Page 63 of You Had Me at Chocolate

“Sure,” she said, absently.

“If you don’t want to, it’s okay.”

She crinkled her brow at him. “I want to.” Clem enjoyed accompanying Jude on his property viewings, she was just feeling kinda weird right now. “I’ll miss doing it when you move out.”

Aaand there went her mood again–nose-diving off a cliff. She’d buried herself in Jude’s research and meetings with the occupational therapist regarding the modifications to her mom and dad’s house that were required for Trina’s eventual return, all of which had allowed Clem to push Jude’s impending departure to the back of her mind.

But he was moving into his rental on Monday.

Clem loved living by herself—she loved the freedom to be herself, she loved having a place to call her own. But, having Jude around these past couple of months had been… well, she didn’t want to analyze it too hard but it had been unexpectedly easy.

Jude had fit. And she didn’t want to analyze that either.

“You can still come with me,” he said. “Whenever you’re free.”

Clem blinked. Maybe it was the cold air but he sounded kind of gruff all of a sudden. “I’d like that.” She nodded. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” he dismissed and it definitely sounded gruff this time.

Freaking hell—they were a fine pair tonight. Trying to shake the mood off once again, she elbowed him. “I’ll also miss your cooking.”

For some reason, Clem’s brain didn’t go to the dozens and dozens of scrumptious meals he had made for her—and her father—these past two months. It went straight to chocolate mousse. To eating chocolate mousse of him.

To him eating it off her.

Ugh… do not think about that night right now. She could think about it tonight all alone in bed and god knew how many other nights in the future but not when they were walking side by side down Main Street, Marietta, where half the people who had known her since she was a baby were out and about and probably reading her freaking mind.

Thankfully he didn’t go there, although his voice did sound husky as he said, “I’m sure you’ll survive, Clementine Jones.”

Nearby sleigh bells drifted to them and Clem leapt at their intrusion. “Quick,” she said, picking up the pace, “we don’t want to miss the next ride.”

Because right now an itchy, boisterous ride with a bunch of raucous families was far preferable to thinking about Monday.

*

Clem folded the one thousandth paper crane in the car the next day on the way to see the latest property Jude was inspecting. She’d done a count when she’d gone to bed last night because she knew they must be close. Turned out, they’d been at nine hundred and eighty-one and she’d folded eighteen more this morning in between printing and filing about two dozen recipes she’d just stumbled upon on an obscure website to do with wagon wheels.

Jude had spent his usual few hours at the Graff and picked her up at eleven as she was about to start the final one and there was no way she was leaving it, so she’d brought it with her. Jude had laughed and accused her of being obsessed, which was fairly accurate but, she’d realized it was the perfect leaving gift for him.

Given how many hours they’d worked on the project together it was fitting. More than that, it was symbolic of them. The them they’d been all those years ago and the them they were now.

Paper cranes, it seemed, had always connected them.

It took her longer than it normally did to fold one because he was telling her all about the dozens of congratulatory phone calls Edwin had taken since last night and then he asked her what she thought about him doing a cookbook, a chocolate based one, and her fingers stopped folding altogether.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Edwin suggested it and I don’t know… it’s growing on me.”

“It must have been suggested to you before?” It seemed like every celebrity chef these days put out a cookbook.

“I have been approached in the past, yes. I was just busy… there didn’t seem time to do something like that.”

“Well, there you go then. You have plenty time now, right? I think it’s a brilliant idea.”

“You do?”

He grinned and it just about stopped the breath in Clem’s lungs, which caused a cramp in her chest. Damn it. She’d woken this morning after a solid eight hours sleep with her weird mood from last night lifted and she’d felt good about the future. Positive. About the strength of their friendship and how much they both had to look forward to in their lives going forward.

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