for romance. You kill it for a living! We couldn’t be worse for each other.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he snaps, tossing his pink-streaked napkin on the table after wiping his face.
“Why do you think I told Henry he should ask you out? He’s the best man I know, and you…
you’re so fucking perfect.” At my startled expression, he looks away.
“For him, I mean. I’m the last person you want anything to do with, Gracie. ”
I know he’s right—he’s the wrong choice for so many reasons, but it doesn’t stop my heart from breaking at the way he automatically writes himself off.
It doesn’t silence the unthinking part of me that still wishes I were in his arms. But I have my future to think about, and the simple fact is, we don’t want the same things.
“It was just a mistake,” I whisper, on the verge of tears. “My date with Henry is tomorrow, and he’s perfect for me, too, Jude. I really don’t want to lose my first chance at a normal, healthy relationship in years.”
When he looks at me again, he’s so gorgeously distraught I want to shield my eyes.
“You’re right. It was my mistake,” he says in a deadened voice. “I’m sorry for taking it too far. For pretending for a second that you wanted something”—his eyebrows slant together—“else.”
At the quiet resignation in his voice, my heartbeat stumbles.
For a moment, it’s almost too tempting to interpret his words the wrong way—that he thought I might want him instead.
But over the last few weeks, he’s made it clear that a strings-free, physical connection is what he prefers.
That’s what he was pretending I wanted—the one thing he’s comfortable giving.
But I need so much more than that. Unfortunately, I may have just blown my best chance of finding it.
“I have to tell him,” I whisper. “I’ll do it before our date.”
“No, don’t.”
I look up at him sharply. “Jude, he has to know. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Yes, obviously, but this is on me, Gracie. You’re free to kiss whoever you want, but I just betrayed my best friend. I need to be the one to tell him.”
“And you’ll make sure he knows that it didn’t mean anything, right? It was just part of a stupid game.”
He looks away, but not before I see something that looks alarmingly like hurt cross his features. “Of course.”
I take a shaky breath. “And do you think he’ll understand?”
Jude looks at me, his expression unfathomable. “I’ll make him understand.”
I nod, grateful and wretched. “Thank you, Jude.”
He nods. “I’ll go find some to-go boxes and say bye to Betty for us.”
He walks off toward the back room, looking like he was just attacked by a dangerously sex-deprived woman. I let out a quiet, despairing groan. This entire outing has been one giant failure.
But somehow, the suspicion that I’ve hurt Jude feels worse than anything at all.