I didn’t let go of his wrist until we were out the gym door and halfway down a dark hallway, not trusting that he wouldn’t head back to go another fifty rounds with Allie. When we were far enough down the hall we could hear ourselves talk over the music, I stopped. I couldn’t get my first word out before he did.
“Luce, I know I said some things back there I probably shouldn’t have, and I didn’t treat a woman the way a man should, but I can’t and I won’t tolerate someone, male or female, talking about my girl like that.” He stared down at me, his eyes asking for forgiveness as much as they weren’t.
I only heard two words. “Your girl?” I repeated because I needed confirmation.
Grabbing my face, he rested his forehead against mine. “My girl.”
“And the expiration date on that title would be?” I asked because I had to. He was Jude Ryder. Milk left out on the counter didn’t expire as quickly as Jude’s girls did.
“How about we take it one day at a time?” he replied, that warm breath fogging my mind again.
I wanted to kiss him so badly I had to fight every urge and primal instinct to keep myself from following desire to delivery because I needed clarification. I needed answers. “I thought a girl like me, the marrying kind,” I began, giving him a look, “was entitled to more than just one day at a time.”
“You do,” he said, letting my face go and stepping back until he was leaning against the opposite wall. “But I don’t.”
Processing logical thoughts was easier with him four feet away. “Is that one of your go to lines when a girl asks for something more than a twenty-four hour Jude furlough?”
Tapping the back of the wall with his heel, he looked down the hall. “No, that’s what I answer when a girl I’m falling hard for, the only girl I’ve fallen hard for, wants to be in a relationship with someone like me.”
And we were back at the starting line. The whole Jude-doesn’t-deserve-anything-but-pile-after-pile-of-shit thing was wearing on my last nerve. “You know, Jude, you’re half as tough as you think you are,” I said, “and twice as nice as you hope you aren’t. So don’t try to sell me the whole I’m-a-cancer thing again because I’m not buying it.”
His eyes were shining when they looked back at me. “You’re not, huh?”
“Nope. I’ve got you all figured out, Jude Ryder, and I expect someone like you to give someone like me more than just one day at a time.”
“So what then? You want me to make some lame ass comment that we’ll be together forever? We’ll take our dying breaths together beside each other in bed?” he said, his voice soft.
“I’m a realist,” I said. “Lying and making promises about forever is almost as bad as one day at a time.”
“So what, my sweet, beautiful, complicated Luce, do you want from me?”
I was looking at it, but I wasn’t sure if I could have it. I wasn’t sure if a person like Jude could ever be claimed. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Oh, Luce,” he said, grimacing, “just when I thought you were getting better, you deliver a line like that.”
“Ryder,” I warned, “nice try attempting to divert this train, but I’m at the wheel and this one’s staying right on the tracks until you answer my question.”
He hit the back of his head against the wall a few times. “Okay, so something between one day at a time and forever,” he said, searching the ceiling for an answer that would appease me. “But you want an honest answer too, right?”
“Only you would have to clarify that,” I groaned.
He nodded once, meeting my eyes. “How about,” he said, rendering me witless with the look in his eyes, “I’ll be here, each day and every day on, as long as you want me to be?”
I finally got that whole, be still, my beating heart line. “And that’s the honest answer?”
Jude crossed his fingers over his chest. “Honestly.”
“That’s a damn fine answer, Ryder,” I said, walking up to him. It was a moment of intimacy and vulnerability, and passion was certainly there too, but all I wanted was to be in his arms. Mouths joined, hands exploring, nothing else could have made the moment more consuming than it already was.
Tucking me close to him, his arms held me like they were incapable of letting go. “This is a damn fine response too, Luce.”
I laughed into his shirt, wondering how a boy with his reputation could smell like soap and sunshine and could say the sweetest things I’d heard. That’s when, as was becoming a pattern at Southpointe High, I had a revelation.
Our reputations weren’t who we really were, they were who people told us we were. Some of us fell into that trap, while others fought their entire lives to break free of them. Jude was no more the bad boy with a dead end future than I was the skanky slut everyone said I was. The difference between our assigned reputations was that Jude accepted his like it was penance for some wrongdoing.
“So you think you’ve got me all figured out?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Pretty much.”
Jude’s head nodded above mine. “Okay. So when’s my birthday?”
No idea.
“What’s my middle name?” he asked. “What was the name of my first pet? What’s my GPA? How many stitches have I had? What size shoe do I wear?” he continued on, throwing out an unending stream of questions, none of which I knew and all of which were impersonal, one word answers.
“So maybe we need to have a day of Q and A or something to get all the detail stuff out of the way,” I answered, wondering how I could know so little of him, yet still feel like I’d never known anyone better, “but I know enough to know nothing you could tell me about yourself could change that.”
“You don’t know how much I wish that were true,” he said against my head, running his fingers up and down the length of my back.
As I was debating on whether to respond or just let that one hang in the air, a few couples came jogging down the hall.
“Ryder, man,” the guy in front called out, wagging his brows at the two of us pressed against the wall. “I thought the locker room was more your domain.”
“Keep running, shithead,” Jude growled, slapping the air behind his head. “Morrison,” Jude said, grabbing the second guy running by. “What’s the deal? Your dates chasing you with a wedding ring or something?”
“There’s a shit load of cops that just showed up. They’re searching the whole gym and we’ve got something of a paraphernalia problem on us,” he said, tapping his jacket pocket. “Might want to take the back way out if you have the same problem.”
Jude’s arms tensed around me. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath. Shoving off the wall, he snagged my hand and began running down the hall. “Come on, Luce. We’ve got to get out of here.”
My stomach dropped. No innocent man ran from the cops the way he was now. I couldn’t believe it was drugs, because I’d witnessed enough stoners in the courtyard between classes at my last school to recognize the symptoms and Jude didn’t portray any of them, but I didn’t have the courage to believe he was running because of something worse. I just let him pull me along because running from the cops with him was better than being left behind.
Jude turned down another hall, right as the doors at the end of the one the first band of guys were running towards burst open with a stream of flashlights and shouts.
“Damn it,” Jude hissed, pulling me faster down the hall. I deserved some sort of medal or award for ascertaining the speeds I was in the height of heels I was wearing.
“Mind telling me what’s going on?” I hollered up at him as he shoved open a metal door. We were outside, close to the parking lot.
Spinning around, Jude’s face was tortured. I’d never seen him so undone. “I have to go, Luce. And I can’t take you with me.”
So many words wanted to come out, but none did.
The best answer I could come up with was, “They’re here for you.”
He nodded, lo
oking between me and the door over my shoulder. “And if you’re with me, they’ll take you in too.”
I bit my lip, realizing I was about to be ditched on the sidewalk. “All right.”
“Damn it, Luce, I’m sorry. I did something really, really stupid,” he said, grabbing my arms.
I made a vow to myself I wouldn’t cry. I forced myself to look up at him; glaring at that face was an impossible feat. “You’d better go then.”
“Luce,” he said, begging me for something I wasn’t ready to give.
“Just go, Jude,” I whispered, looking into the parking lot.
He leaned in, wanting to kiss or embrace me, but I was not ready to be consoled.
“No,” I said, stepping back. “Go.”
His face broke, his eyes shadowing almost instantly. Backing away, he kept his eyes on me for another moment before turning and running like the devil had just arrived at Southpointe High.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jude and the Chevelle had about a ten second head start before a screaming line of police cars screamed out of the parking lot after him. I just stood there, frozen like a lawn gnome, watching the whole thing like it wasn’t reality.
The man I thought I was falling for skidding out of the parking lot, hitting speed bumps so hard the Chevelle caught air, while a squad of police cars were hot on his tail, couldn’t be real. I caught the shortest glimpse of him before he spun out of the parking lot and his face was eerily calm. The only way a person could be calm in a situation like this was because he’d been in so many like this, it was like waking up and putting his pants on one leg at a time.
A slew of officers burst through the door we’d just come out and ran right past me, having no clue I had just been with, or was associated with, Jude.
“Suspect in stolen vehicle is heading north of Hemlock Ave,” the voice on the other end of the walkie said as the last officer rushed past me.
Theft. Car theft.
This last piece of information was the straw that broke my back. I crumpled to the ground, wrapping my arms around my legs, and closed my eyes, praying I’d wake up.
“So you didn’t even make it through the night,” a voice tsked-tsked as a flash of metallic red fabric came into view. “Let me guess,” Allie said, looking down on me, “in the janitor’s closet?”
I so didn’t need this shit right now.
“No? So the girl’s locker room, right? That’s a Jude favorite.”
I was a tough girl, but tonight went beyond tough. I didn’t have what it took to get past this mountain of crap.
“Okay, so the couch in the principal’s office.”
“Get the hell out of here,” I said, into my folded arms.
“How does it feel? Being left on the curb like the piece of trash you are,” she said, kneeling beside me. “At least when he was done screwing me, I got a few minutes of cuddling and a warm bed.”
“Allie!” a voice shouted from behind. “The party at Morrison’s is just getting started. You don’t want to be late.”
“Well, if it isn’t Sawyer Diamond riding in on his white horse.” Allie laughed. Sawyer stepped around me, his jacket slung over one shoulder. “You hoping to score with Jude’s sloppy seconds? Because I’d bet she’s ripe for a rebound roll in the sack right about now.”
“Damn it, Allie,” Sawyer said, grabbing her elbow and steering her away, limping on his bad ankle. “You’re a lot easier to be around when you’re trashed, so be on your merry shot slamming way.”
“You’re no fun,” she said, trying to swipe her elbow out of his grasp.
“Conner!” Sawyer yelled at a guy climbing into a truck whose bed was spilling over with students. “Got room for one more?”
“Does it look like I do, Diamond?” Conner hollered back, revving his engine. “There’s only lap sitting room.”
“That’s perfect,” he replied, handing Allie off to another guy in the bed of the truck who swung her up. Neither one seemed to mind the lap arrangement.
“See you at Morrison’s?” Conner called out the window as the human circus headed out of the parking lot.
“Maybe later,” Sawyer said, tapping the truck bed as they passed by.
Coming up to me, he crouched beside me, swinging his jacket over my hunched shoulders. “Lucy? Are you all right?”
Deciding who’d I’d rather be locked in a closet with right now, Sawyer or Allie, was like choosing the lesser of two evils. “I’m fantastic,” I answered, my head still curled into my knees. “Could you just give me some space, Sawyer?”
“No,” he said, scooting next to me. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, I asked nicely once, but I won’t a second time,” I said, heat trickling into my bloodstream. “Go. Away.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time. No.”
Everything else had gone all to hell tonight, why wouldn’t I expect Sawyer to go with the hellish flow?
“If you’re hoping for sloppy seconds, you can stop hoping now,” I began. “If you’re offering to be a shoulder to cry on, I don’t cry. If you’re looking to tell me ‘I told you so’ or convince me of what a loser Jude is, save your breath. If—”
“Actually,” Sawyer interrupted, “I just wanted to make sure you made it home safe.”
Dead. Silence.
“Sawyer, I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like a terrible human being. “I’m pissy and taking it out on you because you’re the only one here to take it out on.”
“I have three older sisters,” he said, nudging me. “I’m used to pissy.”
Turning my head, I looked over at him. He was grinning that smile, looking at me like we were good friends. I needed a good friend.
“Your date won’t mind if you drive me home?” I asked, looking around for some solo female floating off in the distance.
“I went stag,” he said, popping his shoulders.
“Oh,” I said, sitting up. I didn’t know much of Sawyer Diamond other than knowing he wasn’t the kind of guy that went stag to dances out of necessity. “You did?”
“I was really hoping to take this one girl,” he said, gazing over at me, “but she ended up going with some other guy.”
I exhaled, staring out into the empty spot in the back of the parking lot. “Some other guy who ditched her because the cops were after him?”
“Something like that,” he said, standing up. “Come on, let me drive you home so you can put an end to this night.” He extended his hand for me to take, and it felt natural to accept it. Like I wasn’t fighting every force of nature in this universe and the next to keep a hold of it.
Standing up, I dusted myself off and smoothed the wrinkles out of my dress. “I’m so relieved you came along and took care of the Allie situation, I could kiss you right now,” I said, before realizing what I’d said and who I’d said it to.
Of course he couldn’t just laugh it off or pretend he hadn’t heard it altogether. “And I would happily oblige.”
I tried laughing that response off, but the delivery was all wrong. It sounded more like the hysterics of the perpetually awkward.
Another few seconds of cringe worthy laughter and Sawyer tilted his head. “I’m just over here,” he said, grabbing my hand and walking me across the parking lot.
His hand was warm and strong, but a little soft for a guy. Looking down at our entwined hands, mine appeared to fit perfectly in his, but it felt wrong.
Sliding up to a sleek white car, he opened the passenger door. I lifted my brows.
“I’m old-fashioned,” he explained. “Don’t tell.”
“Plus, you had three older sisters.” I slid into the seat, looking up at him.
“Exactly,” he said before shutting the door.
“Where am I heading?” he asked as he crawled into the driver’s seat and turned the key over.
“I live across the lake in Sunrise Shores,” I said, trying not to think about what I’d been doing an hour ago in this same parking
lot. I tried to swallow the lump choking up my throat as Sawyer peeled out of the parking lot, leaving behind a few good and a slew of bad memories.
“I’ll take one hot fudge sundae with extra fudge and two cherries on top.” Sawyer looked across the seat at me, jacking his eyebrows. “That will be three fifty-eight at the first window,” the speaker crackled back.
“Really, I’m not hungry,” I said as Sawyer pulled forward. I couldn’t imagine eating right now.
“You don’t have to be hungry to enjoy the healing qualities of a mound of ice cream and a river of fudge,” he said, pulling his wallet out from his back pocket. He handed the cashier a hundred and she glared at him like there was no greater offense in the land of fast food.
“And here I’d been under the belief that ice cream made you fat,” I said, trying to pretend like my heart was in whatever Sawyer was doing to cheer me up. Nothing, not even a VIP pass to Disneyland, could leap over that hurdle.
“Nonsense,” he said, handing over a bucket sized sundae. “Ice cream makes any situation, especially this kind, at least fifty percent better.” The cashier handed him a spoon which he jabbed into the mountain of whipped cream, waiting for me. Cars were lined up behind us, but he obviously wasn’t moving until I took a bite.
I rolled my eyes and dug in. It was just a spoonful of whipped cream, with a smudge of fudge, but Sawyer was right. I felt better, not jump out of your seat and raise your hands to the heavens better, but enough so it counted.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded slowly. “Better.”
“Well, my mission is done here.” With that, Sawyer punched the car into gear and sped out of the drive-in like we were cruising down Rodeo Drive.
Carving out a spoonful of ice cream, I glanced over at him. He noticed.
“What’s on your mind, Larson?” he asked, trying to sound like he was talking to one of his buddies, but he wasn’t looking at me like one of his buddies.
“You don’t want to know,” I answered around a mouthful of ice cream.