“This is a classic!” He beamed. “I’ve got strings and a tool kit in the truck.”
“Seriously?” I laughed.
He lit up with boyish excitement. “What? I like to be prepared.”
My old Peavey sounded brand-new in an hour, and we sat on the floor singing together, hopping from song to song just like we always do.
Jude explored all our childhood photos around the house. He’d looked before but took his time noting how similar we all looked other than hair and eye colors. Mom betrayed me with a box of pictures that sadly included my plump middle school years, but I had Sydney’s number locked and loaded in my contacts. I knew she’d have my back. My phone was inundated with photos almost instantly.
From the adorable scraggly-haired boy in a tux playing the violin to the gangly baby-faced skateboarder, all the way to …wow.
I’m glad we didn’t meet until I was older. Because that sweaty baseball player with brown hair curling around the catcher’s mask flipped up on his head—wayout of my league.
“Dang.”
He glanced at what caught my attention, mirroring the smirky little smirk in the photo. His arm was slung around a skinny pitcher with familiar spiky black hair and unmistakable ice-blue eyes.
“Aww, look at baby Douche Waffle.”
“I thought you had a thing for catchers.”
“Absolutely, I do.” I fanned myself. “Was this high school?”
“That was a summer pitchers and catchers clinic right before my freshman year of college.”
“I didn’t know you played after high school.”
“Just one season. Mostly to get Jace in the door, but I didn’t like the atmosphere. I loved playing but not enough to put it before everything else in my life. Jace was tired of the politics and pressure by senior year too. He turned down a baseball scholarship, but academics carried us, so it wasn’t a huge loss.”
His eyes held the same goodness at every age. The quiet confidence that makes him a natural leader who holds himself to the highest standard and attempts to right every wrong in his path.
My heart would know his anywhere, but it leapt to my throat when a cherub-faced toddler appeared on my screen wielding sticks behind a drum kit. The man holding him wore a vintage Cheap Trick T-shirt and a smile so familiar and radiant with pride and joy it made my eyes burn.
The phantom contractions were back in full force, and when I locked eyes with the adult version of that baby drummer, we both held tears.
I’d just met JD Crawford—Jude’s dad.
Kissing his cheek, I measured my questions carefully. Every mention of his dad so far had been positive, but I didn’t know if there were any sore spots to avoid. I didn’t want to ruin our limited time together by saying the wrong thing.
“I just realized you have the same initials. Same name?” I asked.
“Almost. He was John Daniel. Aunt Judy couldn’t have kids. Since she introduced him to Mom, she got a little more pull in the name suggestions.”
Remembering Aunt Judy saidJDinterchangeably for Jude and his dad made more sense now.
He leaned his head against mine, his voice soft and low. “I’m trying not to freak you out, but I want this.” He held a Polaroid of four-year-old me with strawberry-blond pigtails and freckles singing into a turkey baster next to the image on my phone. “Nopressure. Any timeline, whatever our future looks like—I’m just making it clear I want it with you.”
I turned my head to steal a kiss. “You keep saying pretty things I’ll want to remember when I don’t have my notebook.”
“I’ll be happy to tell you again.”
The weekend flew by in a blur. The intense pace of our classes had worn us both down, and I’d already begun writing a paper for my Psych of Personality class. I was getting up stupid early and working late into the night trying to stay ahead so I could spend weekends with Jude.
Our phone calls were less playful. We entertained my siblings most of the previous weekend, and maybe our serotonin levels took a hit from the lack of one-on-one time.
After a late lunch with my dad, Jude and I went our separate ways. In hindsight, that was the worst possible note to leave on.
I’d introduced Jude as Daniel. It just came out. I needed a barrier, and that’s what I chose. The gentle stroke of his thumb over mine told me he understood. The visit began the same as always—Dad tossed out a nickname that he insists he called me when I was little. Then he told the story about me biting off the bottom of my ice cream cone when I was two and doing it again when he gave me his. That story’s probably only funny because my grandfather was there. Without him, I’m sure ice cream would have been forbidden thereafter due to my irresponsibility, and the one cute story he can pull from my childhood would cease to exist.
