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“Alright. Alright,” he relents with a soft chuckle, forcing his weight to fall onto the mattress beside me. His bed bounces with the momentum, jostling us both.
It feels like he takes a piece of my sense away with him, though—the absence of awareness as hollowing as the absence of him on top of me. I have the terrifying urge to beg him to comeback, to climb back over me and smother out the emptiness inside me with the weight of his presence alone.
His smile, though—his smile.It pushes away the desolate feeling.
I feel almost guilty for not noticing it sooner, for not realizing how much of a contrast it is from his mood of last night. Somber, dour. Gray shadows obscuring any possibility of light.
I’m used to his darker moods at this point, but this was different. Darker, deeper. Entirely too familiar. He didn’t have to say it; I could feel it. That it had everything to do with his late girlfriend’s death.
So this moment right here, this smile of his—bright, unburdened—feels like the first sign of light after a calamitous storm.
It reaches inside my chest and grasps at my heart, tugging at some place buried deep inside it.
Jude shifts closer, his eyes meeting mine, and I can’t bring myself to look away from him. I don’t evenwantto look away. But his stare is piercing, digging straight into me, planting feelings I know I shouldn’t be feeling.
The more time I spend here, caught in this quiet moment between us, the more his line in the sand starts to blur.
“I wanted to thank you, Declan,” he says, clearing his throat and slicing through the silence, through the thoughts quietly scrambling around in my mind. His eyes still haven’t left mine, and the beats of my heart intensify, climbing faster, pattering against my ribcage in a chaotic rhythm.
“For what?” I ask. Because I don’t really know what he’s thanking me for. For last night, or for still being here this morning, or for something else entirely.
“For staying with me last night,” he clarifies. “I—fuck.”He runs a hand through his disheveled hair, his gaze growing dark enough to hint at the pain I felt radiating from him last night.
I watch his Adam’s apple trek up and down his throat as he swallows, his gaze falling down my nose, my cheeks, and across my mouth before climbing back up to meet mine.
I’m trapped beneath his stare. Unable to move, unable to think. Unable tobreathe.
“It’s been four years now… As of last night… Since Brenna’s passing.” Each of his statements is delivered through an exhale, like he needs each inhale between them to steady himself.
Brenna.So that’s her name. The girl who was lucky enough to be loved by this man lying beside me. The girl who tragically lost her life in a way so similar to Quinn.
My throat tightens around my response. “I’m sorry, Jude. I—” don’t even know what else to say. What else thereisto say.
“You managed to make me smile, Little D. On a day I wouldn’t have thought possible,” he says, and it sounds like gravel is caught beneath his words. “I just wanted to thank you. For keeping my mind elsewhere when it’s all I would have been able to think about otherwise.”
The knot in my throat grows thicker with his confession.
I guess thatwaswhat I was doing last night, without even realizing it was doing it. Because I know what that pain is like and—
Instead of diving deeper, I just wanted to help him forget.
______
I shut Jude’s door behind me after he leaves for practice and make my way down the hallway. Addy’s door opens just as I’m walking past it, and I halt my steps the same moment she pauses hers.
Recognition lights her gaze, her mouth falling open. “Did you just—” Her mouth stays open, gaze darting between me and Jude’s room, a flashing look of accusation passing through hereyes.“Oh, we have so much to talk about,”she says, before turning on her heel and disappearing into her room.
Despite the weight of everything, I crack a smile. Even if there is still something inside me, something about last night or this morning or the unfairness of life in general, that’s weighing down on me, eager to smother my amusement.
Thankfully, though, Addy is right back out in a flash, a pair of blue Converses in hand. She drops them down at my feet. “Put these on,” she demands, a ball of energy as she bounces from foot to foot.
“Why am I doing that, exactly?” I ask, my smile stretching wider. Addy’s feet are only half a size bigger than mine, but my room, with my own shoes, is literally right down the hallway.
“We’re going on a hike, you and me. Because these walls are too thin, and Mom is on high alert, and I have about, oh,”—she tallies a mental list in the air, her eyes squinted as she pretends to shuffle through them with her fingers— “a million questions I need the answers to immediately.”
I breathe out a laugh and shake my head, slipping into her shoes and following her lead as she heads down the stairs.Reason number infinity and one why I love her so much…She’s always making me laugh, no matter the mood.
She grabs us a quick breakfast from the pantry—two protein bars, and two bottles of water—and then we’re making our way out into the Masons’ massive backyard. We’ve barely made it past the tree line, past the field where a group of too-fit men in practice gear are running plays, when she spins on her heel and points an accusatory finger my way.