“I’m waiting until she’s legally free to have sex with another man,” I explain and lift my arms above my head to work out a stitch in my side. “Because I want that man to finally be me.”
Duncan pulls his shirt over his head and uses it to mop the sweat from his red face. When he’s done, he asks, “So this is just about sex again?”
“Have you met me? What else would it be about?” I smirk.
“You haven’t always just been about sex,” Duncan replies without thinking. When his brain finally catches up with his stupid mouth, he stops walking altogether. “I just meant that you aren’t against serious relationships.”
“I’m not against them. I just can’t do them,” I reply curtly as we get to the grass in front of Matt, and Duncan collapses. He’s looking up at me like I’m a lost puppy or something. I don’t like it, so I turn to look at Levi instead. His expression is stunned and confused.
“Warm down stretches,” Matt barks.
“Jude, you were devastated when you found out that Zoey’s parents had moved away,” Levi informs me, like I don’t know. “You were waiting to have sex with her.”
“Jude? Braddock? He was saving himself?” Duncan sounds completely dumbfounded. Emphasis on thedumb.
“Yeah, and the second that goal became unattainable I fucked the hell out of Erin Moorehouse.” I remind him of what I know he remembers, because I kicked him out of our room that night. “And then less than twenty-four hours later I did the same thing with her sister, Emily.”
“You were eighteen.”
“Yep. And ask your girlfriend how much I’ve changed.”
Okay, that was out of line. Even I know that.
“Jude,” Duncan says with caution as he starts to get back up on his feet. I’m sure he thinks he’s going to have to get in between Levi and me to stop a fight. It wouldn’t be the first time.
But even though Levi looks pissed, he refuses to act on his feelings. Exhibit A as to why he’s a better player, friend, boyfriend and general human being than I am. “So Zoey is just another conquest?”
“Right now she’s not even that,” I reply and start toward the entrance to the gym.
“Warm down!” Matt bellows.
“I’ll do it at home,” I bark back and keep walking.
I know I seem angry, and I am. Levi doesn’t get to make excuses for my behavior with women. He’s not my best friend anymore, and even if he were, I wouldn’t want him to do it. I know exactly who I was—who I am—and I don’t need him to sugarcoat it.
I really didn’t think twice about being with another girl when I was dating Tessa. In my head, they didn’t mean what Tessa meant, so why did it matter? But it did matter, and it cost me Tessa. I just don’t know how to be any other way.
I’m not bitter. Just realistic. Tessa once told me that maybe what was right for me was a partner who would look the other way. That comment was like a gnat burrowing into my soul and chewing away. Those words kept me up for more nights than I can count. What killed me was that deep down, I thought she might be right.
Zoey is lucky Tessa happened. And the fact is, she’s been through too much with this asshole ex of hers to go through any more bad shit because of me. I just want to show her a good time. Remind her how sexy, beautiful, and unbelievably desirable she is, and then I want us to have that night we lost to booze and drama. Because I’m definitely going to be able to show her the best damn sexual experience of her life. But that’s it. Sex. A much anticipated do-over, nothing more.
I’m not capable of more, and I don’t want to hurt her.
12
Zoey
Today turned out to be a really good day, and I didn’t even have to chant a mantra once. When I got back from activating the cell phone Jude gave me, I had a commission check waiting for me from a small condo I sold last month. It isn’t huge, but it’s enough to pay my credit card off and make me more comfortable until the divorce is settled. But as the day progressed, my happiness started to mix with some nerves about going to Jude’s condo. It didn’t help that he had sent me a few innuendo-filled text messages and another selfie of him napping, the blankets pushed so damn low down his waist that I blushed.
Now I shift nervously from one foot to the other as I wait for the elevator to take me up to the fifth floor, where Jude’s apartment is located.All business,I tell myself.Keep it business. This is a huge listing for you. Take it seriously. Don’t eye-fuck the client and let him make your panties wet.
The elevator doors slide open, and I step out into the sleek, modern hall. I can’t believe that he lives here. It’s gorgeous. Not at all my taste, but definitely amazing. His unit is at the end of the hall. I knock on the door and feel oddly out of place. It takes him so long to answer the door that I worry he forgot—or changed his mind—or I dreamed this amazing opportunity. But then the glossy white door swings open, and Jude is standing there in nothing but a suggestive smirk and a towel. There are droplets of water on his shoulders and dripping from his wet hair. He clearly just got out of the shower.
A drop starts to slide from his collarbone, over his pec and down his torso. My eyes follow its path over every ripple of muscle in his stomach and down to the dark golden hair just below his belly button. He’s decorated that perfect skin with tattoos. My eyes trace them. There’s a red maple leaf on his right shoulder with a black silhouette of a hockey player in the center of it. On the inside of his left bicep there’s a Stanley Cup with two dates written underneath—the dates he won it, I guess. And as he reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, trying to shake off excess water, I can see his surname, in big, beautiful, insanely detailed Old English–style lettering down the side of his torso, running from right under his armpit down to his hip. Braddock. I stare at the strong curve of the end of the K in Braddock.
There’s the corner of a tattoo in it. The edge of a fancy letter. Maybe an R or a Y.
It’s neither. It’s a K.
