Chapter Two #3
We sat side by side, both facing out to the club’s main floor, the bar lights playing across the table in irregular pulses. He smelled faintly of hotel soap and something herbal, maybe the wine, maybe a lingering aftershave. His knee was close to mine, not touching, but close.
The booth insulated us from the worst of the noise, but the music still came through at a level that would have made normal conversation impossible. Instead, we leaned in.
His voice, when he spoke, was pitched low but clear, and it carried over the thump of bass with surprising ease. “You look like someone who just lost a bet.”
I laughed, louder than I’d meant to. “I look like someone who is too old to be in this room.”
He considered that, then smiled. “You wear it well.”
“Is that a compliment?” I asked.
“Statistically improbable, but yes,” he replied. The smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, then vanished.
He was good at this. Not the flirting—I doubted he’d ever consciously flirted in his life—but the banter, the parry and thrust of language.
It reminded me of the first meeting I’d ever attended as a junior partner, the way the old guard had fenced me in with words instead of blades. He was younger than me by a decade and change, but at this moment, he held the upper hand.
We watched the party unfold. Carolyn spun in the center, white dress catching every flash of light.
Her friends were loud, hands in the air, faces red from champagne and sweat and the giddy knowledge that tomorrow was someone else’s problem.
It was beautiful, in its own way, but it had nothing to do with us.
Jude’s leg bumped mine under the table.
He froze.
I didn’t move away.
I waited.
He relaxed a fraction and said, “I’m not good at these things.”
“Parties?” I asked.
“Being a person at them.”
“You’re doing fine,” I said.
He glanced over, skepticism evident even behind the glasses. “You don’t have to say that.”
I shrugged. “I say what I mean.”
He took a slow breath, and then nodded, accepting this as fact.
For a while, we just sat. I refilled my glass and offered him a pour, which he accepted with a “Why not?” that bordered on philosophical surrender. We drank, not as equals, but as two people who had decided, for a brief stretch, to believe in the possibility of equals.
At some point, the conversation shifted.
I don’t remember the topic, only that I had laughed, genuinely, at something he said.
It caught him off guard. His face opened, just for a second, into a smile that was all light and no calculation.
Then he caught himself, looked down at his hands, and reset the mask.
I wanted to see that expression again.
I wanted, if I was honest, to see what else he could be surprised by.
The booth was warm, and the bodies pressing in from either side forced us closer. The world outside the booth faded—not gone, just less insistent—until it was possible to imagine we were the only two people in the club.
Jude shifted, turning to face me more directly. His knee now pressed against mine, deliberate this time. He looked at me, really looked, and I felt the current run up my spine.
“Why are you marrying my sister?”
The question was a scalpel. I appreciated the efficiency. I thought about lying, but the truth was simpler. “It seemed like the right thing to do”
He waited, because he knew there was more. “And now?” he asked.
I said nothing.
He smiled, but it was sadder this time. “I thought so.”
We sat with that. The honesty hung in the air, a third party at the table, demanding acknowledgment.
He reached for his glass, found it empty, and set it down with exaggerated care. “I’m not good at these things,” he repeated, softer.
I covered his hand with mine. Not a grab, just contact. His skin was warm. He looked at our hands, then back at me. The noise in the club faded to a background hum, the lights to a pattern of slow motion.
I became acutely aware of the inch of space between our faces, the way his hair had fallen forward, the fact that his breathing had sped up. I felt my own pulse climbing to match.
He said, “Are you—”
I didn’t let him finish. I leaned in. I don’t remember the next part. Not the details. Not the order of operations. I remember the taste of wine and the shock of his mouth against mine, the way he gasped into the contact, the way his hand tightened on my wrist.
I remember thinking, this was the first true thing I’d done in months.
The rest was noise and color, a sequence of images: Jude’s glasses askew, his laugh muffled against my shirt, the heat of his hand on my neck, the way he whispered something—my name, I think—right before everything spun out into a blur.
I don’t know how long we stayed in that booth. I don’t know who noticed, or if they even did. I didn’t care. It ended the way all good things do, with a blackout and the promise of consequences.
I woke up the next morning not knowing what city I was in, not knowing what time it was, not knowing, at first, whose hand was tangled in mine.
I didn’t let go.