Chapter 9
JUDE
There are a group of women getting buzzed into Nora’s apartment building just as I arrive.
They turn to stare at me with that look that still makes me crack up.
The Is that…? look, which is also sometimes How do I know that guy?
look. I flip my still-damp-from-the-shower hair off my forehead just because I feel like playing it up today, and give them a prize-winning grin.
“Hello.”
“Oh!” says the one closest to me. Then she bursts into giggles.
People think I don’t notice the way women—and men who lean that way—act around me.
I do. It’s just weird for me to do anything about it.
Besides, my years in the spotlight taught me they only want what they see.
They don’t know me. It was actually Nora who made me feel like there might be more than just the way I look or how I hit the ball on the court—although I did work hard as fuck at making sure I was the best at that. Her friendship was everything to me.
Is everything to me, which is why I’m here, trying to salvage it.
Still, I flirt when I need to.
“Please, after y’all,” I say when we reach the stairs, swinging the bottle of wine I’m holding by the neck to the side to insist they pass. I’ve been playing up the American accent while I’m here too, just because it seems to get a bigger reaction. She giggles even harder.
Bingo.
The rest of them are now cracking up too.
They’re going so hard, for a moment I wonder if I’ve got shaving cream stuck to my chin or something.
But they can’t meet my eye. They keep batting their eyelashes and ducking their faces down.
The quieter one near the front of their pack even has a dark pink blush creeping up her cheeks.
She reminds me of someone. She’s pale, but not so pale and freckly as a redhead.
That’s the blush I suddenly really want to see.
Nora texted this morning, asking if I was still planning on going to the party.
At first my heart had flown up like a fucking balloon.
Maybe she was forgetting about being mad at me and my idiotic suggestion that had blown up in my face.
We never fought before, and now it seemed like it was all we ever did.
But when I confirmed I was going, adding a little winky face, she’d just replied, “Good. Need to talk.”
So that felt like shit too.
But she’s not wrong. Cap and I are leaving for Switzerland tomorrow, and I can’t go without figuring out what the hell is going on between us.
I’m so lost in thought as I make my way up the first flight of stairs on the way to Nora’s flat, I’m startled when one of the women breaks out of their hushed conversation to blurt out, “So, I have to know. Are you—”
“Oh my God, Marissa!” her friend cuts her off.
People have all kinds of reactions when meeting celebrities—not that I really am one anymore, but I’m still recognizable thanks to a few billboards and a little modeling my agent had me doing last year.
But the embarrassed one is the funniest to me.
It scrapes at least a tiny bit off the top of my worry about Nora.
I broaden my smile. “Am I going to the party?” I supply, even though I know that’s not what she was doing to ask.
“Yes!” says the one who shushed her friend. She’s got smooth dark brown skin and long braids that swish around her as she climbs up the steps. She’s attractive. They all are. But it’s like something’s broken in me. I don’t feel any attraction to them.
“Yes, I believe we’re headed to the same place,” I say, somehow coming back to this conversation as we round the landing. The one with the big smile looks back—she seems nice—and I give her a wink, making her eyes go buggy and her skin flush hot.
Only playing with her doesn’t make me feel anything at all. There’s only one person I want to get a reaction from right now, and that person’s probably going to ream me out when I get upstairs.
It wasn’t working for me.
I picture Nora’s eyes on mine, her lip trembling.
“Anyone ever tell you you look like the Witcher?” the one with the braids asks me as we reach the door. There’s thudding music on the other side.
“Oh my God, yes!” they all agree.
“What’s a Witcher?”
She bangs on the door. “It’s a show.”
“Should I be insulted?”
They’re still laughing at that when the door to Sasha’s flat opens, spilling raucous Christmas music out into the hallway. But it’s not bubbly Sasha at the door. It’s Nora.
Only, it’s not the Nora I know.
This Nora’s wearing this fuzzy dark green top with satin straps that pushes her chest up like her breasts are on a platter.
Her camera’s slung across her chest, the strap cutting into the plush flesh of her cleavage.
Along with that, she’s got on a leather miniskirt and black stockings so transparent I can see her red toenails through them.
Her hair falls down her shoulders in soft waves I want to stick my hands into.
Even her glasses—slightly different black-rimmed frames than she wore at home—somehow look sexy.
I never got the sexy librarian look until right this moment.
My dick just got it too.
“Hey, Nora,” I say. “I…uh…that shirt. Christmas.”
This is ridiculous. I’ve been backstage at fashion shows, on film sets; hell, once I had a heart-to-heart with this actress Eli used to have a poster of on his wall. Nobody makes Jude Kelly tongue-tied.
Yet here the fuck I am, this close to blurting out Boobs. Pretty.
Nora backs up against the door to let everyone in. “Sasha’s in the living room,” she tells them with a smile that makes my stomach flip.
I run my hand through my damp hair. I’m feeling all kinds of weird.
The fuck is going on with me? This is the woman who assured me that bump on the back of my neck last summer was a pimple and not a tick bite.
The woman who literally held my hair back during a truly disgusting stomach flu.
The woman I’ve fallen asleep next to countless times on the couch, feeling as comfortable to be around as my favorite jeans.
And now all I can picture is turning her around, pushing up that little skirt.
I wonder if she’d like a little smack there?
Some women do. That little tinge of pain mixed with pleasure…
“Jude, are you okay?”
No. I’m not. I’m picturing you naked and I can feel my crotch inflating. I need a drink.
“You look good,” I finish with, as the other women file in.
Nora eyes them as they giggle and wave at me and I smile back.
“You’ve made friends,” she says.
“When have I not?”
She gives me a half smile. “Cap’s at Farrah’s?”
I grit my teeth at the mention of Farrah’s name. But nod. “He’s pumped. You know he loves a sleepover.” I wave my phone. “But I’m ready in case he wants to make an escape.”
Nora nods. “Good.”
“Good I might take off at any moment?” I regret the words the minute they’re out. I’m being uncharitable. But being around Nora has put me in a mood again, like I have ever since I got here.
“Good you gave her a chance.” Then she lifts her chin as if this part of the conversation is over. “You’ll want to say hi to Sasha?”
Before I can say anything else, she turns to head down the hall. A wave of anger rushes through me. I hate being like this with her. I hate that I don’t know what she’s thinking. But she’s already rounded the corner, and the group of women are calling me from down the hall.
The living room is packed with people perched on all seating surfaces, and several more standing around in little clusters.
They all look smart. A bunch of them wear turtlenecks and blazers.
I feel dopey in my dark green button-down and jeans, even though Cap assured me I looked great.
Maybe I should have worn better socks. I’m wearing Santa socks.
Cap insisted. Maybe I need to stop taking fashion advice from my seven-year-old. Though he’s usually on point.
Sasha breaks free from one of them when she sees me, coming over and throwing her arms around me like we’re old friends.
“Jude!” Her hair’s done in ringlets like Shirley Temple, but she’s wearing a little black dress and spike heels.
“I’m so glad you came. And you met my friends!
” Her eyebrows waggle. The women I met are the girlfriends she was talking about.
Despite her wanting to set me up, I’m glad for her exuberance.
At least someone seems genuinely happy to see me.
“Oh my gosh!” she exclaims when she sees my socks. “Those are adorable!!”
Hah.
I hand her the wine. “Thanks for having me.” My eyes scan the room looking for Nora, but I’ve lost her.
“Jude, help yourself to a drink, or some snacks…” Sasha says. “But first, let me introduce you.”
Normally, I wouldn’t care about that; I’d even give a little royalty wave. But right now, I don’t know if I can put on my normal fun-loving persona. Sasha grasps the bottle of wine, holding it like a microphone. She even taps it. “This thing on?”
“Everyone, we have another celebrity in our midst.”
Another? I follow Sasha’s gaze to where a dude in a tweed jacket and beard is smiling and waving a hand.
“Meet tennis star, Jude Kelly!”
The women I was with gasp.
“Former tennis player,” I correct. But I still can’t help smiling at their reaction. That is until I glance to the adjoining kitchen and see Nora standing next to not one, but two youngish professor-type dudes. One leans in to say something to her and she smiles.
I feel a pressure at my temples. Who the fuck are those guys? And what did they just say to her?
But now I’m swarmed by a handful of people, all of them shaking my hand and telling me they watched my games, and do I still play? Do I offer private lessons? How’s my knee?