Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
With a smile I can’t wipe off, I head to my room and get dressed. When I’m in jeans and the baseball-print shirt, I text him at last.
TJ: The coast is clear.
Jude: I have not recovered. I am dead again from the sight of you in NOTHING BUT A FUCKING TOWEL AND A TOOLKIT. DO NOT EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN. (UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO HUMP YOUR RIGHT LEG, YOUR LEFT LEG, AND YOUR THIRD LEG.) IF I SEE YOU LIKE THAT, I WILL HAVE A HEART ATTACK BUT IT WILL BE A WONDERFUL DEATH.
TJ: Sorry, not sorry.
Jude: I am at Angie’s Vintage Duds. I had to go shopping to try to get the sight of you, wet, out of my head. And I mean my little head.
I laugh again, and I wish I weren’t so fucking amused and delighted by him. I wish I weren’t so attracted to him. I wish I weren’t so close to wildly infatuated with him.
But I am.
I am all of those things.
When I push open the door to Angie’s, Jude is chatting with Eggplant Helen.
“I could have sworn she was still with him,” he tells her. “Well, it just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the tabloids.”
She laughs. “You can’t, but it sure is fun to devour every little detail about the royal family.”
“Completely,” he says.
Helen grins like a cat as she points from Jude to me. “So, you two found each other.” She sounds as pleased as a cat too.
Jude swings his gaze my way, looking at me with a whole new kind of smile. It’s dirty like he’s still thinking of me in that towel. But it’s also . . . private. Like he knows on some intrinsic level that I told Helen about him that first day because he enthralled me.
If he only knew I was so enthralled, a spark is sliding down my back from his smile. Yeah, it’s devastating, all right.
“We did find each other,” Jude says.
“I had a feeling you two lovebirds would,” she says, singsong.
“It’s not like that,” I put in quickly, needing to dispel that for my own sanity. Hell, for my hold on reality.
“Yeah, it’s not like that at all,” he echoes, quickly too.
“Why not?” she asks in disbelief.
Jude drapes an arm around her, then sighs heavily. “We live together. TJ’s my roomie,” he says, and that warning is for her, maybe, and possibly for me, but mostly I can tell it’s for him.
He’s underlining the roomie rules we need to follow.
Rules I will follow because I care deeply about his dreams.
Helen sighs, aggrieved. “I can’t listen to such rubbish.”
Jude kisses her cheek. “Gotta go, love. Doesn’t TJ look smashing in his new shirt?”
“He’s the scrummiest,” she says.
“I know,” Jude says with a note of pride.
We leave, and once we’re out on the street, I’m a little lost as to what’s next. I want to hug him. I want to congratulate him. But I also don’t want to fuck things up. Awkwardly, I offer a hand for him to shake.
He scoffs. “You want to shake my hand?”
“I’m congratulating you. I’m really fucking excited for you,” I explain.
“Then congratulate me properly.”
With a blow job, I say to myself. “With a hug?” I ask out loud.
“A hug and a beer and a dinner so fucking filling that it will take sex off my mind,” he says.
Cracking up, I step in for a hug. It’s thoroughly bro-dude style. A clap on the back. A pat on the shoulder. I do not linger.
I hope it takes sex off both our minds.
“Tell me everything about the gig,” I say when I let go.
We walk, and he launches into the details. The shoot starts next week. The show is running on a streaming service that’s gaining some traction. The actress is great. The director is too. “I’ll be busy every day for a couple of weeks. And every night at the bookshop. And the pay is seriously not bad. Also, they said our chemistry was electric.”
“Good,” I say, and I don’t push the topic. I don’t ask if it’s because he was thinking of me. I don’t have to ask because I know.
And knowing does something to my heart that I haven’t felt before. Not like this. Not this intensely. Or this deeply.
And definitely never this dangerously.
“So, this is a big break for you?” I ask, keeping the conversation only on work.
“It could be. I mean, it’s not like I was cast in an American TV show or a BBC one. Or on the West End or in a Hollywood film.”
I stop, put a hand on his arm. “Don’t put it down. Don’t compare it. It’s amazing in and of itself. This is a big deal, Jude.”
He smiles, his shoulders relaxing. “I’m really, really happy.”
“I can tell.”