And Adriana…
No. Not now.
I breathe her out of my mind and tuck myself deeper into Jude’s hoodie, his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek. Across the room, Heather and Micah are quiet too, drifting into each other. She pulls the fuzzy gray blanket over them while his fingers trace lazy lines through her hair.
They’d have beautiful babies,I think. Blonde-haired angels.
Jude’s hand tightens around mine, just enough to pull me back. His hazel eyes stare down into mine, glowing gold in the low light. That familiar heat stirs in my chest—the same pull I’ve never been able to fight. The one that started the night he sang to me on his dock at Vanessa’s party.
He leans in, lips brushing my temple, then my mouth. His kiss is unhurried, and I melt into him, fingers threading through his hair, pulling him closer.
The laughter, the cake, the night drive...everything narrows into this moment. This quiet gravity pulling me deeper into him. Sassy the Sasquatch fades to background noise. Heather and Micah become little more than shadows.
It’s just Jude and me. The living room. Moonlight cutting across his sharp jaw. The soft scrape of his stubble against my lips.
He kisses me again, slower, deeper. His fingers slide to my jaw, tipping my face up, and something inside him shifts. He’s always been so gentle with me, but lately, I’ve been feeling a kind of aggression that’s different from anything I’ve ever felt from him.
“Come here,” he murmurs, voice firm enough to send a shiver through me.
I crawl into his lap without thinking twice. With him, it’s as simple as gravity. His hands grip my waist, fingers digging in just above the waistband of my jeans. The couch dips beneath us. I can hear Heather’s quiet breathing from the other sofa, Micah’s arm draped over her.
Their presence should make me cautious, but it doesn’t. If anything, Jude holds me tighter, breath rough against my neck. His thumb presses under my chin, guiding my gaze back to his. His eyes are hungry, hesitant, and hopeful all at once.
“I really want to be better for you,” he breathes, forehead resting against mine.
I brush my fingers through his hair, letting a few strands fall into his eyes. “I know,” I whisper.
“No,” he murmurs, pulling me closer until our chests meet, until I feel his heart hammering. “You don’t. I want you so bad it hurts. And everything else—Adriana, Nolan, the shit I’m stuck in—it’s like…” He swallows hard. “Baby, it’s like they’re eating me alive.”
My chest aches.
He buries his face in my neck for a second, like he needs the comfort. “I just need…” He exhales, sliding his hands up my spine. “I need one minute where I’m notownedby someone. Where I’m not scared I’ll lose you again. Because I am. Everything I told you the other night on the beach is still true. I don’t know how much more longer we’ll be in Seaside. Nolan could decide tomorrow to continue the tour.”
He pauses, something unsaid flickering behind his eyes. Then he lets it go.
“I don’t know how this ends,” he says quietly. “I wish I did. But I don’t.”
His words are a sucker punch to the heart. I cup his face, my thumbs stroking the rough stubble along his jaw, forcing his eyes tostay locked on mine. “You’llneverlose me. I’ll do long long distance with you, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever it takes until we can get you out.”
A flicker of vulnerability crosses his face as he looks up at me. “If we make it out of this,” he swallows, voice dropping to a whisper, “I want to marry you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from sobbing. “What else?”
A faint smirk tugs at his mouth. “I’ll buy us a beautiful house. One with a studio, so you can paint all you want. And I’ll write songs again—realones. From my soul.”
My heart stutters, the memory of that night on his roof flashing between us.
“I’ll give you as many kids as you want,” he continues, voice a little shaky but eyes burning. “And I’ll make a life so peaceful, so fucking beautiful, that when we’re old and gray, the time we were apart won’t matter. Because we loved each other so fiercely in the time we had.”
That does it. A tear slips free.
His jaw tightens, a muscle feathering as he swallows a hundred unsaid things. Then he kisses me, and there’s nothing careful about it. It’s a floodgate. Love and loss, grief and fear, and a desperate, clawing hope crashing together.
His hands slip beneath the hem of my shirt, palms searing as they skim up my ribs. Every callus, every ridge of his fingers leaves its mark. I clutch his shoulders, my pulse climbing until it’s a frantic drumbeat. I swear he feels it in his own chest.
His mouth leaves mine, trailing heat down my throat. His breath ghosts my collarbone. “I’ve kept a photo of you in my wallet all these years,” he murmurs. “I think about you every damn night. Even when I’m high.Especiallythen. You’re the only thing I can still feel. The only thing that makes me want to live through this.”
The honesty of it nearly breaks me.
