"Let's find out what he wants before we throw ourselves into the deep end," Jamie said. "There's nothing wrong with putting a man on hold for a few minutes."
"Huh," Ruth murmured as we stepped into the damp evening air. "Never thought of that."
"I'll explain the deep magic to you later," Jamie said. "Right now, we need to get Audrey's fiancé on the phone?—"
"He's not my fiancé," I said.
"—and find out when he's coming to collect his future wife."
"I really don't think that's how it's going to go," I said.
"Call him and find out," Ruth said, stomping a foot on the gravel with each word.
I sucked in a huge breath as I stared at his contact on my screen. Before I could talk myself out of it, I placed the call. He answered immediately.
"Hey, there you are," he said, those quiet, raspy words sliding around me like an old familiar blanket.
I wanted to stay there forever. Right inside that warm, gentleThere you are. In the place where I knew who I was.Here I am.
"I, uh—" He paused. "How are you? Did you get back all right?"
"Yeah, everything went fine." Even to my ear, my tone was crisp. I knew he heard it because he heard everything. "How are you? How's Seattle?"
"It's been a busy week. Flat-out, all day, every day," he said, a thin apology buried somewhere in there. "Percy was pissed because I nodded off in the middle of reading a story over a video call a few nights ago."
I breathed out a laugh. "Understandable."
"I realized the other day that I never got to talk to you about his school stuff," Jude said. "I don't know if you remember but?—"
"I remember." I paced away from the bar as I stared up at the night sky. Tons of stars out here without the city lights. "I think I tried to convince you I was sober. Not sure why I thought that was a good idea."
"Yeah, it was amusing," he said. "I'm trying to figure out what would be best for him. I figured you'd have some insider knowledge."
Jamie snapped her fingers, urgently gesturing for me to come back toward her and Ruth. I held up a hand, stayed where I was. "Maybe, yeah. I'm not an expert on special education but I could talk it through with you if that helps."
"I'd like that."
He was quiet for a long moment that reminded me of driving through the night from the Salt Lake airport to—wherever it was we ended up. Back when we didn't know how to talk to each other and everything we did was wrong. I didn't know how we'd wound up back in that thicket again.
Before I could offer to call him sometime next week, after the wedding and the day or two I'd need to physically and mentally recover from all its events, he said, "About your friend's wedding."
I glanced back to Jamie and Ruth. They made several frantic gestures I couldn't interpret. "What about it?"
"Are you still looking for a date?"
I staggered back a step and heard Jamie cry, "Oh my god, she's going to faint."
I waved her off, saying to Jude, "Why do you ask?"
He made a noise, something that lived on the spectrum between a growl and a groan. "Because I'm leaving on a red-eye flight to Boston in two hours, Saunders, and it would really help if I knew where to find you when I land."
chapter forty-one
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: energy
I knewI'd fucked up.
