Her smile didn’t fade.
Mine probably looked like I wasn’t sure if I should be here.Which, again, accurate.
“Whatcha doing?”she asked.
Speak, Ever.
“I, uh—” I cleared my throat.“I had a flat yesterday.”
Penny nodded like that explained everything.“Okay.”
More details, Ever.Use your words.
“And Jude helped me change it,” I added, rushing slightly, “and then he told me to come here today at ten so he could fix it.”
She glanced down at my dashboard clock.“And now it’s ten,” she said.
I followed her gaze.
Yep.
Ten.
On the dot.
Penny laughed.“That explains why Jude was out of bed before eleven.Lately, he’s been drinking himself into a stupor and sleeping until noon.”
That… that didn’t sound like the Jude I had built in my head.
Not that I knew him well, but still.
“Oh,” I said, a little too soft.“Uh… I hope I didn’t keep him from… sleep.”God, I sounded lame.
“Hey!”
Penny turned before I could spiral any further and I followed her gaze.
Jude stood a few steps behind her, and just like that, every thought in my head went completely off track.
“Yeah, little brother?”Penny said, turning back to him.
“She’s here for me, not you.”
My brain stalled.
Penny’s brows shot up, and then a slow smirk spread across her face.“That’s a change,” she said.She looked at me, winked, then turned back to Jude.“Heard you were a knight in shining armor yesterday.”
Jude grunted something under his breath and started toward us.
He wore dark jeans again, a fitted T-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the way his shoulders filled it out, and his cut sat over it.The backwards cap was back, sunglasses pushed up on top of it for now, and there was something about the way he moved toward us that made my stomach flip.
“Don’t you have something to do?”he asked Penny.
She laughed.“Yeah, I need to get to the Social Club since Adley is puking her brains out thanks to the little baby she’s growing, but I saw Ever.”
“She’s here for me,” Jude said again.
Again.
