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Jude

If one more person asked Jude if they could take a photo with her today, The Next Chapter was going to get a lot more famous, this time as the scene of a brutal murder-suicide.

As the most recent selfie-taker moved away, Jude rubbed her jaw, which ached from clenching all day. Stephen was doing paperwork in the back room, or she would have abandoned the register hours ago.

She’d been in a bad mood for three days, ever since her tense conversation with Kat.

It hadn’t been a fight, exactly, but Jude had snapped at Kat.

She hadn’t meant to go on the attack. It just seemed like everyone in her life was questioning her lately, telling her what she should do, urging her to abandon the store.

Didn’t they understand how important this store was?

That behind this register was the only place where Jude still felt like her mom could walk out of the next room at any second?

The only place where she felt like she hadn’t lost her only family, her entire life, the person she used to be?

Jude checked her phone for the fifteenth time that hour, hoping to see a text from Kat, but there was nothing.

They’d exchanged a few messages since their conversation, but the way Kat was texting felt off.

More terse than usual, with long periods of time between her responses.

When Jude had asked when they could see each other next, Kat had replied that rehearsals were starting this week, so she wasn’t sure.

Was this it? Would Kat slowly pull away until this thing between them died out?

No, she was being ridiculous. One weird conversation wouldn’t end things.

Couples fought all the time. Not that they’d ever actually had a talk about labels.

Were they even a couple? Jude had been thinking of them as a couple, but maybe Kat hadn’t.

Maybe this was just a fling to her, and now that things had gotten complicated, she would disappear.

“Hey.” Rhys came over and slid onto the other stool behind the register. “You okay?”

“Fantastic,” Jude said bitterly.

“Yeah.” Rhys put his elbow on the counter and slumped over it, his cheek propped up on his fist. “Me too.”

Jude turned to examine him. Now that she thought about it, Rhys had seemed off lately, too. He’d been moping around the store and had barely responded in the group chat.

“What’s going on with you?” Jude asked.

Rhys let out another sigh, then looked around to see if anyone was nearby. “L.J. asked me out,” he said in a low voice. “After that night we turned the back room into a bar.”

A trickle of panic ran through Jude’s chest. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

Rhys shook his head. “I said no.”

“You did?” Jude said. “Why? I thought you liked them.”

“I do,” Rhys said glumly. “But I kept thinking about what you said the other day. You’re right. It’s so rare for me to like someone, but they’re always dating someone and then moving on. I don’t want to blow up our friendship when they’re just going to dump me in a few weeks.”

Jude bit her lip.

“But it messed up the friendship anyway,” Rhys said, kicking the toes of his Hokas against the checkout counter. “They’ve been giving me the cold shoulder ever since.”

Jude was such an asshole. It had been obvious during the globe bar night that L.J.

really liked Rhys. And yes, L.J. went out with a lot of people, but they didn’t normally seem genuinely into the people they dated in this way.

But when Rhys had asked her for her opinion, she’d panicked and said the first excuse that came into her head.

Fuck. Maybe Jude was afraid. So scared of things changing that she was clinging on to everything too tightly, squeezing the life out of what she had left.

“Rhys,” Jude said, turning on her stool so she could face him, “I should never have said that. I’m sorry. I can tell that L.J. does really like you.”

Rhys raised his eyebrows without lifting his head off his fist. “That’s not what you said before.”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

Rhys rubbed the back of his neck as he thought. Finally, he said, “I don’t think you were. Things probably wouldn’t work out between us.”

“You don’t know that,” Jude said. “Maybe you should go for it. You won’t know unless you try, right?”

Rhys considered that for a moment. “It’s too late,” he said. “I said no, and now things are weird between us. I missed my chance.” He got off his stool. “I’m gonna go get lunch.”

Jude watched him go out the front door, feeling like the world’s worst friend. She’d made Rhys doubt himself. All because she’d been selfish and scared.

She looked around the bookstore, her eyes lingering on the framed photo of her and her mom on opening day, with their matching enormous smiles. Her mom looked so happy. She’d loved this store. So why had she been so eager to take it away from Jude?

She rarely admitted it to herself, but she knew exactly why. Her mom hadn’t wanted Jude to be stuck holding on to someone else’s dream, staying there out of obligation long after it had stopped making her happy.

Was that what she was doing?

No, she loved the store. Of course she loved it.

But…did loving the store mean she was happy here?

Jude stared at her mom’s smiling face for a few seconds longer. Then she pulled out her phone, navigated to the Gala Literary job posting, and clicked Apply.