Chapter 30 #2
“Cass and Chelsea, they always knew to go to you if they needed help. They knew you wouldn’t make them explain themselves, you just wanted us to be safe. You were always like that, Eli, and I thought you walked on fucking air for it.”
I look at Jude as if seeing him for the first time. “I was no hero, Jude.”
“You were to me.”
To my vast and utter surprise and embarrassment, I feel my throat go thick with emotion.
I look back down at the ground between my knees. “I shouldn’t have hit that guy—Reese’s ex. She told me I didn’t think about her feelings, only mine, and she was right.”
“Yeah, she was. But I bet some small part of her really enjoyed seeing you break the guy’s nose. You did break his nose, right?”
“Probably,” I say.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
I look back over at him. “What do you mean?”
“How are you going to get her to forgive you?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” That pressure at my throat feels as if it’s choking me now. “No matter what I do, I seem to smother the fuckin’ life out of the things I love.”
“Nah.”
“What?”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. I tried so fucking hard not to lose Kelly and I just ended up pushing her away. And now, I just…I felt so much for Reese—I feel so much—” My words catch in my throat, and I feel my eyes burning with the threat of tears.
“Eli, I don’t think it was the way you thought between you and Kelly. I used to know players like her.”
“Tennis players?” I laugh, incredulously.
“Off the court.”
Out in the hall the thud of boots and sound of voices comes from somewhere nearby.
The crew are probably heading back this way.
We should get up. But I can’t, because I’m too desperate to hear what my little brother has to say.
The brother I’ve downplayed as a goofy dude with not a care in the world.
Jude shrugs. “They did this thing where they’d meet someone they cared about, like cared about so much it scared them, but instead of letting it happen, they just acted like dicks.
They played it cool so they could be the ones on top.
You know? So they wouldn’t risk getting their hearts ripped in half.
Kelly was like that. She was always scared of losing you and one day she just got so scared she figured it would be safer to have you gone. ”
I’m so stunned, for a minute it’s all I can do just to stare at Jude. “How do you know so much about Kelly?”
Jude shrugs. “She tried to sleep with me.”
“The fuck?!” I jump to my feet.
“Easy!” Jude says, rising too. “It didn’t happen. I mean, it almost happened, but it didn’t.”
I feel my whole body go tight. “Talk fast, Jude?”
Jude nods but doesn’t look worried. “It was after your divorce. She came to Europe with some…media tour or something. I didn’t recognize her, Eli, not at first. I was on the circuit the whole time you guys were married.
I didn’t come home for like, a decade. I didn’t even go to your wedding. Sorry about that, by the way.”
I’d been pissed about that, I remember, but that’s neither here nor there now. “Keep going,” I say, still unsure how pissed I should be.
“When I met her I was in a bad place. Very bad. My career was over.” He points to his knee.
It was a catastrophic ACL tear that did him in.
He still has the faintest limp sometimes when the weather’s cold.
“She tried to take me back to her hotel, but I kept thinking she looked familiar. When I finally figured it out, she burst into fucking tears. Told me everything. How she destroyed the best thing that ever happened to her.”
The anger finally falls away, replaced with only confoundedness. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
Jude sighs, stretching his arm across his chest. “Because you would have tried to get her back. And that shit was not in your best interest. Not when you didn’t really want to be with her in the first place.”
I run my hand over my jaw, trying to process this new information.
Footsteps sound outside, louder now, and there’s the clank of someone dropping something, followed by a burst of laughter.
“We should go,” Jude says.
But I don’t move. “So, why did you think I was ready to hear all this now?”
“Because you’re in love with someone who looks at you the way I did, when I was a kid. Like you walk on air.”
“It’s water,” I croak, my pulse squeezing in my throat, stuck on the word love. Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? I love her. I want her to be my forever.
“What?”
“Walk on water…never mind. Jude, can I tell you something?”
“Yeah, man. Anything.”
“Reese and I—it wasn’t real, at first. She and I pretended to be together because I kind of insinuated we were.
To Kelly. It was a whole mess. But Reese agreed to pretend with me, just so I wouldn’t humiliate myself.
Then it just kind of turned real.” I run a hand over my head.
“So the thought now that I could lose her again? It feels like falling off a cliff and landing in a hole. A thousand times worse than before.”
“Listen, you can fix this, Eli. You just need to show her that everything’s real.”
I throw him a look. “You didn’t even blink at the part about how Reese and I weren’t really dating before.”
Jude shrugs. “Nora and I pretend all the time, like when women are hitting on me, she acts like she’s in love with me so they’ll get the hint. She’s really good at it. So, I’m used to it.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or shake my head.
“Anyway, you deserve to be happy, man,” Jude continues. “Just like, maybe get a little therapy or something. I dunno. I’ve heard it’s good.”
I take in my brother as if he’s a totally different person.
But he’s not. He’s the same person. I’d just never noticed him like this before. I never gave him a chance. “Hey, Jude? I’m sorry.”
“For what, being a dick to me?”
This time I do laugh, a quick bark with no humor. He’s smarter than he acts. It’s just part of his schtick to play happy-go-lucky.
“Yeah, for that. Over the years.”
“You weren’t always. But it’s okay. I deserve it for kicking your ass at sports when we were in school.”
I narrow my eyes and throw Jude a punch on the arm. “Except baseball.”
But it’s not hard, and he laughs, darting easily out of the way of the next one. “Fine not baseball. But shit, maybe some anger management would be better for you.”
The plastic flap flutters again, making both of us jerk our eyes in its direction.
For a moment we both stare at it.
Then Jude says, “Should we go?”
“Yes,” I say, too fast. I still don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m ready to get back to the finished side of the hotel.
We head out to the hallway, nodding at the workers all coming back from lunch while I mull over everything we talked about.
Jude’s right about maybe getting a little help.
I make a note to dig up the number of my therapist I used during the divorce.
It’d be good to unload some of this shit, so long as I’m starting fresh with some kind of new life, whatever that looks like.
It’s only when we pass the third set of workers that I realize they’re all looking at our uncovered heads like we’re aliens.
“It was stupid of us to come in here without protection,” I say. “Seeing as we’re the owners. One more thing for Cass to get pissed about.”
Jude glances over at me. “What are you going to do about her?”
I groan. “I don’t know. Make a public apology.”
“She’s going to skewer you at our next exec meeting.”
“I won’t be going to those.”
“She fired you?!”
I shake my head, explaining to Jude my non-plan about leaving and planning next steps.
“You just want to be free to sail Reese’s boat, don’t you?”
I smile, though my chest aches at the tenuousness of this idea I haven’t wanted to name. “All I want is a life with her. Whatever that takes.”
“Damn, you’ve got it bad, bro.”
“Since when are you so good at giving relationship advice?”
Jude shrugs, grinning. “My best friend is a woman.”
“But you’ve never actually been in a proper relationship? Not even with the mother of your child?”
“I don’t need a relationship. I have Nora!”
I grimace. “Can you hear yourself?”
“Yup. It works for me, okay?”
I can’t help wonder if Nora feels the same way. But I can’t ask him anything else, because as we emerge from the construction zone into the bright light of the lobby, Jude actually puts on his sunglasses. He gives me a tight hug and we make plans to hang out with Cap sometime soon.
I say goodbye, wondering if this version of Jude I’d overlooked for so long is going to say something profound.
Instead, he grins and says, “Wanna race to the apartments?”
So we do. Two grown men, one in a suit, sprinting from the back exit of the hotel to the staff apartments, laughing the whole way.
And the little asshole still beats me, bum knee and all.
I’m happy some things never change.