Page 89 of Floored

"But," he said, "I think I'd want my own space. If it were me. But I've been on my own since I was seventeen, so I might not be a good person to help you make that decision."

"Seventeen?"

"Mm-hmm. Moved to Germany to play in the Bundesliga, which is their national league. That's where I got my start."

I shook my head. "That's so young to be thrown into a world like that. I can't even imagine."

"I learned a lot," he said ruefully. "On and off the pitch. And for a kid who came from a bloody sheep farm, it was nothing I could've prepared myself for."

My fingers twisted the edge of the blanket. "Is that when your parents ... started disapproving?"

Jude let out a slow breath, and I found myself holding mine before he answered. "They started a few years earlier than that, when I took a job outside of the farm to make enough money to keep myself in the youth clubs." Jude went quiet, and I held my breath, waiting for anything else he might give me. "My dad, especially. I was the eldest son, yeah? And it was my job to take over the farm, just as he'd done with his own father. But I think ... I think they saw how serious I was, working myself to the bone to play a game they didn't understand."

Relief was sweet and unhurried as I listened to him talk about his time in Germany. What he loved about the independence he found, and what he didn't. He asked me, in a slight subject change, about living with Claire in college and what that had been like. He asked me about Finn, who I'd only managed to see a couple of times since I moved back, busy, busy boy that he was.

"What do they all say?" Jude asked when we fell quiet. Most of our weekly calls lasted around thirty to forty minutes, but I'd been on the phone with him for over an hour. "Do they think you should move out?"

"Logan and Paige want me to stay. Probably because they'll worry less. Claire isn't saying one way or the other, but ... I know what she's thinking."

"Twin thing," he teased.

"Sometimes. I can't like, read her thoughts, but it's like hearing your neighbors talk through thin walls. You get impressions, you know? And I get the sense she thinks it would be good for me to live on my own." I spread my hands over my belly. "So, your vote is to move out?"

"For whatever it's worth," he murmured, "yes, that's my vote. But I'll support whatever you choose."

The gloomy days of January, only a few of them cold enough for snow to stick on the ground, gave way to slightly warmer, just as gloomy days in February. Lia and I turned twenty-three, and split a giant platter of pink and white cupcakes after a family dinner. My class, considering it was one of the last before I finished my program, felt like it was the least of my stresses. I read and wrote and had discussions with small groups. My family, all busy with their own lives, found time to carve out pockets with me when possible.

Molly traveled about half the month, and when she was back, she always took me out for time with just the two of us, considering she'd made it her mission to find me the best scone in the greater Seattle area.

I'd taken to texting Jude updates amid our search.

Me: This one was pretty good. Not as good as Rebecca's, though.

Jude: It looks dry as cardboard.

Me: Maybe not CARDBOARD. But it needed a lot of cream. Can you eat one of hers for me? Or just send me a picture of one? Or a video so I can pretend I'm sniffing it?

Jude: Good Lord, you sound like an addict.

Jude: Here. It's got currants in it.

I laughed when I saw the picture he attached, him shoving half the scone into his mouth. The sight of him wasn't a punch to the heart or anything, one side effect of being able to see him on TV every week when I got the chance to watch one of his matches. But this was a different Jude than the one I saw on the pitch. Despite the silly picture, he looked tired. It was in the dark circles under his eyes, the lines on his face that hadn't been so prominent when I'd last seen him.

Molly sipped her coffee across the cafe table and watched me. "It's going okay with him?"

I shrugged. "As good as it can, I suppose."

"Do you miss him?"

My eldest sister was the only one who dared to ask me about him. Maybe because she was the most romantic to her soft little heart. She'd tamed her big beast of an athlete in Noah, and I knew she was holding out hope that I'd still be able to overcome ... everything ... when it came to Jude.

Staring at the picture, the scruff along his jaw and the mess of his dark hair, I rubbed my thumb over the image, and then cleared it away so I wouldn't obsess.

"Yeah." There was no point in lying to Molly. And I wouldn't have lied to anyone else either if they'd asked, but along with the realization that I was very skilled at moving through life restlessly was the fact that my family was used to that. They probably thought I'd brush them off with a It's totally fine, guys, look at how completely fine it all is. "But I don't think missing him is the problem. It's figuring out what we're like outside of missing each other. He's finally talking to me about stuff, but it's not like I can just hop back over to England because the thought of him makes me heartsick."

"Makes sense," she said. "No one is perfect, but you already know that, and I don't think that's what you want from him."

I shook my head. "No. I don't need perfection. I think my problem was that it felt so good when we weren't worrying about anything else, and now that everything else has surfaced, I can't think about how good it was between us until those things are better, at least. And they may never be."

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