Page 53 of Someone Just Like You

I glanced from left to right but didn’t see the dog. “Where is he?”

“Right.” He scratched his cheek. “I walked him before coming here to check on you.” He wet his lips. “First you got dumped. Then the whole thing with your parents. Rough night?” He moonwalked a few steps.

My throat tickled. “You really need to work on your bedside manner.” I cocked my head. “Do you…um…want to come up?”

His cheeks pinked. “Sure.”

My knees wobbled. Bashful Jude, a version I hadn’t known existed until recently, rendered me boneless. I turned my back to lead the way inside in case my complexion matched his.

Our words were scarce in the elevator. To an outside observer, we could have been two strangers heading to separate destinations. Outside my door, my hand shook as I fiddled with the key.

“Wherever you were going before, was it important? I don’t want to keep you,” Jude said from behind me.

I closed my eyes for a beat as his breath teased the back of my neck. “I was on my way to see you,” I admitted.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”Yeah?Cursing my lame response, I pushed open the door, dropped my purse and keys on the storage bench in the entryway, and slipped off my jacket. “Want me to hang up your…” I whipped around to ask for his coat, but the words hovered in the air because he’d stepped into my personal space. I didn’t feel threatened, but his face…hismouth…was so close to mine. The nearness stole my breath. “Jude.” My voice cracked.

He stepped back.

I inhaled, both welcoming the distance and pining for him to close it again.

“I just came over to tell you I don’t hate you anymore,” he said.

“Me too.” I cleared my throat. “I was coming to tell you the same thing.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You only hated me because I hated you first.”

“Is that what you think?”

His lips formed an almost-but-not-quite smile. We both knew he was right.

Neither of us made a move to stray from my twelve-foot foyer. “Well, thanks for telling me. I was going to ask for your jacket, but I guess you can leave now.”

He removed his coat and handed it to me. “How are you handling things?”

I brought it to my nose and then, realizing I was about to sniff his outerwear, dropped it an inch. “You mean my parents or Timothy?”

“Both.”

“If I talk about my parents, I’m going to lose it, and you’ll mock my ugly cry.”

“I already saw your ugly sick and sniffed your ugly smell and there was no mocking.”

I wrinkled my nose. “There was a little mocking.”

He ignored this. “What about Timothy?”

“Would you think I was mean if I said I didn’t care about Timothy?”

“I already know you’re mean.”

“Only to you.” Sometimes it had been fun. Oftentimes it had been out of pure reflex to defend myself. One occasion still kept me up at night a decade later.

He nodded. “Only to me.” He took a step forward, lessening the distance between us to almost nonexistent.

We stared at each other.Kiss me. Don’t kiss me. Kiss me.“What about Charley?”

---