Chapter 3
3
[Genie]
W itnessing this fallout between Judd and my long-standing nemesis was not my intention.
One minute, I’m minding my business, randomly scrolling on my phone in the back corner of Curmudgeon Bakery, listening to my queen belt out “You Belong with Me” while enjoying the sweet, sticky goodness of a cinnamon roll with a thick layer of frosting, and the next minute, I’m trapped by the unexpected sight of Judd Sylver and then the entrance of Heather Remington.
My mother’s best friend’s daughter and total perfection in my mother’s eyes.
She’s a dutiful daughter. She’s appreciative of her mother. She is such a good girl.
Appearances are everything to Janet Hurley, my mother’s fourth married name, which made it difficult for her to have a daughter who couldn’t keep her mouth shut or follow rules.
“You just march to the beat of your own drum, darlin’,” my daddy used to tell me when I was a child, and he was still alive.
Mother would interject, “Let’s try to have a little less rhythm, Virginia.”
And she , being Heather, wanted to get engaged to Judd Sylver, according to her, a few minutes ago.
Apparently, Judd disagreed.
My stomach feels a little nauseous that Heather Remington almost snared Judd. I’m also disconcertingly grateful Judd had a different plan. Deep down, my heart whispers Judd is mine. I liked him first.
The idea is ridiculous. Judd made it abundantly clear he was never available to me.
Still, I feel sorry for the guy covered in something light brown and saturating his white shirt beneath a flannel one.
I heard what Heather said. They made a beautiful couple. They’d even been dressed complementary to one another in flannel shirts, each a shade of blue, like Judd’s eyes.
Since seeing Judd a week ago, he’s continually crept into my thoughts. The look in his eyes as he stood near me in that Knoxville parking lot. The flare of his nostrils. The width of his shoulders. The electric energy between us.
Snap-crackle-pop!
Despite those melancholy eyes, there was an edge to Judd I’d never seen when he was a boy. And he isn’t a boy anymore but all man. And I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all.
He just broke up with someone.
In the recesses of my mind, I probably knew Judd and Heather were dating. My mother most likely told me the small-town gossip, but after the sixth retelling, I tune out her stories. Maybe I shut down on the details because I didn’t want to believe Judd Sylver could end up with someone as cruel as Heather Remington.
My mother could never understand that being the daughter of her best friend did not automatically make Heather my best friend. Friendship was not by osmosis; it was earned. It was fostered. It was a rare find. I have few friendships but the ones I have are tight.
Handing Judd a stack of paper napkins, I’m reminded I once asked him to be my friend on National Make a New Friend Day, and he shot me down.
“Guess you heard all that?” Judd mutters after thanking me for the wad of napkins I held out to him and swiping in a circular motion around his face. He flicks at ice cubes collected near the zipper of his jeans and shrugs out of the flannel which didn’t catch as much of the drink as the front of what turns out to be a white wife- pleaser tank top.
Sucking in air, I hold my breath at the glorious sight of tattoos covering both his muscular arms. I hardly noticed them when I saw him at the boxing match, where I did my best not to look at him and his opponent in the ring. But up close and in his personal space, I cannot ignore the colorful designs decorating his lean muscles.
My eyes narrow at what looks like a unicorn beneath faded lines like old-school notebook paper on his bicep.
Strange how another memory related to Judd hits me hard. Didn’t I have a notebook once that looked like that unicorn?
“People in Rogue River might have heard that finish,” I tease about the next small town over.
Judd glances up at me, those eyes warm but sorrowful, while he dabs at the hopeless wreck of his white shirt.
“What are you doing here?” His voice isn’t cruel but curious.
“I’m enjoying a cinnamon roll, as one does in a bakery.”
Judd scowls while dismissing my attempt at humor. Those lost-boy eyes remain focused on me. “No, I mean here in Sterling Falls.”
I’ve been asking myself the same thing since I left my place in Knoxville at six this morning. The last time I was here might have been at least five years ago, maybe more, and any visit is always short. One day max. Originally, I’d planned to arrive next weekend for a four-day visit, but my mother somehow talked me into attending her annual garden party.
“I’m here for the Buttercup Society Garden Party.”
Judd groans, understanding who and what that means, before he eyes my outfit.
No, I’m not wearing the mandatory yellow dress required yet . That torture will happen later today. The current torture is this shift in Judd’s eyes while looking at me. From forlorn to flaming. Like I’m a gooey bakery treat, and he has an insatiable sweet tooth. Then again, I might be projecting my own thoughts on him, and I do not want to be thinking of Judd in this way.
Because he still has that floppy whisp of hair falling against his forehead. His hair is still wet-sand, now freckled with gray here and there, and a matching beard on his round face. Plus, those eyes.
He’s pure catnip.
“Want to take a seat?” Judd invites, pointing to the open chair Heather left behind.
Never a fan of her hand-me-downs, I respond, “I should probably decline. Caramel isn’t my favorite flavor.” I smile to lessen the blow of my joke.
Judd glances down at himself again.
“Sorry about all that with Heather.” Are condolences the correct response to a breakup? I sound like a loon. Instead, I should question him about the fight he participated in last week, but I quickly decide against asking.
Judd Sylver hasn’t been my business for a long time.
“Anyway, it was great seeing you again,” I state, albeit a strange second re-acquaintance.
“How long are you in town?” he asks, reaching out toward me like he might capture my wrist before I walk away but then thinking twice about it and dropping his fist back to his upper thigh.
“Roughly ten days.” And not a day longer if all the rest of the days are this exciting. I can’t remember the last time I witnessed a breakup other than the continual stream of my own, most of which had been my doing.
Judd nods, noncommittally, and I assume he was only making conversation.
Now we’re both just awkwardly staring at one another until he clears his throat and says, “Well, thanks for the napkins.”
Of course, I have to take this moment one step further toward more awkward because my mouth lacks a filter sometimes. “Any time. I’m great at cleaning up messes.”
Judd’s brows pinch and even I question why I’ve said such a thing. I’m better at making a mess than fixing things.
The longer Judd looks at me, the more uncomfortable I grow. Perhaps he recalls my date from last weekend. I must have looked pathetic and desperate to be there with Ralson. Nearly forty and I’m still accepting random dates with the son of a friend of a friend of my mother.
Silly Ralson even tried to text me this week, asking if he could still drop off his laundry, even without a second date. Bless his heart . I didn’t have time nor the inclination in my overly non-busy schedule to do his laundry or respond to such a text.
“If you ever need help getting out of a mess, let me know what I can do for you.”
“Can you help me find a date by one this afternoon?” There is no earthly reason why that question pops out of my mouth, especially as Judd is the last person I’d want to know I’m in need of a date.
His brows hitch and even I’m surprised by the snark in my tone and the bluntness of my response. Admitting I’m still single as a Pringle, I’ve just slapped another layer of awkward on my awkwardness.
Even if a date would halt my mother from asking the inevitable question, when will you be getting married?— answer: never —Judd isn’t a miracle worker and that’s what it would take to make a date magically appear.
I laugh, dismissively, waving off my question. “I’m kidding. Of course.”
Judd continues to watch me. His eyes seem to take me in, holding on mine before touching on my forehead, nose, and cheeks then dipping down to my lips. Like he’s either cataloguing the changes of twenty years or memorizing my face in case another twenty years passes before he sees me again.
Either way, the look is intense and unnerving, a conflict between flattering and uncomfortable. I don’t know if any man has ever looked at me like Judd is right now.
For a moment, I wonder if he remembers what happened between us.
Or rather, didn’t happen.
How he stood me up when I was sixteen and how I still sound pitiful at thirty-nine. Then again, I don’t need Judd’s pity. I feel sorry for him. He just broke up with someone and why would I make a joke about a date?
The awkwardness grows thicker than a layer of frosting on the Curmudgeon Bakery’s cupcakes, and the time to excuse myself and take what’s left of my pride with me elsewhere has come.
“See you around, Judd,” I mutter.
But hopefully not .
My fragile ego wouldn’t be able to handle it.