After scrawling a quick note to him, I leave the cottage and jog across the garden to the kitchen door. As usual, it’s unlocked, but when I walk in, a surprised yelp makesmeyelp and I nearly fall backward out the door.
“Oh my God, Gracie. I thought you were Ronald McDonald.”
My heart is still convinced that my esophagus is a far safer place to be than my chest, but it’s just Henry. Henry… who is probably the last person I want to see while wearing another man’s lipstick-covered shirt. Especially his best friend’s.
“Ronald McDonald?” I repeat with a nervous laugh, willing my pulse to slow. “That’s a pretty specific conclusion to jump to.”
“Well, if he were your worst childhood fear, your mind would probably jump to him, too.”
“Your worst childhood fear was being set upon by the McDonald’s clown?” I ask, momentarily distracted.
“Set upon? You make him sound like a roguish highwayman with a penchant for petticoats and virgins.”
“And that’s less terrifyinghow?”
“Good point.” Henry shudders. “Sorry I scared you. I’ve been texting Jude all morning. We usually meet at the pool on Sundays, but he never showed. I got worried Taco finally assassinated him and came over, but…” His eyes move to each lipstick stain on Jude’s shirt like he’s mapping crime scene evidence. “Looks like he just had a change of plans.”
My arms cross, uncross, and cross one more time as I try (and fail) to cover up the deep red stains. Jude told me that he let Henry know about us, but in the crunch leading up to the wedding, I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about how it went. But from the hurt outlining all of Henry’s features, it couldn’t be more obvious how he feels.
“I’m so sorry for how everything happened,” I say earnestly, wishing I could ease all his disappointment. “Everything with Jude just happened so unexpectedly.”
He tries to smile, but it comes across as a grimace. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but it’s nothing new at this point.”
“Nothing new?” I repeat.
Henry frowns down at his keys on the butcher block counter. “Oh, just the well-established pattern of the women I’m interested in falling head over heels for my best friend instead.”
His words stun me. Up until this second, I had imagined Jude’s sex life as having a traceable app history and being as far from the realm of “personal” as rubbing two bodies together gets. The revelation that it somehow ever intersected with Henry’s love life—that my situation with the pair of them isn’t unique—makes my heart stumble.
He loves me, I tell myself. And while I feel terrible that Henry is hurting from my unrequited feelings, I remind myself that I did give him a chance and didn’t feel a spark. I triedsohard to ignore what I felt for his best friend, but in the end, our connection consumed me. It consumed Jude, too.
I take a breath. “I’m sorry this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but I promise it was never my intention to hurt you.”
“I’m not the one you should be worried about getting hurt,” he says, his face somber.
At his insinuation, I wrap my arms tighter around my middle. “He cares about me,” I say, trying not to let him see the hairline fractures he’s creating. “He told me he loves me.”
“Loves you?” he repeats, eyebrows raised. “Wow, he really went there.”
His surprise slides in between my ribs like a knife, but I force my voice into something confident. “Believe it or not, yes, he does.”
He must sense from my tone—or maybe it’s the way my chest has deflated from its newest puncture wound—that he’s hit a nerve.
“Shit, Gracie, I didn’t mean to imply that you’re not—” He exhales. “It has nothing to do with you. It’s just, I’ve known Jude fornearly half my life, and I don’t think he’scapableof letting himself love someone, no matter how wonderful the woman in question is.”
“Then why on earth would he say it if he didn’t mean it? You’re his best friend. You of all people should know how capable of love he is,” I argue, some of my fear spilling from me like a jostled cup.
“I never said he wasn’t capable of love; I said he would never let himself have it,” he says, frustration creeping into his tone. “If you haven’t noticed, his whole personality is keeping people at arm’s length. He thinks he’s protecting everyone he loves from whatever the hell happened to him here, but if you think I’m any closer to knowing what that was, my current working theory is that he got probed by fucking aliens.”
I don’t want his words to make me doubt Jude, but questions are wriggling in. Yes, he’s guarded, but hasn’t he also trusted me with those hidden pieces of himself? Hasn’t he shown me glimpses?
As if Henry hears me think it, he asks, “Has Jude actually told you anything about himself? About his past?”
I’m about to retort that yes, he has. Just the other night, he told me about his DV work and his tattoos.
But only because you pushed him, a small voice argues.And even then, he only told you the barest minimum.
I bite my lip, searching for solid proof against Henry’s assumptions. But that same night, when Ifinallyfelt like Jude was going to open up, he only shut me down again.Don’t ask me that. I can’t talk to you about this. I hate keeping secrets from you.
