To get through the next few days, I employed two tactics. The first was record-breaking coffee consumption. The second was forbidding myself to think of Jude.
Whenever a particularly tricky statistics concept bedeviled me, it was tempting to close my eyes and remember the feel of his scruff against my face and the press of his hips against mine. A girl could get lost in a memory like that.
But there was work to be done, and I chose to do most of it in places I didn’t associate with him, like the student center, the university library and—closer to home—Crumbs. Jude and I had never been there together because it had opened while he was in prison.
Time marches on whether you notice it or not. It was hard to believe that my diploma was in reach. After Gavin’s death, there had been moments during college when I thought I wouldn’t make it to the finish line. Friends and roommates had come and gone, most of them focused on parties and schoolwork, blissfully ignorant of the fact that your family and then your life can fall to pieces when you’re only nineteen.
Those difficult years were behind me now, and I would soon have a degree to prove it.
I’d arranged to take the next Wednesday off from the hospital in order to study and attend a statistics study session with the course’s TA. But I’d never bail on the Community Dinner. When evening came I put my books aside and headed over to the church.
Once again I walked into the church kitchen with fear in my heart. But this time I wasn’t afraid that Jude would be there. Instead, I was afraid he wouldn’t be. There weren’t any promises between us. We could never have a real relationship again. For all I knew, Jude could get a better job and vanish into the wind.
Somehow I’d already begun measuring my time in terms of Wednesdays. That couldn’t be a good thing. But there it was.
“How are the exams going?” Denny asked me when I walked in the room.
“Okay, thanks. One down and one to go.” My gaze traveled over Denny’s shoulder to the place where it longed to rest. And there he was in all his tight-T-shirt glory, strong forearms flexing over the prep table as he chopped up something leafy and green.
“Sophie?”
“Yeah?” My gaze snapped back to Denny. I’d been staring at Jude like a lovesick fangirl. “What’s um, the green stuff? My head is so full of, um, statistics that I can’t remember the menu.”
Denny’s face implied that he didn’t believe me. But he answered the question anyway. “It’s taco night.” His thumb jerked back toward Jude. “Cilantro for the pico de gallo. I asked him to do the garlic next.”
“Right,” I said brightly. “I’ll fetch the ground beef.”
I marched my overheated self into the pantry and opened the door to the walk-in cooler. The refrigerated air felt good against my flushed skin. Carrying fifty pounds of ground beef at once was above my pay grade, so I hefted only the top carton and backed out of the walk-in.
My ass ran straight into Jude.
“Hey,” he said, catching me and then my box of meat. “Careful.”
Careful. I was so far past careful that it wasn’t even funny. The woodsy scent of his aftershave enveloped me. I took a deep breath of Jude.
“Hey there,” he whispered.
“Hey.” My voice was breathy. Get a grip, Sophie. I turned to face him. “How was your week?”
“Shitty.” He grinned.
“Why?”
He shook his head. “Nothing for you to worry about. Things are looking up, now. Wednesday and Thursday are the best days of the week.”
“Yeah?”
Jude set the box down on a stepstool. And before I knew what was happening, he’d pushed me up against the door to the walk-in. Those silver eyes came in at close range. “Yeah.” Then he kissed me.
Oh, sweet Jesus. His mouth slanted over mine, the pressure bossy and delicious. An angel choir sang a chorus of hallelujahs as his hips pressed against mine. When I parted my lips, he deepened the kiss. Then his tongue made a long, sweet pull against mine. I forgot where we were. I forgot my own name. My hands gripped Jude’s waist, and I gave myself over to him completely.
It was useless pretending otherwise; I was gone for him. Always had been. He thrust his tongue into my mouth one more time and then eased up, smiling at me. The whole episode lasted maybe thirty seconds before he pulled away.
I stood there panting. The angel choir in my head had switched over to a dirty, groovy channel. I wanted more, and I was probably doing a bad job of hiding it.
Jude kissed me on the nose. “I’m leaving my door open tonight in case you feel like swinging by.”
“Okay.” My knees felt wobbly. But I knew they’d be wobbling right over to Jude’s place after the dinner service was over.
Jude leaned over and snagged a couple of bulbs of garlic out of their bin. “You need me to carry some meat?”
“What?” I was busy admiring the muscles in his forearm when he closed his hand around the garlic.
With an amused glance in my direction, he pointed at the ground beef in the box I’d brought out. “Meat. Do you need me to carry some of it?”