“Yeah.”
“And about me being your Realtor?”
“Of course.”
I can’t believe it. “Well, then there’s stuff we have to do.”
We reach his Tesla, and he stops and turns to me on the sidewalk. “Will this stuff mean we have to spend time together?” I nod, and he says, “Good. Then I’m in. Just tell me when and where.”
“You’ll need to sign a contract with me, and I’ll need to see the place,” I explain. “See if there’s anything that needs changing or sprucing up before we take pictures and show it. And we’ll need to set a price. If you tell me your address, I’ll pull comparable listings.”
He gives me his address on Broadway in Pacific Heights, and I grit my teeth so my jaw doesn’t hit the floor. I know the building. It’s only five years old, state-of-the-art, and every apartment in there is over a million bucks. This commission is going to be insane.
“Why don’t you come by tonight around eight and see it for yourself?”
“Yeah. I can do that.” I nod.
He steps closer, dips his head and kisses my cheek. I close my eyes and savor the feeling. But it’s gone all too soon, replaced with nothing but a warm breeze as he steps back and walks around the car. Smiling, I watch him drive away. Jude’s been back in my life for less than a week, and everything is turning around. He’s my good luck charm.
11
Jude
I give Duncan a little kick with the toe of my shoe as he lies panting like a dog on the grass. I squat and grip the huge four-hundred-pound tire and flip it one more time. Yeah, I’m showing off. Our trainer, Matt, chides, “Easy, Braddock. It’s not a competition.”
“Darby should thank the gods for that. He’d lose every time,” I boast and then plant my ass on the tire I just flipped and try like hell not to pant as loudly as Duncan.
“This isn’t part of my usual off-season training,” Duncan complains, wiping the sweat from his face with the back of his freckled arm. “When I train back home in Minnesota, it’s just kettlebells and wind sprints and easy stuff.”
“It’s not my fault you’re here,” I remind him. “Blame Carla.”
“Yeah, I know.” Duncan struggles to sit up. “But it’s worth it to be with my girl all summer, right, Levi?”
Levi looks up from where he’s resting next to the tire he flipped and chugs from his water bottle. He doesn’t answer. Because he’s living with Tessa and he doesn’t want to say it in front of me. I figured it out the night of the barbeque. Tessa and Carla had been roommates, so if Carla is now living with Duncan, Tess has most likely moved in with Levi. The fact that he is squirming right now confirms it. He doesn’t look me in the eye as he changes the subject. “I’m glad we’ve amped up our training. We’ve got to be better than we’ve ever been if we’re going to have another record-breaking season.”
I’m beginning to hate the way he and Tessa dance around their relationship in front of me. Like full-blown seething anger kind of hate it. It doesn’t help me forget the betrayal, like I thought it would. It just seems to make it more obvious. So I grab my water bottle and squirt myself in the face, trying to cool down, and then I say, “You didn’t answer the question. Is it worth it? Skipping a full two months at home with your brother and your friends to hang out with Tessa?”
He looks ridiculously uncomfortable—physicallyuncomfortable—like someone put itching powder in his jock kind of uncomfortable. He actually starts to squirm. “Can we finish this session so I can go home?”
Matt steps forward, ready to give us our next drill, but I raise my hand. “It’s the off-season. You’re not my captain right now, so I can say stop being a bitch and answer the question.”
That makes his expression grow dark. Good. He stands up, water bottle clenched in his fist. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”
“The truth. Talk about your fucking life, and stop making everything more awkward by dancing around shit in front of me.”
“You asked us to—”
“I asked you to maybe just chill out in front of me, but that was months ago.”
“So you’re over it?”
Both Duncan and Levi are staring at me with intensely curious eyes. I sigh and lift the hem of my shirt to wipe the water off my face. “I’m more annoyed now by the fact that you’re trying to hide that you’re together, even though I know you are, than the fact that you’re actually together.”
“Well, that’s progress,” Duncan says acerbically. I flip him my middle finger.
“It’s worth it. I don’t miss Laguna hardly at all,” Levi confesses in his typical calm, honest tone.
Okay, yeah, that stings a little. But it’s not because I miss Tessa or want her back, it’s because I still am choked by the realization that I’ll likely never have that kind of relationship with anyone. Because I’m just not wired that way, as much as I wish I were.
