That kiss Jude stole; that little piece of my heart that he took from me that night, and never gaveback.
Even after Jessa told me what happened to her that night—that Brody had kissed her outside that party before he drove her home—I didn’t tell her Jude kissed me. It just felt too intimate. Too private, even though it happened right in the middle of a crowdedparty.
Plus, I didn’t really want anyone toknow.
So I never toldanyone.
I was after Piper, IwantedPiper, and that didn’tchange.
For one thing, I’d already declared to every one of my girlfriends, repeatedly, that I was going to make Jeremy “Piper” Graysonmine. I was committed to my mission, and I wouldn’t back down. It wasn’t my way. I just wouldn’t doit.
Not until I got what Iwanted.
And Iknewwhat Iwanted.
I also knew the way things worked in the biker world, more or less. From what I’d gathered while interrogating Jessa for everything she knew about Piper Grayson, he was tight with his brother. Which meant if I messed around with Jude first, the odds of Piper going anywhere near me wereslim.
For another thing… I was sixteen andstupid.
I thought, from my limited experience with men, that I could get whatever I wanted. That Ishouldget whatever Iwanted.
I was just plainwrong.
I’d made my choice, but I’d made the wrongchoice.
I just didn’t know ityet.
Somehow maybe the universe knew, even if I didn’t, that it should’ve been Jude. Maybe Jude knew it should’ve been Jude, and he was telling me so with thatkiss.
Maybe he was just gonna hold onto that little piece of my heart until I figured itout.
And fool that I was, stubborn as I was… maybe I convinced myself that I could live withoutit.
* * *
It happenedat a crappy houseparty.
Well, the party was okay. The house was owned by some Kings hang-around—some guy who wanted to be a King, hadn’t yet been invited to prospect for the club, but had a house on a property way out in Cloverdale and threw decent parties that usually promised to include at least a fewKings.
Piper was there that night, I was there, and I was on a mission. He was drunk, he was single (after a brief, inexplicably lingering semi-relationship with a girl I was sure was half as pretty as I was, though twice as slutty) and when I started pouring him shots, he started payingattention.
It had taken me a long, long time to get Piper’s attention. I’d been chasing him for ayear. Granted, there were a lot of girls vying for his attention, so maybe it was only fair I had to wait in line. I was only seventeen, and he didn’t seem to go for girls myage.
Which only made me more committed to turning hishead.
I was almost eighteen anyway. I was mature. And I wasthe girlfor him. He just didn’t know ityet.
These were the things I’d been telling myself for the lastyear.
Eventually, that night, I did turn his head long enough to get him alone in the kitchen for a few hotminutes.
But his attention really didn’t lastlong.
And afterwards, he sent me on myway.
It didn’t bother me as much as it maybe should’ve, considering I’d been hoping to make him my boyfriend, had idealized him in my mind and fantasized about him for so damn long. But the whole thing was so incredibly anticlimactic, so… just… nothing at all… it didn’t even seem tomatter.
Kinda made me feel, for a few minutes, like I didn’tmatter.
