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“Judah, is that you?” The familiar voice of Mrs. Heizler filtered through the door, and I tensed, sliding to the floor behind the desk in case she decided to charge inside. The last thing I wanted was to see her. She’d been there when I’d signed the contract, a witness who’d agreed wholeheartedly that I wasn’t good enough for Judah. I hadn’t known her name that awful day, but I’d stared at my copy of the contract enough times to have it burned into my brain. If she caught sight of me, she’d get word back to Elizabeth immediately.
Judah sent me a confused frown as he answered her. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“I thought you were going home. Can I come in?”
I shook my head fast, eyes wide.
He cleared his throat. “I’m busy right now, Colleen. I’m going home soon. Is everything okay?”
There was a pause. “No, no. I was only wondering who was in there. I’ll leave you be.”
I sighed in relief, but it didn’t last long when he spun on me, arms crossed and jaw tight.
“Well? What was that?” He didn’t wait for an answer before powering on, his mind quick to connect the dots. “Does she have something to do with my mother and the contract you signed?”
I winced, then shrugged. “She, uh.” I laughed at the absurdity. Just a few days ago I was driving a shite truck around the city, and now I was hiding behind Judah Dailey’s bloody desk like the coward he accused me of being. “She was a witness. She agreed that this was the best path for you, for me to be out of your life.”
His back went ramrod straight and the withering flames in his eyes roared to life again. “And you don’t want me to call my mother over this? Do you hear yourself?” He grabbed my hand and yanked me back up to my feet, his chest against mine and his lips so close that I could nearly taste him. “They drove us apart, Tav. You’re the love of my life, and they took you from me.”
Love of my life. The words rebounded through my mind, but I didn’t have time to process them because he was steamrolling ahead.
He stepped back and shook his head. “You’re coming home with me tonight. I’m not wasting another minute without you. They’re not taking any more time away from me.”
“I can’t, Jude. Ellis needs me.”
A twitch began in his jaw and he crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Fine, I’ll stay over at your place.”
My place, as if we weren’t talking about a shitty trailer. Shame curled low in my stomach. Instead of voicing how I felt, I did what I was good at, threw a joke at him. I grinned. “I don’t know if the three of us can fit on the bed. It’d be a real Ten in the Bed situation, if you know what I mean?” I chuckled and began singing the nursery rhyme. “I definitely think Ellis would be the little one between the three of us.”
The teasing didn’t have the desired effect I was hoping for. There wasn’t any laughter from Judah. Instead, the anger in his gaze intensified. He stalked back toward me until he had me crowded against the desk again.
“You sleep in the same bed as him?” he growled out, slamming his hands on either side of my waist.
“Have you seen the size of my trailer?” I tilted my head and my grin widened. “It’s only fit for one person, and I’m too damned big to sleep on the couch.”
He made a sound of disbelief. “I’ll ask you again, are you fucking him?”
I rolled my eyes. Jealousy was a turn on for only so long, but when it came to Ellis, I wasn’t going to accept it. He needed protecting, and I wasn’t going to let him down. “No, Jude, I am not. I told you that he’s staying with me until he finishes high school. Fuck. He lived across the river with his parents. When they found out he was gay, they were going to send him off to a conversion camp. I am protecting him from his crazy mum and dad, all right? The kid needs a place to stay until he can stand on his own two feet, and I’m offering him that. There used to be a pull-out bed, but it broke.”
Some of the tightness in his shoulders seeped away and he relaxed, the muscles in his face loosening. “Oh.”
“He’s like my little brother right now, and I want him to have a good life.” I pushed at his chest to give myself more space, and he went without an issue. “But all I’ve got is a trailer, which isn’t the best place to live, but it’s a roof over his head and away from parents who think he’s sinning because of who he loves.”
Everything about his posture softened, and for the first time in a long while, his mouth curled in a gentle smile, a reminder of the kind he used to give me when we were first together. His gray-streaked hair glinted under the light, and I couldn’t resist cupping his cheek again and leaning up for a kiss, which he happily obliged in giving me.
“Ellis needs me,” I whispered. “And I like being needed.”
His Adam’s apple jumped in his throat, and he slid his hands into mine, dragging me into a standing position again. “Let’s go get him and he can spend the night, too. He’ll have his own room and free rein of the house. The fridge is full and there’s a pool and the living room has a big TV.”
“Jude....”
“We can take him to school in the morning before work.” He flicked his tongue out to lick my top lip, and I grabbed his face and dragged him into a hard kiss, sucking on the tongue that tempted me. He groaned into my mouth, and I thought I might have made some sounds, too. I missed this so much that it all seemed like one big fucking dream. I didn’t want it to end if it was.
I forced myself away from his mouth to mutter, “This is a bad idea. If your mum finds out?—”
“Fuck her.” He seized my shoulders and squeezed them. “I will make her show me that contract and rip it up. I’ll tell her that she can stick it up her ass. No more, Tav. I’m not living another day without you. You’re fucking mine, you’ve always been mine.”
“We’ve changed,” I tried, but he laughed.
