“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“My mind isn’t quiet enough for it. I’m not comfortable with my thoughts these days.”
I rolled to my side and elbowed my way up to sitting. Jude chuckled as he picked leaves and sticks from the ends of my hair. “Isn’t that the point, though? To use it to work through all those thoughts? I don’t think art is supposed to be comfortable.”
Jude draped his arm around my shoulders. “We can’t all be as brave as you are.”
“I think reckless is more like it.”
“Brave,” he said with a little more gumption. “Words matter.”
I snapped a long piece of grass from where it sprouted between the rocks and wrapped it around my finger over and over again. “Do you think I’ll make it back to New Haven by August? We can’t stay out here forever . . .”
Jude leaned forward and rested his thick, tattooed forearms on top of his bent knees. “No. We can’t stay here forever. I’m just trying to figure out the best move.”
The lines across his forehead and between his brows were proof of how much it was weighing on him.
“I was close to having enough to pay off Joel’s debt. If I just had another day or two?—”
“No, you weren’t.”
My full attention snapped to Jude. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a difference in paying off a debt and buying freedom. The latter has a lot more zeros.”
“But Joel said?—”
“Joel thought if he paid the money back, he’d get off scot-free. Take out a loan, pay it back, and it’s done. But that’s not how it works. Once Valentine has an asset, he’s not keen on giving them up.”
“But Joel isn’t some mobster. He’s just?—”
“The kind of guy who can wash money and make it look legit.”
Oh.
“He would’ve shown up to the meeting with all the money you won, paid up his debt, and then Valentine would’ve used something in his personal life to keep Joel on the hook to do his bidding.”
“He’s a workaholic. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in years. There’s nothing Valentine could use against him.”
“You.” Jude turned and faced me. “He had you. Even before you showed up at the Four Horsemen to try and win enough to clear his debt. Why do you think I looked into you so thoroughly? Cased your apartment. Learned everything there was to know about your friends. Your habits. Your life.Youwere always the mark, little fox. You were the endgame. Why elsewould it be better to keep you apart? A lock and a key are much more useful when they’re together, but separate them and?—”
“They’re useless,” I finished for him as I snapped the blade of grass between my fingers. “I didn’t ask for this. I was just trying to get Joel out of it.” I huffed at the sky. “One of these days, I’m going to stop cleaning up his messes and he’s going to have to deal with the consequences.”
“Your love for him and your willingness to do whatever needs to be done says just as much about you as his willingness to let you take the fall says about him.”
I flopped back onto the bank and stared at the sky. “Where do we go from here?”
Jude rolled a pebble between his fingers before skipping it across the river. “John Valentine’s a big fish.”
“So how do we keep from getting swallowed by the big fish?”
He looked down at me. “Gotta go swim with sharks. We have to go to the one place he won’t fuck with.”
“Where’s that? Mars?”
Jude grinned. “Vegas.”
