Page 27 of A Summer Thing

And it’s not because I’m angry with him, or sad, or upset with him at all, even. But because I’ve been scared that the next time we talk, it will be the last. I’m scared it’s what both of us need in the end. That it’s what I need in the end, in order to exorcise the demons living inside me.

I’m scared that if I don’t say it, he will.

He rakes a rough hand through his hair in the dark hallway. He’s shirtless, gray sweats hanging low at his hips, pictures drawn in perfect lines and shadows across his body. I drag my tired gaze over them—up his stomach, chest, neck, and razor-sharp jawline.

When I finally find the courage to meet his stare, it’s as turbulent as I expected it to be. The storm inside them rages, but it’s with a chaos that feels anything but violent.

“Hey, it’s late—is everything okay?” he asks, and it’s the first thing he’s said to me in a week.

His worry, his concern, is painful. Because it feels too good, too right, when I know it shouldn’t.

“Yeah. Everything is fine,” I say through a constricted breath. “I was just heading downstairs for some water.”

“Here, take mine.” He holds out his hand, offering me his own glass of water.

An ocean of emotions swells beneath my ribcage, their waves crashing against my heart. “Thank you,” I manage, but the words break apart on my tongue.

“This is why I need my head in the game. This is why I don’t need fucking distractions.” His pained words fill my psyche, fill the space between us.

A distraction.

That’s me. A distraction Jude doesn’t need.

The image of him falling down onto his knees, his head in his hands, floods into my mind.

“I should’ve been there—I fucking should’ve—” he’d said in one of the most heartbreaking ways I’ve ever heard someone utter, and I know now, he still has his own demons to work through.

I saw it then, and I see it now. He doesn’t need me making that any more complicated than I already know it to be.

A door quietly creaks open beside me, and we both turn to find Addy stepping out of the darkness of her room. As soon as she takes note of the watery state of my gaze, she’s striding closer, until she’s all up in Jude’s space with a finger jabbing into his chest.

“She’s been through a lot, asshole!” she whisper-screams through clenched teeth so she won’t wake Cal or Stacy or any of the other guys on our floor.

I don’t know what time it is, but the house is dead quiet, dead silent, save for the hum of the air conditioner kicking to life.

“Declan doesn’t need another asshole in her life. Leave her alone. I mean it.”

While I told her the full scope of my emotions—where my head was at when I panicked at the hospital the other night—Addy has still taken it upon herself to direct all her frustration Jude’s way.

His hands ball into two tight fists at his sides, the muscles in his jaw twitching as it clenches tight.

“Addy, I get it. I made a mistake. I fucked up. And I get that you’re pissed,” his focus turns to me, gray eyes burning into mine, “but my intention was never to hurt you—ever. I care about you, Declan, more than I’ve been able to admit. I want to apologize—”

“Take your apology and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine—up your ass, in case that wasn’t clear.

” Addy tips her head all the way back, glaring at Jude from where she stands below him.

What has to be at least a full foot separates her face from his, but she stands there, still as a statue, stubborn and glaring like the anger-fueled fire in her gaze will singe him on the spot if only she tries hard enough.

He releases a sigh, another agitated hand diving through his hair, before he says, “Addy. Can I have a moment with Declan, please? Alone.” His words are thin and tired, but so, so patient.

Her gaze narrows before she turns it to me and it softens, a single question inside it— Is this what you want, Dec?

I swallow past the shakiness in my chest and nod. It is what I want. This conversation between us is overdue. With the thought, regret spills into me. We don’t have much time left at all.

“Okay. Fine.” Addy’s clipped words pull my attention back to the hallway.

She turns to Jude with her finger still pressed against his chest. “But you make it right,” she growls, fuming as she jabs it into him that much harder, and then she turns on her heels and storms back into her room, closing the door much softer than I would have anticipated with how angry she is.

The moment stands still between Jude and me.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or run off and hide, avoid this conversation altogether.

Gray eyes reach into mine, imploring me to stay.

And, okay, I can do this. I think I can do this.

“You hurt my feelings,” I manage, my words quiet but filled with certainty.

Jude strides forward in two quick steps, wraps me in his arms, and gathers me against him before I even realize what’s happening.

“Fuck, Little D. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.

” He crushes me within his embrace. Strong, tattooed arms folded around me, my cheek presses into the hard plane of his naked chest, and I can feel his heart thundering away, its beats echoing—slamming—beneath me.

The rhythm of it lulls me into an inexplicable sense of calm.

It doesn’t make sense, but nothing about the way Jude makes me feel has ever made sense, and yet I’ve been drawn to it anyway.

“You don’t have to apologize.” I shake my head as my throat swells around the words. I step carefully away from the comfort of his arms. “It’s fine. I get it. I understand where you were coming from. I’d just like to forget it happened, really, and move on, focus on what’s ahead of me. I—”

“Fine?” he cuts me off with a quick tut of his head. “It isn’t fucking fine, Declan. Not by a longshot.”

I suck in a deep breath, attempting to keep my rushing tears at bay.

Strong fingers meet my chin and tip my head back until my eyes meet his.

“It was shitty of me to say, and I didn’t mean it.

I knew that immediately. It fucking killed me— seeing how much my words affected you, knowing I lashed out on you like that when I was only angry with myself.

So I gave you the space you seemed to need, but you leave in two days, Little D, and I need you to understand before you go that I didn’t fucking mean it. ”

I look down at my bare feet pressed against the wooden floor.

Two days. We leave in two days.

God.

“I know you didn’t mean it,” I say, and I realize how much I truly mean it, too. “I appreciate you saying that, but I—”

“Not that it’s any excuse,” he cuts in again, “but I was in bad fucking headspace. Answering the phone and hearing that Parker and Williams had been in an accident, it brought me right back—” he clips off with a harsh breath, not finishing his sentence.

But somehow, he already knows that I know, that I understand, because it brought me right back, too.

Sitting outside the hospital, the terrified look on Addy’s face, the panic on Jude’s, not knowing how badly hurt Parker and Williams were, it ripped me straight through time, back to five years ago when I lost Quinn.

A lump forms in my throat, thick and heavy.

“But you were right, you know,” he continues, quietly.

I meet his gaze, and his stare digs deeper into mine.

“I made a promise four years ago I can no longer keep. It isn’t my responsibility to make sure everyone around me is okay, or that they’re being responsible and not making the same stupid fucking decision to get behind the wheel when—” he cuts himself off again, sucking a sharp breath into his lungs.

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, before opening them again to find mine.

“I see that now.” He steps closer, reaching for my elbows with his hands and pulling me closer, too.

His voice lowers, softer than I’ve ever heard it before when he says, “But even coming to that realization, I still find myself needing to make sure you’re okay. ”

“You called me a distraction, Jude.” I don’t know why I say the words when they don’t matter. But they do. They do matter.

“You are a distraction,” he grits, and my heart splinters with his dark tone. “A distraction from the fucked parts of my mind and the shit things that have happened to me. Declan, you’re the kind of distraction a person needs.”

Oh.

Oh.

The tears that have stung at the back of my eyes during this entire conversation rush forward.

His words are destructive, tearing down every crumbling piece of wall I’ve tried to build between us this week, blocking out the idea of us staying friends, of continuing to build on the understanding and connection we’ve found in each other this summer, of allowing my feelings to grow any deeper than the soiled depths they’ve already managed to root themselves into.

“I care about you, Little D. So fucking much,” Jude doesn’t stop, laying confession after confession at my feet.

“More than I’ve cared about someone in a long damn time.

And while I can’t pretend to understand what that means for us right now, I know it means something.

I want to keep in touch; I want to see where this,” he motions between us, before grasping the hem of my sleep shirt and dragging me closer, “could go. Because it has the potential to go somewhere, and I know you feel that, too.”

My heart races so fast its pulses pound through my limbs in a rhythm that makes it feel like the earth is rattling beneath my feet.

It takes me a startling breath, a stuttering moment, to realize it’s only my heart that’s beating.

That I’m standing on the solid hardwood floor of the upstairs hallway, Jude’s stare rooting me in place where I’m pressed against him.

I swallow thickly as his gray stare penetrates deeper, grasping my heart in its clutches and slowing its beats. As easy as that. Like he somehow always manages to do.

And I want to say yes, I do. But I’m not sure I have the capacity to make that admission. To decipher between the chaos in my mind and the raging in my heart, screaming two very opposite things.

When I look at him—at his intense stare, and the Adam’s apple slowly sliding up and down his throat, and his lips fighting against the pull of a hesitant smile—I only feel… hopeful.

But the thought of carrying hope for anything beyond the friendship we’ve built is terrifying, because I’ve learned that you can only hold onto hope for so long before something comes along to shatter it, this last week only providing further proof that it’s true, and while you can pick up the pieces and try to glue them back together again, hope will forever be a fragile thing once it’s been broken.

I know that hoping for anything more than what lies immediately ahead of me has the potential to break my fragile hope for good, and for Quinn’s sake, and my own, I’m not sure I can take that risk.

I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll be torn apart completely.

I squeeze my eyes shut, pinching them closed.

Every ounce of me screams that I want this—my thoughts racing, my heart clenching, my soul aching. But my mind has always screamed the loudest. Every fear, every doubt. And my thoughts… they win again.

“I want to stay in touch, too, Jude. I do.” My chest is shaky, my breaths uneven.

“But I don’t have the strength to hope for anything more than that right now.

That kind of hope has the potential to break me, and for him, I have to get my life together, I have to fight for something better, I have to… ”

He pushes a hand through his hair. He knows. Of course, he knows. “For Quinn,” he confirms quietly. “You’ll do it for Quinn. And I’ll do it for Brenna.

“But Declan, I will know you well enough to see it all unfold.”

And those are the parting words he leaves me with.