I laughed as I straightened and crossed my left arm in front of me. “I think you’re right. I’m quite certain my life is destined for plenty of crazy shit,” I quoted, elbowing him with my other arm.
“You and me both, kiddo,” he said, tilting his head up. “But me for real and you just as a figure of speech. Your name’s going to end up in lights and mine’s going to be replaced by a number on some warden’s list.”
Stretching the other arm, I inhaled, trying to muster up all the anger I had for him just hours ago. I couldn’t do it. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”
His forehead lined as he unwrapped that philosophical present. He opened his mouth; nothing came out, so he closed it again. Seeing Jude tongue-tied made me smile; it somehow made him less intimidating.
Finally, he said. “That’s some stinkin’ smart shit,” he said, hanging his arms over his knees. “Who said that?”
Folding one leg over the other, I shrugged. “I did.”
“You are one smart little señorita, you know that, Luce?” he said, appraising me with warm eyes. “Not only is your name going to be in lights, you’re going to have, like, three acronyms after your name: Lucy Larson, M.D, P.H.D, and some other smart fill in the blank D.”
“Enough with the flattery, Ryder,” I said, wiping my forehead off with the back of my arm. “You’ve got some explaining to do. Some honest explaining to do,” I edited. “Yeah, I do,” he said, thumping his head against the mirror. “Why is the truth so damn hard to admit?”
“Because it’s honest,” I said.
“So damn smart,” he said under his breath, looking over at me.
This man was the pope, president, and god of dodging the topic. Too bad for him he was dealing with the queen, holy mother, and empress of seeing through a man’s stream of shit.
“Ryder.” I turned his face towards mine. I leveled him with a no nonsense look. “Explanation.” I leaned in, lifting my brows. “Now.”
“Bossy, too,” he muttered.
Since playing nice was getting me nowhere, I elbowed him in the ribs and decided to get this conversation ball rolling. “So you stole a car?” How could I sound so casual talking about this? Only one answer to that riddle. Jude Ryder.
“I prefer the term borrowed,” he said, clasping his hands together.
“I suppose most felons do,” I said, biting my tongue two words too late.
“No, you’re right,” he said, trying to comfort me after my flash of bitchiness. “I am a felon. A repeat felon. And if I was eighteen, I would have been locked away for at least a solid month, not just a few nights. It goes on my record as car theft, but I did, in my mind that night, borrow the car.”
I inhaled a dose of patience. This was new conversation territory for me and I was running low on sympathy. “Explain to me why, in your eyes, you borrowed a stolen car.”
He shifted in his seat. “The Chevelle was parked in a buddy of mine’s garage. Damon is a few years old than me and would have graduated from Southpointe, but he dropped out after his junior year and opened up his own garage. He specializes in rebuilding old cars, like real piecers, and turns them into beauties doctors and lawyers pay a hundred grand for,” he said, getting all animated. “You should have seen this one El Camino that came in once, it was a real hunk of junk, not even good enough for scrap metal, and Damon—”
“Jude,” I stopped him. “It thrills me to see you’ve got a passion in life other than women and being the honorary president of the Bad Boys Club of America, but I’ve got about fifteen minutes before my parents start blowing up my phone if I’m not home.”
“Sorry,” he said, cracking his neck. “So I do side jobs for Damon from time to time. I’ve got a knack for getting underneath the hood of a sexy ass machine and making her purr.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “I bet you do.”
“Ah, Luce,” he said, curling his nose at me. “You have a sick, sick mind. You know that?”
“I learned from the best.”
“Ouch,” he said. “But deserved.”
“Very,” I added.
“So someone had just dropped the Chevelle off last week to have a full body detail job done. Damon left town for the weekend to visit his girl on the east side of the state, so he left me in charge of the garage.”
This is where I began to wince because I began to see the picture in the connect the dots he was drawing for me.
“Saturday came and Damon was gone, the owner wasn’t expecting the car back until Monday, and the keys were still in the ignition,” he said, taking a breath. “And me, being the morally corrupt idiot that I am, saw an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
“If Damon was on the opposite side of the state, and the owner wasn’t planning on picking it up for a couple days, how did the cops find out you’d taken it?” I asked, feeling sympathy trickling back into my heart.
“Because I didn’t follow my number one rule of always expecting the worst.” He sighed, rubbing his forearms. “Damon’s girl chose Saturday night to break up with his sorry ass, so when he got back to the garage and saw the Chevelle was missing, he assumed it was stolen and called the cops.”
“Wait,” I said, feeling a little numb. “Why would Damon head to the garage at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?” That was working a 24/7 work week.
“There’s a little loft above the garage he lives in,” Jude answered, staring straight ahead.
“And the cops found the car, and then they found you, and you got arrested.” Oversimplification at its worst, but I wasn’t capable of anything more complicated at the moment.
“Pretty much.”
“But didn’t you get to tell your side of the story?” I asked, taking my time untying my pointe shoes because I needed something else to focus on. “Didn’t they understand that it was all just an honest mistake?”
“I took a car that wasn’t mine, Luce,” Jude said, his voice quiet. “From where the cops are standing, that’s not an honest mistake. Plus, they called the owner, and the prick is so pissed, he’s threatening to sue Damon. Over nothing more than a few miles on one of his six cars he never even would have known was missing if Damon—” Cutting himself short, he tapped the floor with his fist. “If I hadn’t taken the car in the first place.”
“God, Jude.” Again, I had no other words.
“I know. I know,” he said. “So, not only have I jeopardized a buddy’s business he’s worked his ass off to turn into something, I added another mark on my two page record, and I’m likely out of a job too.”
I didn’t know how to solve any of those problems, and I was the master at problem solving. Throw me a problem and I’ll toss you back an answer, but I was coming up with a whole lot of nothing. “Can’t you get a new job?” I asked finally, a weak attempt at solving Jude’s problems.
He laughed one low note. “I live in a boys’ home and I have the record of a seasoned criminal. I can’t even get hired on as a burger flipper. I worked off the books for Damon because I don’t exactly pass background checks and the state says the boys’ home provides for all of our needs, so we aren’t technically allowed to get income paying jobs until we leave.” Grabbing one of my pointe shoes, he admired the pale ribbons, running them through his fingers.
“If you ever need something, money for whatever,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’ve got some money saved up from waiting tables during summers. You could have some whenever—”
Jude lifted his hand. “Luce, thanks, but no thanks,” he said, closing his eyes. “That’s sweet as hell of you to offer, but I’m not taking money from anyone, you least of all. I’m not a charity case and I don’t take hand-outs.”
“I never said you were.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said, opening his eyes and looking straight into mine. “But everyone else has.”
That put a ball in my throat I couldn’t swallow. Clearing my throat again, I said, “W
hat did you need the money for? Are you saving for college or a car or something?”
He rolled his eyes over college.
“Or are you blowing it all on bubblegum?” I asked, leaning into him.
“That’s more my style, but no. I have responsibilities, you know? Things that need taking care of.”
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to know what Jude’s responsibilities were. “Things that I need to take care of and, before working for Damon, the only job I was able to work was the drug dealing one.” He looked over at me, watching my reaction.
Outside, I gave him nothing. Inside, I was falling apart. Jude had quite possibly the biggest heart I’d found in a man. He also had the longest rap sheet I had yet to encounter in a peer. He was the classic example of taking good intentions and delivering them poorly. He had so many problems weighing on his shoulders and I had no way to solve them for him. It was the most helpless I’d felt in five years.
I leaned my forehead into my bent knees. “Why did you take the car, Jude?” It wasn’t something I’d meant to say out loud, just an internal why-is-the-universe-so-unfair? musing.
“Come on, Luce,” he said, the mirrors playing games with the shadows of his face when he looked at me. “I couldn’t show up at your front door with nothing more than my two feet to get us to the dance.”
“Why couldn’t we have doubled up with another couple then?” I said, rubbing the arches of my brutalized feet. “Or why couldn’t we have taken my car? I would’ve even let you drive.” I was now even more pissed at the whole situation. One bad choice made with good intentions, followed by a string of unfortunate events that crashed around him like dominos.
“Because I’m sick of being a leech on society, on everyone around me. Because I’m tired of taking hand outs and I’m tired of the pity in the faces of those that give the hand outs. But really, most of all, because the girl I was taking out deserved the best,” he said, sliding down past my legs and pulling the foot out of my hands. “Let me do that,” he said, his hands swallowing up my whole foot as they gently worked the muscles out.
“Jude, I’m not the girl that wants or needs the best. I’d be over the rainbow with above average or meets expectations as long as the guy I had was the best.”
He focused on my feet, handling them like he was capable of breaking them in half. “You kind of drew the short straw on that one.”
I kept quiet because I wasn’t sure if I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t give away everything I still felt for him, despite knowing I shouldn’t. One part of me wanted Jude like I’d never wanted anything before, and the other part assured me if I followed this desire down its course, I would be left in more pieces than when I started.
“And for the record, since I know those shitheads are all saying I left you behind because I was done with you, or I didn’t want you slowing me down, or at least a dozen other BS explanations, the fact of the matter is I left you because I didn’t want you with me if I got caught,” he said, his shoulders tensing beneath his gray thermal. “I didn’t want them to try to label you an accomplice or anything.” He looked up at me with that fervent expression of his. “So that’s it, that’s the truth. Don’t let those jackasses try to twist it around to make you feel bad, okay?”
I should have felt better, knowing he hadn’t abandoned me like last week’s garbage, but I couldn’t, knowing I’d been one of those that bought into that theory. Jude deserved to have at least one person on his side, and that person should have been me.
“Hey, Luce,” he said, twisting his hands over my other foot. “Okay?”
I closed my eyes because that was my last defense against tears. “Okay.”
“Lucc?” he said, his voice a note high. “Shit, don’t cry. I’m not worth it, not worth even thinking about crying.”
I took in two slow breathes before opening my eyes. “I’m not crying,” I said, trying to convince both of us. “I’m just frustrated. And I get all watery-eyed when I get frustrated.”
He studied me another moment before turning his attention back on my feet. “Why are you frustrated?”
“Pick a topic, any topic, and there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be frustrated about some element of it.”
“That was a nice attempt at being vague, Luce, really it was,” he said, one side of his mouth lifting, “but why are you frustrated, in particular, right now?”
To answer this honestly would require a multi-pronged, day long explanation which would leave me transparent and exposed in every way a girl dreaded most. So I went for the least complicated, most pointed answer I could give him right now. “I’m frustrated with twelve a.m. to twelve p.m. of last Saturday. The whole damn day and everything that could have gone wrong that went wrong,” I began, trying to put a stopper on the verbal explosion. “I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why everything that could go bad did, and I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why you took that car in the first place.”
“I took that car,” he said, being the stopper I needed, “and I would take a hundred more, because even though you say you don’t want the best, I want to give you the best.”
“Why, Jude? Why are you so damned determined that I need to have the best?” I asked, leaning forward.
He lifted a shoulder, his eyes cast down. “Because, Luce. Because you’re the most important person in my life.”
And that was the tipping point. I couldn’t hold the damn tears back. A person he’d known a few weeks, a person who’d turned her back on him when he needed a friend most, a person who had and was still trying to convince herself that he was not the man to fall for. And this person was the most important one to him.
“I don’t deserve that title,” I said, playing with the sleeve of my tunic.
“Why?” he asked, lifting my chin until I was looking at him. “Because you finally accepted what a tumor I am and feel guilty for it?”
My eyes flashed. “No.”
“Then why?” he asked, nothing antagonizing in his voice, just curiosity.
“Because you and I have too much bad history to make a good future.” There it was, the truth without having to burrow into the nitty-gritty. I didn’t have to bring up the fire or the rumors or the stolen car because it was all there between the lines.
“Shit, Luce.” His forehead lined. “Weren’t you the one that just said your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”
I’d never felt like such a hypocrite. My shoulders sagged from sheer mental and physical exhaustion.
“Or does that go for everything but me?”
Jude’s life had been filled with enough crap, he didn’t need any more from me, but I just couldn’t do this. I knew, with absolute certainty, I’d come out in worse shape than I’d gone in if I let Jude into my life the way he wanted to be.
“Jude,” I said, biting my lip. “I just can’t. I can’t do this.”
His expression darkened. “I know I don’t deserve a second, or third, or whatever the hell this is chance, but you and I have something special, Luce, and you know it. Give me another chance, one more chance, and I’ll walk a line so straight people will think I’ve been possessed.” God I wanted to look away from those eyes, but I just couldn’t. They were impossible to ignore. “One more chance. Not because I deserve it, but because we deserve one.”
If the first alligator tears I’d cried in years were any indication of our future together, that should make my decision easier. “I can’t,” I whispered.
“Why? Because you can’t or you won’t?”
A lie was going to be the only hope I had of convincing him I wasn’t fighting every urge to be with him. “Because I just don’t want to be with you, Jude.” The words flamed my throat.
His face fell for barely a second before it sharpened. “Bullshit,” he said, shaking his head at me. “I’m so used to dealing with liars I know a lie’s coming before a person opens their mouth.”
I was the worst bluffer around a
nd Jude was the best caller around, which meant I wouldn’t get away with anything. Reason number one thousand and one why Jude and I would never work. “I’m not exactly your garden variety thug, thief, or dealer. I don’t lie through my teeth, so you might want to recalibrate your BS detector.”
His eyes stayed trained on me, unblinking. “Fine. Convince me then. Convince me you don’t want me like I want you.”
He was not going to let this go, he was not going to let me go so easily. It was as romantic as it was infuriating. “I’ve said everything—”
“Screw words,” he interrupted. “I don’t believe what you’ve said. Convince me through action.”
That whole breathing thing was getting hard to do again. “Do I want to know what that means?”
Then, without warning, he pulled my calves, sliding me across the floor toward him. Leaning into me, his eyes shifted down. “Kiss me,” he said, his mouth so close to mine we almost were. “Convince me I’m nothing but some random boy you’ve left in the past.”
I had one more no in me, and then I was toast. “Not a good idea,” I said, my voice shaky.
His jaw tensed as his arms wound around me. “Damn it, kiss me, Luce.”
So I did, and the moment my lips touched his, that ache I’d felt all the way to my bones the past week evaporated. Just like that.
Pressing into me, Jude lowered my back to the ground, his mouth never leaving mine. His weight rested over mine, grounding me, keeping me from falling apart. This only made me kiss him harder.
“Shit, Luce,” he breathed, when my hands slid up his shirt, gripping into his back.
And then his hand was under my sweater, lifting it higher, exploring the parts of me I needed him to. Sitting up just enough, I lifted my arms in the air, waiting for him to take it off. He managed to remove it with one hand and in about one second before he pinned me to the floor again.