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“Well then, my best guess is—if you broke it off with Jonah for good—Boss would probably want to get back together, too. So, you have a choice. You just have to decide what it isyouwant to do.”
A choked sob falls from her mouth as she throws herself back against me. I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her as tight as I can, comforting her in the only way I can right now. I smooth my hand along her back again and again.
“No matter what, though, it’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay,” I say after a while.
“It doesn’t feel like it.” She sniffles.
“I know. But it will be.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
______
A few nights later, in an attempt to get Addy’s mind off of her troubles, I bring her with me to meet Jude and his friends at a bar—the same bar in Brooklyn, where I met them all for the first time.
Even though I have to practically drag her out of our dorm room, she’s in better spirits by the time we arrive. Whether it’s the promise of a fun night out, the hour of talking things throughsome more on our way over, or the three mini bottles of tequila she took down between the liquor store around the block and here, that’s leaving her mood lighter, I can’t say. But thereisa smile on her face, and that’s all that really matters at the moment.
We spot Jude across the bar when we enter, and Addy waves at him wildly from my side. It makes my lips curve into a smile.
Jude is smiling, too, when we reach him.
He opens his arms wide for me, but Addy steals his hug right out from under me, slipping into his side. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you last, Jude! Last summer, right? Definitely not two nights ago, naked and between the thighs of my best friend.” She slaps his chest with a loud bark of laughter. “Definitelynot.”
He chuckles as he hugs her back. “How’ve you been, Addy?”
Her demeanor darkens—or crumbles, really. But she hikes her shoulders up in the next blink and straightens her spine. “Honestly? I’ve been better. But there’s a barthat-a-waywith my name written all over it, so off I go!” She gestures toward the bar with a put-on smile. “You two kids have fun. I’ll be back shortly.”
I follow her trail with my gaze, lingering on her quickly retreating back.
Jude steps into my line of sight and smooths away the tension between my brows with his thumbs, before using his grasp on my face to pull me into a kiss. It goes from a featherlight, sweet peck, to a parting of mouths, our tongues colliding, in a matter of seconds. When he pulls away, I’m entirely breathless.
“Okay. Well. Wow.” I clear my throat. “Hello to you, too.”
“Hi, baby,” he replies, his teeth digging into the bottom curve of his smile. It does things to me. That smile, and that grip of his teeth. His soft inflection on the wordbaby,and the way he keeps looking at me, his eyes softening with every second that passes between us.
Isabella dances into our space, though, the first to break into our bubble as she wraps her arms around my middle. “We’ve missed you! This asshole has been keeping you all to himself,” she huffs.
I hug her back with a breath of laughter.
“Quick,” she says, handing me her phone. “Give me your number before Jude mauls your face or drags you away from us again. That way we can hang out soon—withoutall these clowns.”
I don’t hesitate for a second. I would love to hang out with her. With any of Jude’s friends, really.
“When you leave next week, she’s allmine!”she taunts Jude, dancing away from us with her phone in the air and a smug grin on her lips.
I feel Jude’s limbs stiffen beneath my touch. And note the thin line of tension that runs through his brows, and through his gaze, as well. Because I feel it, too. The bottom of my stomach hollowing out with the reminder that he’s leaving soon.
Nick, Connor, and Antonio make their way over, and the thought could almost be forgotten when they all greet me in their warm, yet slightly aggressive ways. Tight hugs that have the air whooshing out of my lungs, and a rough, accented,“Good to see ya,”running like light sandpaper over my eardrums, and then being picked right up off my feet by Antonio and dropped at the bar near Addy.
“First, I’d like you to introduce me to your beautiful friend here, and then, we’re all taking shots, since this motherfucker is headed back to Oklahoma too goddamn soon.” His words echo my own thoughts, or maybe it’s my thoughts that continue to echo his. My mind is spinning, reeling, from the warmth of their embraces, from the reality that Jude will be gone in just a handful of days, and from the fact that Addy is back early,heartbroken and leaving my own heart feeling a bit broken for her, too.
Isabella waves the bartender over—who seems to be a good friend of theirs, if their verbal sparring has anything to say about it.
“Quit fucking around and pour us some drinks, you lazy fuck!” Connor laughs.
“I’ll pour you something, alright,” the bartender volleys back with a crude gesture, and Connor laughs even harder.