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She ran behind me to catch up. “Holy shit, Tals.”
My own lips were pressed tight together to hold back the laugh bubbling in my chest. She grabbed my shoulder and stopped me under a streetlight a block away.
Her eyes went big, and her hands went even bigger, flailing around wildly. “I can’t believe you made out with Tino.”
Her voice echoed through the neighborhood, bouncing off every house and probably entering more than one set of ears. From the rumble coming from the darkened porch attached to the house we’d stopped in front of, one of those sets of ears had an opinion on the news.
I narrowed my eyes into the darkness, and a solid form appeared, sauntering down the steps. When he got to the bottom and the streetlight cast a hint of illumination on his rangy frame, I attempted to remember every prayer I’d learned in Catholic school. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a specific one for requesting a hole appear to swallow me up.
“Gettin’ into trouble, Stripes?” Jude walked closer, thumbs hanging from the loops of his worn jeans, hair tousled in messy perfection.
“Hey, Jude,” I sang.
“I’m just going to wait for you down there.” Nina pointed vaguely down the street, but I didn’t look. My eyes were on Jude’s. The last time he’d pinned me with his gaze had been when he was on stage. I’d seen him once since then, walking around campus with Ben, but I’d hidden like the coward I was.
“Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?” I attempted to school the nervous quivers out of my voice but failed miserably. There was a thousand different reasons my heart shouldn’t be fluttering the way it was, but I couldn’t help the effect Jude had on me every time I was near him. I had a massive crush on him. Maybe crush wasn’t even the right word at this point. The way I felt when I was around him certainly didn’t compare to anything I’d felt in the past.
He smirked. “No, but I bet you did.”
I could’ve smacked my forehead. Jude had told me about his crappy family, so I doubted Thanksgiving in the Goldman house was a warm and pleasant experience.
“I did.”
He came closer, but I held the half-eaten lasagna in front of me as a shield. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. I was starting to think I’d imagined you again.” His voice was low, with what sounded like a heavy dose of frustration wrapped inside it.
I lifted a shoulder, going for uncaring, when I was anything but. “You still have a girlfriend, and I was trying—”
“I don’t.”
My words caught in my throat. “What?”
“Don’t have a girlfriend. Haven’t since that day in your dorm.”
“But the girl...at your show…”
He rocked back on his heels, laidback to the casual observer, but the furrow of his brow and tension in his mouth betrayed him.
“My ex.Notmy girl.”
I was confused. That night, Ben hadn’t come right out and said it, but he’d certainly implied the cute, tatted-up girl at the table with his friends was Jude’s girlfriend. I’d left, kind of embarrassed at the hurt I’d felt at the news, when I’d had no right to, and actively avoided him since then. I was no man-poacher, even if that man didn’t mind getting poached.
But now...I wasn’t sure what to think.
“So, you’ve just been...waiting?”
He huffed, letting his gaze drop to his boots. “Didn’t say that. I just said I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Again, I searched for that prayer to swallow me whole. Jude wasn’t waiting for me. What kind of childish fairytale thought was that?
“Right. Sorry.”
“You tell me you want me to wait for you, I will. All you have to do is say the word, Tali. You know where my head’s at. It’s yours I’m not sure of,” he said gruffly.
Our eyes held for an eternity. His were full of trepidation, and perhaps longing. I didn’t want him to wait. I wanted him right that second. But I’d made promises to myself that I wouldn’t break.
“It doesn’t matter. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else.”
He let out a long, rough breath. “Sure. What did you have on your mind?”
