Crush

  I glowered at him, not impressively, but it was a wonder I could look at his beautiful face with anything but awe, even now.

  “Come on,” he said. “Come with me.” I was already opening my mouth to object when he cut me off. “Once you finish classes.”

  “I’m taking a summer class, Jude,” I said, looking away. I might have forgotten to mention that.

  “What?!” He gasped. “When did you decide to do this?” He looked equally pissed and hurt.

  “When I decided I wanted to be the best damn dancer I could be,” I snapped right back.

  Jude paused before answering. “Skip it,” he said at last. “You don’t need to go to school. You can just dance.”

  I could feel the tips of my ears starting to heat with the blood pumping through me. “Without a degree, I’d be lucky to be dancing across a community theater stage as an understudy,” I said, each word an emotional tidal wave. “I need to do this. I need to blaze my own path just like you have yours.”

  “Yeah, but my path’s making us millions, so why don’t you cross over to mine?” he said without a sliver of remorse.

  “It’s not about money, Jude,” I said, a notch below a shout. Why was he not getting this? Money was money, nothing else, nothing more.

  He shifted, looking like he wanted to rub his temples in frustration. “Then what’s it about?” he asked. “Because you’ve admitted it’s not about the money. It’s not about me. It’s not about marriage.” His voice was rising. “Then what the hell is this whole ‘blaze my own path without you’ shit about, Luce? Because I thought we were a team now. I thought we made decisions that were the best for us as a couple.”

  I opened my mouth to reply back with something, but it would have been a lie. When I failed at everything else, when the shit was really hitting the fan, I made it a priority never to lie to Jude. I bit my lip while I stalled for an answer. Jude’s shoulders slumped as the rest of his body loosened. “Come on, baby, What’s it about?”

  Shaking my head, I sank a few more teeth into my lip. “I’m not sure,” I admitted, and while I knew it was a suck-ass answer, at least it was the truth. I wasn’t sure why it was so important for me to make my own way in the world, but it was.

  I didn’t think Jude could look any more frustrated. Clearing his throat, he cupped my elbow and pulled me close again. “Marry me, Luce,” he whispered, his eyes begging mine to meet them.

  Dammit. He wasn’t doing this again. He knew my weakness for him ran deep, and coupled with that pleading tone and those tortured eyes, he did one hell of a demolition job on my resolution.

  “I will,” I said, still refusing to look him in the eyes.

  He didn’t let the air settle with my words. “Right now?” So much hope it was sacred. And I was going to kill it with a swift slit to the throat.

  “Right later,” I whispered, forming a half smile that was more frown than grin.

  He was silent for what felt like an hour, like he was waiting for me to take it back, or processing the words and the meaning behind them. Finally, he sighed—long, deep, and one that pricked new tears to life in my eyes.

  “Love you, Luce,” he said, pressing a kiss into my forehead. “You change your mind, you know where to find me. I’ll marry you in the middle of the night in some crummy wedding chapel in Vegas if that’s the only option we have. Whatever you want, whenever you want it. I’ll be there.” Burying his face in my hair, he inhaled deeply before turning and walking up to the security gates.

  My throat was too tight to let words slip through, and my eyes were so glazed over with tears that I saw nothing but a tall shadow walking away from me. Two seconds had gone by since his last touch, and my body was already quaking with withdrawal.

  It was going to be a long two weeks.

  FIVE

  Two weeks—fourteen days—hadn’t just gone by slowly. It had been like living a year in hell every passing second. Jude had called every night, sounding as beat as you’d expect a rookie NFL player to sound after a grueling daily double in eighty-degree heat. I lived for those calls, but I kind of dreaded them, too, because I knew we’d be hanging up shortly after and the clock would reset until we got to talk again. Another twenty-three and a half hours on the clock, please.

  I tried to keep busy, immersing myself in the last weeks of school, dancing late into the night for no audience, just an empty auditorium. I’d taken my last final yesterday and was feeling confident my junior year of college had been my most successful to date.

  I’d spent the first part of the day picking up applications in hopes that I could land a summer job that would work with my summer class. However, plenty of schools had already let out for summer, and it seemed the majority of jobs, or at least the good ones that didn’t pay peanuts, had already been scooped up. I’d be lucky if I could swing a part-time gig waiting tables at a late-night café.

  I’d take it. I wasn’t picky, especially these days. I’d take whatever employment I could find, especially with Jude being gone the entire summer. I needed something—in fact, many things—to keep my mind off missing him.

  And if that meant pouring coffee and slapping hash browns down on diner tables until I was blue in the face, I’d do just that.

  After gathering a couple dozen applications, I’d stopped by a few specialty markets in search of just the right ingredients for tonight’s dinner, because today was day number fourteen. Jude’s much anticipated homecoming. Cue the hallelujah choir, because I’d been jiving and waving my hands at the heavens all day long. Jude’s flight was coming in late, so it wasn’t exactly “dinner,” but I’d never known Jude Ryder to turn down a good meal no matter what time of day—or night—it was.

  In the years since starting college, I’d learned to cook. Well, kind of learned to cook. Not out of curiosity, but out of necessity. Cafeteria food was the last resort, especially after dining on my dad’s culinary masterpieces for years. In fact, I was fairly certain the number one ingredient in cafeteria pasta was cardboard.

  The other option was eating out every night, which, with an appetite like Jude’s around, was impossible on a college student’s nonwages. So I learned how to cook. Nothing fancy, but good, nutritious home cooking.

  Tonight’s menu consisted of roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted green beans—a Jude Ryder favorite. Like the weekends during the school year and the last two summers, I’d moved into Jude’s and my apartment in White Plains. This year, though, I was planning on living in it during senior year and using public transportation to get to the city. I was done living in dorms. Done.

  The apartment was a notch or two above being deemed condemnable, but God, I loved it. It was ours. Where we could be together. Where we’d formed more memories than most couples do in a lifetime. It was home, and I was happy to be here for another summer.

  I would have been happier if Jude was here, too. But tonight I’d have him for almost twenty-four hours, because he had one rare day off of training and had to be back by Monday morning. So as soon as he walked through that door, I wasn’t going to fixate on the fact that he’d be leaving in less than twenty hours. I was going to live each moment like it was a year. I was going to make time my bitch, pay it back for what it had done to me the past two weeks.

  I checked the time on the new iPhone Jude had sent me last week, the first of what he said would be many sweet gifts. After warning him he’d better not start treating me like some expensive mistress he had stuffed across the country, I’d thanked him profusely and given him a few dozen air kisses through my sweet new phone.

  “Crap!” I shrieked when my hand accidentally grazed the casserole dish holding the green beans that had just been baking at three hundred and fifty degrees for more than an hour. I was about to run the burn under water when the time registered in my brain.

  “Double crap!” Jude was going to be here any minute and I wasn’t ready. Tonight I wanted everything to be perfect. Normally I would have picked him up at th
e airport, but then I couldn’t have surprised him with what I’d been cooking up the past few days.

  He’d sounded hurt when I’d first told him he’d have to catch a cab because I was planning something. But when I repeated I was planning something, with just the right amount of inflection, I could feel his classic smile coming through the phone.

  Blanketing my hands with oven mitts, I rushed the beans to our dining table. It was nothing more than a six-foot-long plastic craft table surrounded by a menagerie of mismatched chairs, but when you covered it with a nice tablecloth, it classed it up a rung so we looked less like poor college students and more like fresh graduates with their first paying jobs.

  Dropping the dish on the table, I heard footsteps striding up the stairwell. Thundering footsteps. The walls were that thin and Jude’s footsteps were that loud.

  Loosening the knot of my bathrobe, I let it slide off my arms and chucked it onto the couch. After double-checking that the candles were lit, the table set, and the music playing at just the right volume in the background, I plopped down into my chair. The chair was chilly, running cool from my spine down to my backside. A metal folding chair probably wasn’t the best seating option for a girl who was naked.

  Well, naked except for the suede turquoise pumps that I’d chosen to match the tie I had loosely tied around my neck. A tie that had SAN DIEGO written above a yellow lightning bolt only a few dozen times.

  Lounging back in the chair, I kicked my feet up on the table, crossing my ankles as I twirled the tie between my fingers. It was a very Pretty Woman moment. In fact, that movie, which had been replaying every night on TV, had been my inspiration.

  The steps were getting louder, only a few strides from our door. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm myself, as I was now reaching heights of epic overanticipation. Other than the time we’d split back in high school, this was the longest we’d gone without seeing each other. It should have been considered a form of torture to be separated from a guy like Jude Ryder for two weeks.

  Bamboo shoots up fingernails was child’s play in comparison to what I’d experienced.

  Giving my hair a tease, I watched the door without blinking, waiting for the footsteps to pause at the front door . . . then, as they continued on down the hall, waiting for them to turn around and come back.

  I waited a minute, long after the footsteps had disappeared into an apartment. Okay, false alarm. But he’d be here soon. Maybe he’d been held up at the airport, or maybe traffic was nasty tonight. Or maybe . . .

  Nope, I wasn’t going to let myself go there. He was coming. He’d be here. Nothing could stop Jude from what he wanted, least of all the NFL.

  And that was when my phone chimed, causing me to jump. I still wasn’t used to the ring of my new phone. Fumbling to grab it, I smiled when Jude’s picture popped up.

  “Where are you?” I said as soon as I picked up. “I’ve got one hell of a surprise waiting for you.”

  He was silent for a couple seconds, and then he sighed.

  My heart sank. “You’re not coming. Are you?” I tried to keep from sounding as disappointed as I felt.

  Another sigh. “I’m so sorry, Luce. Coach decided to dish out a mandatory extra training session for the rookies late this afternoon, and he’s called an early morning session tomorrow, too.” His voice was labored, like he’d been sprinting, plus there was a ruckus in the background. “I tried texting you in between practices to let you know, but it looks like it didn’t go through.”

  Nope. Definitely didn’t.

  “Where are you?” I asked, uncrossing my ankles and putting my feet on the floor. No sense in keeping a pose if he wasn’t showing up to enjoy the view.

  “In the locker room. I called you the second I got in here after finishing up practice for the day,” he said, trying to talk over the voices of fifty of his teammates. “Can you hear me all right?”

  “Yeah, I can hear you,” I said, but he didn’t wait for my answer.

  “Hey, guys!” Jude hollered, the words muffled from what I guessed was his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Would you mind turning it down a notch? I’ve got my girl on the phone!”

  Hollering requests at his teammates might not have been the best way to forge relationships as the rookie on the team, but after an initial chorus of oohs and loud air kisses echoing around the locker room, the background noises dimmed.

  Amazing. Two weeks on the team and he’d already managed to command the respect of his teammates. Not that I needed another affirmation, but Jude had indeed found his calling in life.

  “Luce, is that better?”

  “Yeah,” I said, frowning at the table and all the food I’d spent half the day preparing, “that’s great.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry. You can’t imagine how bad I need to see you right now,” he said with such inflection, I could feel his pain. It was the same pain of separation coursing through me right now. “I need my Luce fix. Bad.”

  I bit my cheek; I wasn’t going to cry over this. “I need my Jude fix bad, too,” I said. “So, when’s it looking like we’ll be able to see each other?” If he said another two weeks, I wasn’t sure how I’d hold on to my sanity.

  “Can you fly out next Thursday?” He didn’t wait for my response. “I’ve got a light day Friday and only a half day on Saturday. We could spend every minute I’m not on the field together. I promise. Will you come?” Why he was pleading with me, I didn’t know. I needed to see him as much as it sounded like he needed to see me.

  “Of course I’ll come. I’ll book my flight tonight.”

  “Already done,” he said. “I’ll email you the flight information later.”

  Of course he’d done it. “That confident I’d say yes?”

  I could feel his smirk coming through the phone. “I was that confident I could persuade you, no matter what your answer was.”

  Even though he wasn’t here to see it, I smirked right back at him. “You’re not on the field anymore, Ryder. Don’t forget to leave your ego there.”

  He chuckled that low, rumbling laugh of his. “You of all people ought to know this ego goes with me wherever I go, Luce.”

  “A girl can dream,” was my reply.

  That earned another laugh from him. “So . . .” he said, his voice going soft, “what are you wearing right now?”

  If only he knew, he’d be racing to the airport and chartering the first flight out.

  I looked down at my body. Not a whole hell of a lot.

  “Something.”

  “Something?” he said, sounding offended. “How is something supposed to get a man through another long week away from his girl?”

  “Use your imagination,” I suggested, twirling the tie as I hatched a plan.

  “I’m fresh out of imagination,” he said around a groan. “I need details. Detailed details.” His voice got quiet again, like he was afraid one of his teammates might be eavesdropping. “For starters, how about the color, material, and style of the panties you’re wearing.”

  Heat crept up my body. It was a welcome friend. “That might be hard to detail,” I said, lowering my voice, “since I’m not wearing any.”

  “What?!” Jude’s voice burst through the phone. I held it away from my ear in case another shout was on its way. When he spoke again, it was in a controlled, breathy voice. “Are you serious, Luce?”

  “Don’t you wish you could be here to find out?” I teased, which was promptly followed by another groan.

  “I didn’t think I could feel worse about not making it tonight, but I should have known,” he said. “What else are you or are you not wearing?” was the next question.

  I grinned. It was nice to know I could drive him mad from across the country after he’d just endured a good ten hours of training. I scanned my body again. Shoes? A tie? And then I realized that a picture was worth a thousand words.

  “It’s kind of hard to describe,” I began. “Why don’t I snap a photo and I’ll sen
d it to you.”

  “I like that plan.” Sounded like he had a devilish grin on.

  So did I. “Okay, I’m going to hang up and then I’ll text you the picture. Sound good?”

  “Sounds . . . great,” he said.

  As soon as I ended the call, I kicked my heels back up on the table. Adjusting the tie so it wound down the center of my chest, I bent my arm over my head and grabbed the top of the chair. Sampling a few expressions on the camera screen, I settled for the one I figured Jude would like the best: a soft smile topped by expectant eyes. Snapping the picture, I double-checked to make sure he’d get the what-I-was-or-wasn’t-wearing picture. The whole picture.

  Yeah, it was hot.

  Typing in a quick message that read, WISH YOU WERE HERE, I hit send before I could talk myself out of it. The message delivery button pinged, and I’d barely had a chance to sink my teeth into my lower lip when my phone rang.

  Jude’s picture popped up on the screen again. That was fast.

  I let it ring a few more times before answering.

  “So,” I answered, “what do you think of the tie?”

  His breath was racing again. “What tie?”

  I laughed; he sounded serious.

  “Oh, you mean the tie that’s buried between that beautiful chest of yours?” His voice was nothing more than a whisper. “If I wasn’t so seethingly jealous of it, I might actually like it.”

  I ran my fingers down it again. “Well, I got it for you, so I’ll make sure to bring it next week. I know you’ve got a total of one tie to your name, so now you’ll have two.”

  “And the first thing I’m going to do is tie you up with it and screw you until we’re both blue in the face.”

  Yeah, I felt those words all the way down to my naughty parts.

  “Jude,” I warned, “it might not be the best time to be discussing bondage and screwing when you’re surrounded by your teammates. They’re going to think we’ve got some kind of pervy thing going on.”