Chapter 8. Jude
The café door swings shut behind me. I walk.
I don't know where I'm going for the first three blocks because my legs are on autopilot and my brain is stuck in a loop, playing Ford's voice on repeat.
I don't have space in my life for someone who needs more than I'm prepared to give, or something like that, and it's not Ford's voice anymore, not really. It's Emmett's. It's always Emmett's.
I don't have time for this anymore, Jude.
You ask too much of me. I'm busy. You can't be the main thing in my life.
That's what Emmett said. Not in those exact words, but almost. The problem was that he said this without a single previous warning.
We were happy, then he broke me. Ford said it differently, fundamentally incompatible, established routines, not in a position, but different vocabulary and the same conclusion: You are too much, and I don't want to carry you.
I make it to my apartment. The door is unlocked, which means Noa is home, but the place is quiet. His bedroom door is closed. I drop my keys on the counter, and I make it to the couch before my legs decide they're done cooperating. I should thank my legs for cooperating at all.
I sit. Then I'm not sitting, I'm curled into the corner of the couch, and my face is wet.
Not the dramatic kind of crying, just the pathetic quiet kind.
The kind that's been living in my chest for a year, surfacing whenever someone says the wrong words in the right order.
It's not Ford's fault. He didn't say it to hurt me.
I'm just already hurt. So hurt that anything makes me bleed.
The tears slide down my cheeks, dripping off my jaw onto my jacket.
My ribs ache with the effort of holding myself together, and I realize I'm not holding myself together at all. I'm just holding myself.
Ford's face dissolves behind my wet eyelashes, and it's Emmett's face that takes its place. It's always Emmett's face. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget you. Not in a million years. I will still remember this ache.
My brain does what it always does. It takes me back.
Two years ago. BratWorld.
The main playroom is the same light violet and red.
I used to find it poetic, as if we were all in a music video.
The bass line from the speakers vibrates through the floor and up through my boots.
I can feel the music in my heart, both the same rhythm.
I am so fucking alive and so happy. I can barely remember how it feels now.
It feels so long ago. Like this happened to somebody else, not me.
Pierce is beside me with his blue hair catching the neon, his septum ring glinting every time he throws his head back to laugh, which is often, because we're both drunk and everything is hilarious and good.
His mesh top shows off his nipple piercings.
He's wearing a studded belt that jingles when he walks.
"Another round," Pierce announces to no one in particular, grabbing my arm and dragging me toward people near the bar. "Come on, let's make everyone terrible decisions."
I'm carrying a tray of tequila shots that I got through a combination of charm and mild theft from the bar.
Glynn will add it to my tab later, or pay for it themselves, they always do.
I move through the crowd like I own the room, because in some ways I do.
I know every face here. I even know their safewords, their limits, their drink orders.
This is my living room, my kingdom, my church.
Across the playroom, Alfie sits in one of the oversized leather armchairs, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, a glass of red wine resting in his hand.
At his feet, Glynn kneels on a cushion, wearing nothing but a collar, a leather harness that crosses their pale, freckled chest, covered by a binder, and black leather briefs.
Glynn's ginger hair is immaculate despite the position.
They look serene. Alfie's free hand rests on the back of Glynn's neck, not gripping, just there.
He's quiet in a way that makes everyone want to confess their sins to him.
When our eyes meet across the crowd, he gives me a slow smile.
I blow him a kiss and keep moving.
"Shots!" I announce, approaching a group of regulars sprawled across a leather sectional.
"Everyone drinks. Non-negotiable. I don't care if you have work tomorrow.
I don't care if you're driving. Actually, I do care if you're driving.
Drink anyway and take a cab. Then, cause chaos. I want all the rules broken!"
They groan, they cheer, they laugh, they drink. I am magnetic and insufferable, and I know it. Pierce takes two shots in quick succession and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes gleaming. It's the reckless joy that only fellow brats understand.
That's when I notice him.
Emmett is sitting on a leather couch just beyond the group, and he's watching me with an expression I can't quite read.
He doesn't come that often. He's rather new.
His posture is perfect, spine straight, legs crossed, watching the scene like a predator.
He's holding a glass of something amber that he hasn't touched.
His dark hair falls past his shoulders in a way that looks like he spends hours in a salon.
He has the kind of face that makes you forget your own name, sharp jaw, pointy chin, big warm black eyes with those crinkles at the corners.
His lips are full, red, delicious. He's wearing a cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, revealing forearms that I immediately want wrapped around my throat.
I approach with my tray, grinning. "Shot?"
He doesn't take one. He doesn't even look at the tray. His eyes stay on mine.
"If you don't stop being such a brat trying to get everybody drunk," he says, and from that point on, his voice is all I hear. "I'm going to take matters into my own hands." A pause. "Do you have a Dom to control you? If you do, they're doing a lousy job."
My hand tightens on the tray. My smile doesn't falter, but my heart is going crazy.
"No," I say, and I want to banter more. But I can't. It's like I forgot all words. I immediately want him to want me. Desperately.
Emmett's eyes don't leave mine. His lips curve. I can see he's having fun, and I love it.
"Probably what you need," he says.
The club disappears. The music, the neon, Pierce's laughter somewhere behind me, the clinking of glasses, all of it.
There's only Emmett's gaze. I forget how to breathe, how to swallow.
My heartbeat is in my ears. I don't know yet that he will be my biggest heartbreak.
All I know is that his eyes are on me, and I am still.
Noa's door opens. His dark curly hair is all over the place.
He hasn't styled it today. He's smaller than me, a tiny thing, with his olive skin and full lips.
I hear his bare feet, quick, light. I can recognize that sound automatically now, after living with him for so long.
I don't look up, but I feel his eyes on me.
Those big black eyes that miss nothing, that have seen me like this so many times that the sight of me wrecked on this couch must be as familiar to him as the furniture.
He doesn't ask what happened. He doesn't say are you okay or do you want to talk about it or any of the useless questions people ask when they find someone crying.
He knows all I need is some time and a friend by my side.
So, he turns and walks to the kitchen. No one can do anything for this pain to go away, but having company helps, especially if we talk about something else.
I like to have other things going on in my life.
Makes me feel less fundamentally broken.
The freezer door opens. A drawer slides.
Two spoons clink together. I hear him prying the lid off something, the scrape of metal.
He comes back with two bowls of pistachio, because it's the one we always choose when things are bad.
The fancy expensive one, not the green-dyed stuff.
It's our emergency flavor. The green is vivid against the white ceramic.
Noa sits beside me. The couch dips under his slight weight.
He's wearing an oversized gray t-shirt that belongs to Henry, his boyfriend, and sweatpants that are too long for his legs, the cuffs pooling around his ankles.
He places my bowl on the coffee table within reach and balances his own on his knee.
Then he picks up the remote, and without a word, without even glancing at me, he navigates to Hamilton.
The opening notes unfold through the apartment, and I feel better for five seconds. We've watched this musical so many times that the disc would be worn, if discs still existed. I know every song, every camera angle, every moment where Miranda's voice breaks. It's our musical.
Noa drapes a blanket over both our laps. It's the grey fleece one, soft from a hundred washes, pilling at the edges. My breathing is still jagged. I can hear it, these hitching, shallow gulps of air. But the music helps. The familiar progression of scenes helps.
Noa's shoulder presses against mine. A small, warm fact: I am here, and you are here, and neither of us is going anywhere. He rests his head on my shoulder and I rest mine on top of his. I want to thank him, but it isn't necessary. He knows how grateful I am to have him in my life.
The ice cream melts in my bowl. The pistachio green goes liquid at the edges. I watch it for a while. When they're singing about how unstoppable Hamilton was, I decide to pick up my spoon.
Noa takes a bite of his own ice cream at the same moment, as if he'd been waiting for me to go first. We chew in silence, our eyes on the screen.
My breathing smooths out, each exhale lasting a little longer than the last, until I'm no longer gasping but simply breathing, the way people are supposed to breathe, the way people breathe when they're not drowning like I am.
Noa finishes his bowl and sets it on the coffee table beside mine.
We don't speak. But it's the kind of silence that only exists between people who have sat through each other's worst nights, who have held each other's hair back and wiped each other's tears and watched terrible movies at three in the morning because sleep was impossible and being alone was worse.
It's a silence built from years of I know and me too and you don't have to explain and I love you, I wish things were better.
I will survive this night. I have survived all of the others.