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Jude moans against my mouth.
Dear God, this isn’t how it was supposed to go. Each kiss and touch was supposed to be choreographed and planned, full of objectivity, a means to an end.
But I don’t want this to end. Not anymore.
“Alright! That’s enough!” Caroline cries out.
Jude pulls away from me again and my body stutters after her, not wanting her to leave me. “Sorry, Caroline,” she says, sheepishly.
Gram claps her hands. “Let’s celebrate, hm?”
Servers come around with trays of champagne and begin to circulate through the crowd.
I throw a look at Jude. She won’t look my way, but her cheeks are flushed beyond compare, nearly the same color as her hair. “You alright?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, nodding fiercely. “Definitely alright.”
I slide my arm around her, delicately resting my fingers on her waist. “This okay?”
“Very okay,” she says in a voice that is slinking higher pitched by the second.
We’re handed glasses of champagne just in time for Gram to make a toast. “To my grandson and his future bride. May you have much happiness as you grow your family together.”
Jude tenses in my embrace.
“To Chase and Jude,” Gram announces.
“To Chase and Jude,” everyone echoes.
The color still hasn’t left Jude’s cheeks. “Um, to us, I guess.”
My eyes fall on her lips. The kiss still rings through my whole body. I want it again. More of it. For now, though, I’ll settle for champagne. “Yeah. To us.”
We clink our glasses together, neither of us willing to make eye contact or say another word.
And yet something big is going unsaid. Something that if either of us said it aloud would potentially change everything.
Chapter 7
Jude
I’vebeenonpinsand needles the entire night. Even before Chase and I kissed, but that kiss certainly didn’t help matters. No, it turned my entire body into a wet noodle. A very horny kind of wet noodle.
I know that sounds gross, but I can’t help it. Chase Gladstone’s lips justdidsomething to me.
We’ve been circulating the party for hours, telling our story over and over. The same one I told Gram and Caroline when this whole lie started. Except now, Chase is jumping in, adding his own details.
“I’ve never really understood art, but the way Jude talks about it just makes sense,” he explains amidst a conversation with my mom and dad.
“Yes, well, Jude deserves that. She was never able to get it from us,” Mom drawls, sharing a chuckle with my father.
I sigh and try not to let it get to me. They’ve never understood where I got the artistic genes, Mom being a housekeeper and Dad a mechanic. They don’t see creativity as a worthwhile passion. But my whole life, all I saw was them being creative. The way my dad would organize his tools or the mixtures mom would concoct to get white walls even whiter than they were before. The way they stretched a dollar and then a dime when things were tight. Everything was an art to me. I don’t know how they still don’t understand me after all these years.
Chase slides his hand around my waist. I hold my breath. Something about his touch makes me lightheaded. I know it’s all for the performance, but I can’t help it. I’ve always wanted to know what this would feel like. Now that I do…
I want to know more.
“I’m happy to give that to her,” Chase says and then looks my way. Those perfect baby blues seem so earnest. “And more.”
