Page 7 of The Plus One
Jude really wished she’d give up on the small talk.
“Finished a five-month assignment at a women’s clinic in Sierra Leone,” he said with detachment, even though pieces of his broken soul still lingered in the small graveyard attached to the clinic’s adjacent church.
Indira opened and closed her mouth a few times, questions getting caught in her throat.
“You okay?” she finally managed, speaking softly, eyes full of curiosity.
Jude’s head jerked back in surprise, the question sending his thoughts somersaulting in multiple directions.
Of course he was okay, he wanted to tell her. He was alive and in Collin’s house and not staring down at a bloody operating table, and he was getting really good at not feeling anything most of the time.
Except for when he felt everything.
“Fine,” he choked out, voice rising an octave. “Totally fine. Why?”
Indira shrugged, taking a step forward. “You seem, I don’t know… different.” She tilted her head, looking at him like she could read every awful secret written on his skin.
“I’m just, uh… tired.” Jude pretended to yawn. Indira didn’t look convinced.
Damn her.
“Are yousureyou’re okay?” she asked, taking another step toward him. She reached out, her fingers landing on his wrist in a friendly gesture.
The touch sent a jolt through his skin, straight to the marrowof his bones, zapping down his spine, while a matching heat spread through Jude’s chest.
His head swam at the disorienting familiarity of the touch. The gentle comfort of it.
It felt…good.
He jerked his arm away, hands clenched into fists at his side as he sucked in a breath.
That wouldn’t do.
Jude wasn’t allowed to feel good when he was the reason some people couldn’t feel anything ever again.
They stared at each other, Indira’s lips parted as she blinked at him.
“Sorry,” Jude said, clearing his throat. “That, uh, tickled.”
Indira pursed her lips, not looking convinced, but she nodded. They continued standing there, Jude wishing desperately to escape but unable to break away.
“Do you want to get lunch with me? Or dinner?” Indira asked suddenly, tipping Jude’s axis upside down.
“I don’t eat,” Jude blurted out, spouting off the first excuse he could think of. But he couldn’t possibly do something as intimate as share amealwithIndiraand expect to make it out alive. He couldn’t sit across from her at a table when the weight of his memories was dragging him straight to hell.
Oh no. She’d ask one question, maybe two, and all the awfulness in Jude would come pouring out of him like an unstoppable tidal wave of truth and she’d have to live with knowing his sins too. Nope. Not happening. He didn’t even like her; he wasn’t about to pour his soul out to her.
“You don’t eat,” Indira repeated, the familiar cynicism she’d addressed him with since childhood returning to her voice.
“Kicked the habit,” Jude said with a mild shrug, trying to save face by being sarcastic too.
Indira stared at him for another moment, her tender curiosityshifting to insulted disbelief before she huffed out a breath and looked around the entryway.
“Cool,” she said at last, her olive branch withering between them. “Cool cool cool cool. Well, welcome home. Enjoy your malnourishment.”
With a scowl, she brushed past him and hiked up the stairs.
Jude let out a pained breath, hitting the heels of his hands against his forehead before dragging them down his face.
