Page 74 of Someone Just Like You

I frowned. “You attracteveryone. You just need a better system for skimming the baddies.” I sucked on an edamame and tossed the empty shell in a dish. “You can always give Alex or Jerry a shot.” I raised my eyebrows.

“Hmmm.” She took another sip of her cocktail. “What’s the latest with Jude?”

I bit back a smile. “Please don’t hate me, but he’s great.We’regreat. Now that we’ve settled our past, we can focus on the future.”

“I hate you a little bit, but I’m more happy for you. I knew he’d come around.”

I’d finally told Esther what I’d done to Jude’s bike. She was way more understanding and forgiving of teenage Molly than I’d been. “By now he’s had a chance to look through the articles, and I can’t wait to talk about them tonight.” I’d made notes in the margins of a duplicate binder, the existence of which I’d kept from Jude, knowing he’d call me a nerd.

“How’s the job? Michael behaving himself?”

“It’s fine. He’s fine. He’sMichael.” I gulped my wine to wash the rotten taste of his name out of my mouth. I’d wound up sending him one candidate for the Bluetronics position, a second-year associate who saw the job opportunity as a way to pursue his lifelong dream of combining his two greatest loves—games and the law—and insisted he didn’t care about the company’s questionable work environment.

Esther chuckled. “You don’t sound too enthused. Maybe you shouldn’t have turned down Rosaria’s job offer.”

I swirled my glass. “I probably couldn’t afford these drinks if I took it!”

She jutted her chin over my shoulder. “Hey, Jude.”

Without even turning around, I sang the next line of the song.

He kissed my cheek. “I can’t believe you gave your panties to a geek.”

“Said Samantha Baker, not Molly Ringwald,” I replied dryly.

Esther’s eyes slid back and forth between us, her expression a mix of confusion and amusement. Unlike me and Jude, whose parents had organized a John Hughes movie marathon for both families when we were younger, it was possible she’d never even seen the iconic, if problematic, eighties movieSixteen Candles.

“I stand corrected. You’re so much smarter than me,” Jude said.

“And wouldn’t you be the geek in this scenario?” I teased.

“You’ve never actually given me your panties. They just melt at my touch.”

“TMI.” Esther gasped. “Feck! I’m late.” She moved for her wallet.

I put my hand up. “Your drinks are on me this time. Have fun!”

“Not likely, but thanks.” She hugged me and waved goodbye to Jude before racing toward the exit with only one arm through her coat.

I made a silent wish whoever she was meeting would be worth the rush.

I tugged Jude down onto the seat Esther had vacated. “You look yummy.” He’d either gone home after his shift or changed at Hillstone, because instead of his uniform, he was semi-dressed-up in dark black jeans and a midnight-blue sweater that brought out the blue flecks in his eyes. And he was clean-shaven.

“We can skip dinner if you want.”

“I’m starving.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“For real food!”

I closed out the bar bill, and we relocated to one of the more intimate red leather booths in the dimly lit main dining room, where Jude entertained me with anecdotes from his day at the restaurant. The latest—a woman who’d brought her own fresh vegetables from home—boggled my mind. “I don’t get it. Was she trying to save money?”

“We charged her more! She just wanted a professionally prepared salad with veggies she grew on her own balcony.” He dipped a piece of Philadelphia roll into low-sodium soy sauce and popped it into his mouth.

“People are weird.” This wasn’t new intel per se, but Jude’s restaurant stories removed any doubt.

Jude’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I thought it was charming.”

---