Chapter 19. Jude
I wake up to the sound of my own breathing and someone else's heartbeat under my ear, and for a disoriented moment I don't know where I am. Then the soreness hits and I cuss under my breath. Everything comes flooding back in a rush. Damn.
Ford.
Ford is here, in my bed, by my fucking side, solid and warm and real, his arm still wrapped around me like he forgot to let go while we slept.
The light in the room has shifted to the colors of sunset.
We slept for a while, then. His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek. He smells so masculine, so good.
I tilt my head up carefully and find him waking up too, probably sensing me move.
"Hi," I say. My voice is wrecked.
"You snore," he says, and breaks into a smile. And he claims I'm the brat.
"I do not."
"Like a chainsaw. A small, adorable chainsaw."
"I'm going to choose to hear only the word 'adorable' in that sentence. And I'm not that small."
"You're very small next to me," he says. I roll my eyes. He smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling, making him look ten years younger and more dangerous.
We get dressed and I curse under my breath fourteen times while trying to pull sweatpants over skin that feels like it's been kissed by a sunburn.
It even pulses in rhythm with my heart. Feeling it all over again makes me half-hard.
Ford watches me struggle with an expression of pure amusement, already fully back in his fancy clothes, looking like he just stepped out of a menswear catalog while I'm over here hobbling around like a baby giraffe on its first day.
"You could help me," I say, hopping on one foot.
"I could," he agrees, and doesn't move.
"Sadist."
"Thank you. You say that like it's an insult."
Then I hear it.
Through the catastrophically thin walls (so thin I once heard Noa sneeze in his sleep from my bed), a bassline hits, thick, followed by the unmistakable opening of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." It's loud. Noa always listens to loud music, but he must have been trying to drown us out.
"Oh God," I mutter.
Ford raises an eyebrow. "Is that your roommate?"
"Welcome to my life."
I open the bedroom door, and we step into the hallway, and the sound hits us along with the delicious smell coming from the kitchen.
Olive oil, garlic, onions, paprika. And in the middle of all of it, there's Noa.
He's dancing. Not the self-conscious sway of someone who got caught singing in the shower.
This is full-body, full-commitment, hips-don't-lie-and-neither-does-anything-else-on-him dancing.
He's in an oversized t-shirt, probably Henry's, that keeps slipping off one shoulder, and a pair of very short shorts that barely reach his thighs, his dark curly hair bouncing wildly with every turn.
His bare feet slide across the kitchen tile, his hips rolling so easily it would make the actual Shakira look over her shoulder.
He spots us in the hallway and doesn't stop. Doesn't even slow down. Just points the wooden spoon he's holding at Ford, his big black eyes wide and bright with joy.
"He does this a lot?" Ford asks me, clearly having fun.
"Every time he cooks, so yes, three to six times a day. The dancing is non-negotiable. He once did a full merengue while making scrambled eggs."
"I can hear you!" Noa calls over the music, spinning back to the stove to flip something in the pan. "And it was bachata, you uncultured swine!"
He grabs a plate and starts arranging the crispy golden potatoes.
Then reaches for two sauces he's already prepared: the brava sauce, red and aggressive-looking in a small bowl, and an aioli so white and glossy it could be in a magazine.
He drizzles both over the potatoes like he learned from one too many 2 AM cooking videos, which he absolutely watches. I've caught him.
"Ford," I say, "in case you forgot, this is Noa. My roommate and my best friend. Noa, this is Ford. My… my Daddy."
Ford extends his hand again. "We met briefly when I arrived, but it's a pleasure to properly meet you, Noa."
Noa wipes his hands on a dish towel, takes Ford's hand, and shakes it with a grip that I know from experience is startlingly strong for someone his size.
Then he looks at Ford, and I can see the assessment happening in real time.
The expensive watch. The tailored shirt.
The broad shoulders. The silver hair, immaculate even after an hour of sleeping in my bed.
"You made him cry," Noa says, point-blank. "Good job!"
"Noa!" My face catches fire.
"The walls are thin, Jude. I heard things. I processed them. I've moved on. I'm just saying." He turns back to Ford, and his expression softens, and he laughs. "Good tears, though. I can tell the difference. He needs that. He cries all the time anyway."
"I am going to kill you," I say. "I am going to murder you and hide the body in the Monstera pot. Besides, I have to listen to you and Henry all the time, so give me a fucking break."
"It's not big enough for me," Noa says, making a face at me, as if he's disgusted. I stick my tongue out at him, and he does the same back. "And I didn't know living with me was such a chore for you. I'm deeply offended."
"Shut up!" I exclaim and then turn to Ford. "So this is how you feel about brats. Okay, I totally get it now." But Noa is giggling. "Stop being such a drama queen!"
"A drama queen but a queen nonetheless, baby. You hungry, papi? I made enough for three because I always make enough for three because this one…" he jabs the wooden spoon in my direction, "eats like a stray dog who found an open dumpster."
The way he says papi makes something shift inside me. Not jealousy. I could never be jealous of Noa, even if I tried. He always calls me that too, but hearing him call Ford that… I love it. I make a mental note to use it sometime.
"I would love some," Ford says, and I watch him settle onto one of the high stools at the counter.
I take the other stool, arranging myself sideways so my weight falls on my thigh instead of my ass, and Ford catches it and has the audacity to look pleased about it.
The smug bastard. The devastatingly handsome smug bastard.
Noa sets a plate of papas bravas in front of each of us and one at his own spot by the stove, where he eats standing up because he's never been able to sit still long enough to finish a meal.
The potatoes are perfect. Shattering-crisp outside, fluffy inside, the brava sauce bringing a slow heat while the aioli cools it down.
Kind of like how Ford is with me: the spanks making it burn, his tenderness cooling the pain down.
I'm such a poet. Ford takes one bite, and I watch his eyebrows climb.
"These are exceptional," he says, and you can tell he means it. He's not saying it only to please Noa. This is a man who's eaten in very expensive restaurants and knows the difference between good and extraordinary.
Noa beams, his whole face lighting up, and I love him for it, love how he never tries to pretend what he feels. He just feels it and shows it, every time.
"Family recipe," Noa says. "My abuela would haunt me from Seville if I messed it up."
Shakira transitions to Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina," and Noa's entire body responds before his brain does. His shoulders start moving, then his hips, then he's doing a full reggaeton bounce in front of the stove with a papas brava in his hand, chewing and dancing simultaneously.
"Tell me about yourself, Ford," Noa says between bites and body rolls, turning down the music one notch. "What do you do? Besides spanking my best friend."
"I'm going to move out," I announce to no one.
"You can't afford to move out."
"I'll live in a box. A nice box. A box with thicker walls. I won't invite you to visit."
"You'll miss my food, asshole," he says, and he's right.
Ford doesn't seem to mind Noa's antics. If anything, he looks amused in that particular way that means he's genuinely enjoying himself. He takes another bite of potato and considers the question.
"I'm retired, mostly," he says. "I was in finance for a long time. Investments, portfolio management. I'm also a choir director, and although that takes up most of my week, as Jude knows, it's nothing formal."
Noa freezes mid-bounce. His eyes go wide. "You joined a CHOIR and didn't tell me?!"
"I… I…" I hesitate, but Noa is about to murder me.
"What about you? What do you do?" Ford asks, probably sensing the tension. Noa still glares at me, mouthing "we will talk about this later," before turning to Ford with a smile, the ever-polite host.
Noa starts talking about his IT job. Yes, he's also into kink and also in IT; and Ford listens with genuine attention, asking follow-up questions that prove he's actually hearing what Noa says.
I eat my papas bravas and watch them and feel something I haven't felt in a long time.
Emmett never came here. He said he didn't have time for it. It sucked.
Then the song changes.
The opening notes of Bad Bunny's "Baile Inolvidable" pour from the phone, and Noa's head snaps toward it. His eyes go huge. His mouth falls open in that way it does when his favorite song comes on, which happens approximately every third song because Noa has a lot of favorite songs.
"Oh no," I say, because I know what's coming.
"Oh YES," Noa says, and sets his plate down with a clatter, and grabs my hand, and yanks me off the stool.
"Noa, fuck, be careful, my ass was just destroyed… Noa!"
"Your ass will survive. Dance with me or die. I'll kill you."
And I let him pull me, because I always let him pull me, because this is the thing about Noa and me.
We watch musicals, we sing, we dance. We have always danced.
Since the first week we moved in together when he caught me dancing to my favorite song.
We dance in the kitchen, in the living room, at three in the morning after bad dates, at noon on lazy Sundays.
I drilled salsa basics until they lived in my muscle memory, back in drama school, taught by a retired champion from Havana. She smoked unfiltered cigarettes during warm-ups and told me I had "good hips and no discipline," which, fair.
Noa leads first. He's shorter than me by a good bit, which should make it awkward but doesn't, because he leads very well.
That kid knows what he's doing. His feet are quick and precise, and I follow, spinning under his arm, catching his hand on the return, our bodies finding the rhythm.
My ass aches. My thighs burn from earlier.
I don't care. The music is in me now and my body responds.
We switch. I take the lead, and Noa melts into the follow like water, his curls bouncing as I spin him, pull him back, guide him through a cross-body lead that ends with him laughing breathlessly. And then, mid-turn, my arm extended, Noa's hand in mine, I catch Ford's face.
He's still on the high stool, but he's gone completely still. His half-eaten plate of papas bravas sits forgotten in front of him. His hands rest on the counter, his body angled toward us, and his expression…
God, his expression.
I've seen Ford look at me with desire. I've seen him look at me with authority, with amusement, with that intensity of his. But this is something else. This is surprise. Real, almost childlike surprise, his blue eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, the composed mask gone entirely.
I wink at him, laughing. Can't help it. The brat in me would never let a moment like this pass unexploited.
Noa spins me out, and I go, letting the momentum carry me, and when I come back, I'm closer to the counter, close enough to lean in toward Ford.
"I used to be a theatre kid," I tell him, slightly out of breath, my chest heaving. "Of course I know how to dance and sing." I let that land, watch it register behind those eyes. "Told you there are many things you don't know about me."
Something shifts in his face. Not just attraction. Something closer to fascination.
"Clearly," he says, and his voice is low and warm and carries an undertone that makes my stomach flip. "You continue to surprise me, puppy."
"Get used to it," I say, feeling myself blush at the pet name, and Noa grabs my hand again and pulls me back before Ford can respond.
“Me Porto Bonito” started. I know the song: it's about someone who did whatever they wanted but would drop it all if their partner asked. I sing to Ford and wink. I'm not sure if he understands the Spanish, but it feels like he does.
The music keeps going. Song after song. Noa is relentless, his energy inexhaustible, dragging me through turns and breaks and improvised footwork that we've invented together over dozens of nights just like this one.
I let myself be carried by it, the joy of movement, the familiarity of Noa's rhythm against mine.
But I keep looking at Ford. I keep finding his eyes. He's leaned back now, arms crossed over that broad chest, one ankle hooked over the other, watching us in open awe.
The music pounds. Noa laughs. My skin burns and my heart hammers and the kitchen smells like garlic. I spin. Noa pulls close and our bodies move together. I catch Ford's eye again. He's smiling so deeply it makes him look like a kid on Christmas morning.
Eventually Noa reclaims his papas and I start the dishes.
He cooks, I clean, that's the deal. But now I'm dancing alone, putting on a show for Ford.
I know how to move my hips, how to seduce, how to provoke with my body.
I'm sweating and I can barely breathe, my lungs on fire, but it's all worth it.
He looks at me like I'm the most delicious thing he's ever seen.