Chapter 6
Jude
I’d called him a cheap replacement. Told him he was nothing but convenient.
The words played on repeat in my head as I stalked through the backstage corridors, my hands shaking with residual adrenaline. Half the crew had watched me nearly throw down with Ash in the middle of the staff area, and I couldn’t even remember walking away.
You’re a knockoff, Ash. A cheap replacement trying to wear someone else’s skin.
The look on Ash’s face when I’d called him a knockoff had been satisfying for exactly three seconds before guilt twisted in my gut like a knife.
He deserved it.
Except he hadn’t. Not really. And we both knew it.
Christ, what the fuck was wrong with me?
I walked through the back tunnels without seeing where I was going, my vision tunneling to a single point somewhere in the distance. The weight of what had just happened sat heavy on my shoulders.
I’d told him the truth in that diner. Admitted that he was the only thing I remembered from performances, the only thing that cut through the fog of routine and repetition. I’d made myself vulnerable in a way I hadn’t done since Dylan, and what had it gotten me?
Nothing but ammunition for him to use against me.
But Ash wasn’t Dylan. Dylan had been gentle, patient, willing to wait for me to figure my shit out. Ash met me blow for blow, gave as good as he got, and refused to back down even when I tried my damnedest to drive him away.
So I’d meant to hurt him. I’d wanted to see that confident smirk crack, wanted him to feel as raw and exposed as I’d felt when I sent that stupid text at four in the morning. When I’d admitted he was all I could think about.
And he hadn’t even responded.
The memory of that burned worse than the anger. I’d been vulnerable, and he’d given me silence. So when Parker told me Ash had been redesigning my choreography without consulting me, something inside me had snapped clean through.
Three years. I’d spent three years building this. And Ash waltzed in and started rewriting everything like my work meant nothing.
Except that wasn’t fair, and I knew it.
Maybe if your choreography wasn’t stuck in 2022, I wouldn’t have to fix it.
I grabbed an old crate and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall with a satisfying crash that did nothing to ease the pressure in my chest.
The fight replayed itself frame by frame. The way Ash had grabbed my shirt, hauled me close. How his eyes had blazed with something that looked almost like hurt before the anger swallowed it whole.
What had I done to make him hate me this much?
I’d noticed that thought cross his face right before Riley intervened. Read it in his expression as clearly as if he’d spoken it aloud.
He didn’t know. He actually had no fucking idea.
The laugh that escaped me was bitter and sharp. How could he hate me when I’d been the one pushing him away? When I’d turned every interaction into competition because I was too much of a coward to admit I’d wanted him from the moment he walked into orientation?
I straightened, ran both hands through my hair.
Parker would probably fire us both. Riley was right about that. We’d made a scene in front of half the crew, and there was no walking that back. Jonas had seen everything, and Jonas didn’t keep secrets.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out expecting Parker’s name, but it was a message from Riley instead.
You good?
No. I wasn’t good. I was the furthest thing from good.
But I typed back anyway:
Yeah.
***
Dylan used to tell me I had control issues.
That I needed to loosen up, let things happen, stop white-knuckling my way through every interaction.
What he never understood was that control was all I had.
When your dad takes off before you’re old enough to understand that he was a piece of shit, you learn quickly that the only person you can rely on is yourself.
The only thing you can control is how much you let people in.
Which was why what happened at midnight made me want to put my fist through the wall.
I’d headed to the employee area for water during our scheduled break, my body still humming with leftover adrenaline from the last sequence. Then I heard voices. Ash’s laugh, low and genuine, and someone else’s. Male. Unfamiliar.
I rounded the corner, and my feet stopped working.
Ash was leaning against the wall, still in full costume, laughing at whatever the stranger had said.
The guy was tall, built like he spent serious time at the gym and was wearing street clothes instead of a costume.
A day crew friend, maybe. Or something more, especially given the way the stranger’s hand was on Ash’s arm.
Heat flooded my chest. Sharp, violent jealousy that made my teeth ache. I had no right to it. No claim on Ash beyond professional partnership, and even that was stretching the definition. But watching someone else make him smile like that made something feral wake up inside me.
Dylan had been right about one thing. I had a jealousy problem. Possessive streak a mile wide that I’d never bothered examining too closely because analyzing myself meant acknowledging the kid who’d been left behind, and I didn’t have time for that kind of introspection.
Walk away, the rational part of my brain suggested. I should just go back to the scare zone and do my job and stop making everything worse.
My feet moved forward instead.
“Hey.”
My voice came out flat, cutting through whatever the stranger had been saying. Both of them turned.
Ash’s smile died. The stranger just looked confused.
“We going to go over your precious changes or not?” I addressed Ash directly, ignoring the other guy completely.
“Now?” Ash’s jaw tightened. “I’m on break.”
“So am I, but aren’t you desperate to change everything?” I shifted my weight, folding my arms across my chest. The tactical vest dug into my ribs. “Unless you’ve got other plans.”
The stranger glanced between us, picking up on something in the air. Smart guy. “I should probably get going, anyway.”
“You don’t have to leave.” Ash kept his eyes on me, challenge written all over his face. “Jude can wait five minutes.”
“Parker wanted it done before tomorrow’s shift.” I held Ash’s stare. “But if you want to explain why you couldn’t find time, that’s on you.”
The guy shifted uncomfortably, and his hand dropped from Ash’s arm, which made the knot in my chest loosen fractionally. “Seriously, man, I need to head out. Early shift tomorrow.”
“Text me later, okay? We’ll grab that coffee.”
Then he was gone, and I was alone with Ash in the narrow hallway. Victory tasted sour on my tongue. I’d wanted him gone, wanted Ash’s attention back on me, and now that I had it, I didn’t know what the hell to do with it.
“What the fuck was that?” Ash’s voice was low, dangerous. The easy warmth from moments ago had evaporated. “What gives you the right to act like you own me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie was transparent even to me.
“Bullshit.” He closed the distance between us. “You scared him off on purpose.”
My pulse hammered against my collarbone. Control. I needed to stay in control of this conversation, but Ash was too close, and I could smell the fake fog still clinging to his costume, could see where sweat had made his eyeliner smudge.
“You want to waste your break on some random guy from day crew, that’s your business.” I kept my voice level. “But don’t bitch and whine that I didn’t try to learn your stupid choreography.”
“You sound so eager.” Ash rolled his eyes. “You either want to work with me or you don’t, Jude.”
I want you. The words locked behind my teeth, trapped there by years of self-preservation and the memory of everyone who’d ever walked away.
Jimmy’s hand around my wrist, squeezing until bones creaked.
Dylan’s disappointed face when I couldn’t give him what he needed.
My sister’s taillights disappearing down the street the day she turned eighteen, leaving me with my messed up mother and whatever guy she’d invited into our house.
“This isn’t about wanting.” I forced the words out. “I’m trying to be professional.”
“Professional.” Ash laughed, sharp and bitter. “Right. Because stalking me during my break and interrogating my friends is the height of professionalism.”
“He wasn’t your friend. He wanted to fuck you.”
The admission hung between us, raw and ugly. Ash’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
“And?”
That single word gutted me. And? As if it didn’t matter. As if the thought of someone else’s hands on him didn’t make my vision tunnel.
“And nothing.” I stepped back, needing distance before I did something stupid like grab him. “Do whatever you want. I don’t give a shit.”
“Liar.”
I hated that he could call me out so easily—that he saw through my bullshit.
I just hoped he couldn’t see everything, like how watching someone else touch him made me want to break things or how the idea of him with anyone else made me physically ill.
And I really prayed he couldn’t see how I wanted to be the only one who got to see him laugh like that, touch him like that, have access to him in any way that mattered.
Because admitting it would mean acknowledging I’d already lost the battle I’d been fighting since the moment we met. The one where I pretended I didn’t want him so badly it hollowed me out.
“You know what?” He stepped back, and his voice went cold. “Forget it. I’m done talking to you.”
He walked away, and I stood there breathing hard, feeling like I’d just been gutted.
***
The rest of the shift was a special kind of hell. I couldn’t stop thinking about that guy, about whatever they’d talked about, about Ash texting him later. Ash hadn’t replied to my text last night, and I’d as good as told him I was obsessed with him, so why would he text this guy later?
My mind spiraled through increasingly horrible scenarios, each one worse than the last, each one featuring Ash smiling at someone who wasn’t me. Focusing his attention on someone who wasn’t me.
By the time our final fight sequence came around, I was ready to lose my goddamn mind.
We took our positions in the fog and where the strobe lights cut through the darkness in disorienting bursts. I told myself I could be professional and that I could get through one more choreographed encounter without making everything worse.
But then Ash dropped from the scaffolding and landed in front of me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. He looked furious. Wrecked. Like he was barely holding himself together. Like he was done pretending this weird connection between us didn’t affect him.
Good. That made two of us.
I was so fucking mad at him that when we collided, it was rougher than usual.
Harder. I got slammed into a support beam with enough force that pain sparked down my spine, and when I retaliated by tackling him into the decorative barriers, I didn’t pull the impact at all.
The crowd was screaming, probably thinking this was the best performance they’d ever seen.
They had no idea.
Ash got me in a headlock, and I twisted out and ended up with his back against my chest, my arm banded across his collarbones. We were both breathing hard, hearts hammering, and neither of us moved for a beat too long.
The heat of him seared me even through the layers of costume and leather. His pulse thundered against my forearm.
“What do you want from me?” The words sounded ripped out of him, raw and desperate in a way that gutted me.
“Everything,” I said into his ear, and felt him go rigid against me.
I swear it wasn’t me who spoke. It was the dark, ugly side of me escaping the prison I’d kept it in since Dylan.
But Ash didn’t pull away. He didn’t fight or kick or toss me over his shoulder like I rightly deserved. He just froze, like I’d finally said the thing that changed the rules between us.
The sequence timer hit, and we had to separate. He disappeared into the fog, and I stood there with my pulse racing and the certainty that something had to give. Tonight. Right now. Before this thing between us tore me apart.