The directness of her question startled him. He hadn't expected her to be so forthright, though perhaps he should have. Everything he'd learned about Angela showed her to be somewhat reserved and tentative until she set her mind to something. Then she could be quite tenacious.
"Friendship," he said after a long moment. "We can be friends."
It was both the truth and a lie. They could be friends, like he was friends with Annie and Benji. However, the way his heart quickened when she looked at him suggested that it would be a challenge to have a simple friendship with her.
"Friends," she repeated, testing the word. "I think I'd like that."
Jude nodded, feeling both relief and an inexplicable disappointment. "Good. Then let's start over. No awkwardness. Just… friends."
Angela smiled, a genuine smile that reached her eyes. "I'd like that."
"Should we continue with the driving lesson now?" Jude asked, injecting a lightness into his tone he didn't entirely feel.
"Yes, please." Angela put her hands back on the steering wheel. "I think I'm getting the hang of it.”
Jude thought she was too. The sense of pride that filled him could be how a friend felt, right?
He actually had no idea if that was the case. However, he felt like she deserved to have people proud of her since she’d probably had precious few who had been for most of her life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was easier said than done to keep control of his feelings, and Jude should have been glad for a break from the estate and the possibility of running into Angela. Except he was surrounded by things that made him see his own life in stark contrast.
He looked around the cozy space, taking in all the little things that made it a home for his best friend, Cooper, his wife Melanie, and their kids.
The framed pictures on the walls and the mantle over the fireplace. The lamps on the end tables. The knitted blankets draped over the back of the couch and the arm of the overstuffed glider. The plants in front of the window.
So many things that this home had that his didn’t. He had only one picture in his whole house, and it had been taken shortly before his dad had passed away. They’d been standing side by side, smiles on their faces.
Neither of them were big smilers, but they had gone fishing and managed to catch exactly nothing. Still, it had been the best day of his life because they’d spent time talking and laughing in ways they didn’t when they were tied up with work.
But that day, his dad had banned all talk of work. It had meant that for the first hour or so, silence had been more prominent than conversation. Soon enough, however, conversation had begun to flow.
His dad had shared memories of growing up, and the times he’d spent with his dad and older brother out fishing or hunting. His dad—Jude’s grandfather—had passed away from cancer shortly before his own dad’s heart attack. His grandmother had passed when his dad had been a teen.
So, like Jude, he had been raised by just his dad.
By the time they had returned to shore that day, their cooler empty of the sandwiches and drinks they’d filled it with, Jude had smiled more in those hours on the boat than he had in ages.
It seemed that his dad had cherished the time as well because he’d convinced Jude to set up his phone to take a picture of them together. Though he’d grumbled about it at the time, he was glad he’d done it.
Not long after that, his dad had passed away. The hole he’d left behind was a constant reminder to Jude of his dad’s absence, but the memories of that day had sustained him. And he liked to think that his dad would be proud of the man he’d become.
“Did you shoot anyone this week, Uncle Jude?”
Jude smiled down at the eight-year-old boy as he shook his head. “Not this week.”
“Dad didn’t shoot anyone this week either.”
“That’s good,” Jude told him. “Just the way we like it.”
Alex held up his hand, showing Jude what he held. “I made that yesterday.”
Jude took the Lego figure and turned it over in his hand. “You did a great job, buddy.”
“I didn’t even need help.” The boy grinned. “Right, Dad?”
Cooper Sullivan walked in carrying his five-year-old daughter. Chloe gave Jude a wide smile and a little wave.
