“I know math has never been your strong suit, but we’ve been separated over five months, and she is only three months pregnant.”
“Four,” I correct.
He glares at me. I smile. Now it’s his fists that are twitching. Good. Bring it on, little man. But, sadly, he doesn’t. He turns back to his ex-wife, who is looking like she’s finally connected all the dots. “You want this house for her.”
“For the baby,” he corrects abruptly. “You convinced me this was a good place to raise a family. I’m the one with a family, so just do the right thing and step away.”
She doesn’t respond. He shakes his head in frustration and storms up the stairs and into the house. I stare at her as she watches him go. The wind whipping around us and rustling through the trees is the only sound. I’m suddenly petrified, because I don’t know what to do or what she’s going to do. Is she going to cry? How do I stop it? Is she going to snap and light the house on fire with him in it? Should I stop her? More than anything I just don’t want her to be hurt. I think something in me would break if he broke her.
I step closer to her and reach for her hand. “What can I do?”
She turns to me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen another human being look so tired. “I’m going to give him the house.”
“What? Why?” I ask, incredulous. “He’s impregnated another woman while still married to you. No judge is going to give him anything.”
“But he’s right.” Her voice is weak and on the verge of breaking. My heart clenches. If her voice cracks I will crack. “He’s got a kid coming. He wanted something I didn’t give him, and he went and found it. I want to find what he couldn’t give me too.”
“What is that?”
She looks around the street as if searching for something. The answer, maybe. She doesn’t find it, or she doesn’t share, because she goes back to her original statement. “This house was supposed to be filled with love and happiness and kids. Not me just stumbling around by myself. I don’t need it. I’m not even sure I want it anymore.”
I want to remind her that’s not the point. The point is, she deserves to walk away with something from this marriage. He doesn’t deserve to take everything from her. I hate that I feel like he’s taken too much already, and it has nothing to do with material things.
“What do you want?”
She takes a deep breath and seems to hold it. She tilts her head up to the dark sky. “I want to feel something good again.”
The words are carried to me on the wind, and I hear the slightest, tiniest crack in her voice on the word “good,” and something in me snaps. She needs someone, and I want to be that person. I have to be, for me as much as for her. I’m in front of her before she tips her head back from the sky, and then I’m against her—all of me pressing into her—as I grab her around the waist with one hand and cradle her head with the other. And then I kiss her.
It’s everything our first kiss was—rough, hard, unexpected and wanton. Her lips are soft and warm, and her tongue is perfect against mine. I’ve kissed a thousand girls in my lifetime, but the only time I’ve felt this kind of passion is with Zoey. It roars up from inside me; the deep ache of desire I’ve had for her isn’t quelled by the kiss, it’s intensified. When we finally break apart we’re both panting.
“Jude…I have to go.”
“I know,” I agree. But I grab her head with both my hands and give her one last fierce kiss. She holds on to my arms while I do it.
When she breaks away, she immediately turns and runs up the steps. She glances back once before disappearing into the house. I walk back to my car and get inside. I’m torn. I want to stay. Just sit out here and wait, in case she needs me. But I know she’ll be able to handle herself with that idiot ex of hers. And if she does walk away from the house, that’s fine. I’ll pay for a new one for her myself if I have to and let her pay me back whenever she can. I’m there for a lot of people in life—my mom, my dad, my sisters, even Levi—and I do it gladly. But I’ve never been as overwhelmed with the need to be there for someone as I am for her. I have to make sure she’s okay. I feel like her happiness is mine.
14
Jude
The next morning I wake up with a raging hard-on and a craving for pancakes. The problem is I can do something about only one of those needs. When I got back from Zoey’s last night, Dixie was still here marathoningStranger Thingson Netflix. The girl is addicted to television but doesn’t own one. Trying to figure her out has always annoyed the fuck out of me, so I stopped a long time ago. We get along a lot better now that I don’t question her insanity.
Anyway, because I’d bet my life savings she crashed in the guest room, my stomach is the only thing I can satisfy. I never jerk off with my sisters in the house. None of them have ever bothered knocking in their lives, and I refuse to get caught. It would scar me more than them.
I stretch and try to think of generic things like hockey plays and what’s in my fridge, but it’s not easy, because last night with Zoey is all I want to think about, and that’s not going to get my dick to deflate. I thought the night had peaked with our little dirty word exchange in the kitchen, but then I finally got to kiss her again and damn if it wasn’t fucking perfect. Better than the first. I can’t wait to do it again. And more. So fucking much more.
“Get up, dirtball!” Dixie’s voice bellows through my entire apartment. “I made blueberry flapjacks!”
Okay, sometimes she’s not a fucking nightmare. I roll out of bed and wander to my closet to find clothes. When I make it into the kitchen, she’s drinking coffee, ass on the counter next to the stove, and there’s a big pile of blueberry pancakes in the middle of the island. I grab one of my kitchen stools and reach for the maple syrup. My parents make sure I’m stocked, bringing a few bottles of the pure Canadian maple syrup every time they visit.
Dixie watches me pour. “Work up an appetite last night?”
“It’s pancakes. I could eat six after a five-course meal,” I say through a mouthful.
Dixie smiles at that and takes another sip of coffee. I keep shoveling heaven into my mouth. “You’re lucky you’re a hockey player. With your pancake addiction you’d be nine hundredpounds if you didn’t work out for a living.”
“Don’t care. I’d eat pancakes every day even if I was a bus driver like Dad.”
