Page 2 of Someone Just Like You

Nicole beamed. “Of course you are!”

“Same.”

She clapped. “Yay, Jude!”

On autopilot, I sang, “Don’t make it—”

“As always, your originality is awe inspiring,” Jude said, cutting off my crooning the legendary Beatles song “Hey Jude” and pointing his fork at me. “I’m legitimately shocked this party wasn’t your idea, if only to prove you’re thebestBlum daughter and thebestneighbor of all.”

I rolled my eyes at the jab—uttered one degree above a whisper, but loud enough for me to hear—even though there was a bead of truth to it. I was a people pleaser by nature, especially when it came to my parents, and no one knew this more than Jude. My usefulness in volunteering to set or clear the table, taking out the trash, putting away the toys, etc., when we were kids tended to shine a light on Jude’s uselessness, and he hated it. I swirled my cocktail straw around and around my glass willing myself not to engage.

“Anyway.” Eddie raised his voice. “We were thinking about reserving a restaurant for a co-celebration. We’ll limit the guest list to close family and shared friends to keep it reasonable, but let’s make it special.”

“And we’ll split the cost six ways,” Nicole said.

Jude drummed his fingers along the table to the beat of the song playing over the speakers. “Not for nothing, but is it fair for me to contribute the same amount of money as Alison, Michelle, and Eddie when you all have kids who will eat the food too? And what about spouses? I assume I can bring a date, but if not…”

“We’ll figure out the cost later. Wait…” Nicole grinned. “Are you seeing someone? Spill the tea.”

Jude blushed, looking like the “sweet” boy my sisters knew him to be and nothing like the devil he only showed when no one was around to witness except me. Like when he offered me what I thought was a piece of chocolate but was really a Purina Fancy Feast beef-flavored treat for Gizmo, the Starks’ cat. In hindsight, I should have questioned the uncharacteristically generous Jude’s motives, but in my defense, it looked like a square of a Hershey bar. Regrettably, it tasted more like…well, cat food.

“It was a hypothetical question, but if you must know, Iamseeing someone,” Jude said. “Whether I’llstillbe seeing her by the party remains to be seen.”

“Jude’s dating a lawyah,” Eddie said, the proud brother.

“Impressive! Maybe Molly knows her,” Nicole said.

“Yes, because all lawyers know each other,” I mumbled into my Tom Collins.

“And Molly’s not a lawyer anymore,” Alison, whose file digitization company worked with my old law firm, said.

“I’m still a lawyer, just not a practicing one!” I cringed inwardly. Why was I so defensive? Upending my legal career to prevent a lifetime of misery hadn’t been my plan, but I was so much happier as a legal recruiter.

“Molly’s boyfriend is a major league baseball player,” Nicole said.

Jude’s dark eyes widened, and his jaw dropped as if dumbstruck. Too bad Nicole was wrong. “Minorleague.” Stan played for the Brooklyn Cyclones. “And he’s not my boyfriend. We’ve only hung out a few times.”

Eddie raised a hand. “Hold up. Let me get this straight: Jude’s dating a lawyer and Molly’s hanging with a baseball player?”

The siblings exchanged glances and…wait…were they snickering? “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” they responded as a group.

“All your interest inourlove lives makes me wonder how unsatisfied you must be with your own,” Jude said.

“Exactly,” I said, daring a bonding glance at Jude.

He peered at me through his beer glass. “What’s this about you not being a lawyer anymore? You would have made a great prosecutor.”

A compliment from Jude? “Yeah? And why is that?”

He smirked. “Because you like to see people punished.”

Having walked right into that one, I released a long, slow sigh. “Clever.” Ihadwitnessed Jude get into trouble on the regular. From his perspective, I probably appeared to revel in it, but he had only part of the story.

“I figured you’d have made partner by now in world-record time. Did you quit to run for city council?”

I scoffed. “Why? If I say yes, will your disinterest in politics suddenly be replaced by an unquenchable thirst to run as my opponent again?” I’d been the easy pick for student council president senior year of high school until “Mr. Popularity” Jude decided to throw his hat into the ring at the last minute because he knew how badly I wanted to win. His debate speech promising free pizza every Friday afternoon as an incentive not to cut out of class early was more persuasive than my anti-bullying campaign, and it sealed his victory. Even ten years later, the memory made my blood heat to a simmer. “I suppose your experience choosing the snacks for the school vending machines really primed you for your current position of serving drinks at a bar, huh?”

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