Page 47 of Elf-ish

My damn eyes start to burn again, and I blink at the threat of tears. The apology is decades late and not really necessary, but the sincerity in Jude’s words is like a needle through my heart. A good needle, stitching up a hole.

“Thank you, Jude. I’m sorry we weren’t friends as well.” Because Jude could have used a friend back then. A real one. Someone who supported him so he didn’t slip on frozen ice.

Or didn’t suffer a broken heart.

chapter 16

[Jude]

My alarm goes off at an ungodly hour, and I wake with a start. Disoriented at first, I glance around the dark room while sensing the warm skin beneath my palm. I slept the entire night with my hand tucked around Angelica’s arm.

“What time is it?” she mumbles, her voice groggy and rough when she first speaks in the morning. My head makes a mental note of the sound. My dick is already aware of her presence.

I’m a fucking idiot.

Who turns down an offer of sex from the sexiest woman he’s ever met? One looking at me with soft, eager eyes, silently begging me to make a move on her.

I might have turned down lesser women because I’m an ass, but turning down Angelica took me to a new stratosphere of asshole-ishness.

She wanted me. I want her.

Still, I didn’t act. I couldn’t do it. Not with thoughts of Walt, and then my father in my head, lumping us all together as men who take advantage of women. Innocent, beautiful women.

My frozen heart went cold for good reasons last night.

I didn’t want to hurt her as I said. But I was too late, noticing the sense of rejection in her eyes. The disappointment she felt was so evident. Better to let her down gently, than to shatter her.

Then I went and told her that fucking angel story. She probably thinks I’m a loon.

“Jude?”

“Yeah?” Her voice suggests she’s waiting on an answer about the time. It also breaks into my thoughts, which registers the annoying ring of my alarm.

I quickly shift and stretch for my phone, hitting the off button on the alarm, which illuminates the screen and the time.

“Four-thirty,” I answer.

She needs to return to Chicago by eight for her breakfast with Santa commitment. She explained to me how her Gran volunteered her to host the event at her Gran’s church, where Angelica isn’t a patron or a parent.

“It’s fine,” she’d said, explaining how she was voluntold more than asked to participate. Something in her voice hinted she wasn’t actually fine about her participation, but she’d power through the morning.

Angelica peels herself upright and swings her legs over the side of the bed. As the room is still dark, I can’t make out her features other than a hint of her wild hair. She stretches her arms above her head, and I hear her yawn.

She’s so uninhibited and refreshing. And I still cannot believe I didn’t have sex with her.

What was I thinking?

Then again, I was thinking exactly what I admitted. I didn’t want to hurt her. We were becoming friends, if only on a surface level. Still, she was more genuine than any friend I’d had in the past or present, although my current collection is selective and small.

“I only need the bathroom for a few minutes. My bag is mostly packed, so I can be ready in fifteen minutes, if that works? We can grab coffee on the go.”

“Yep.” I bend my knee upward, hoping to disguise my morning wood, which stands tall and proud, and admonishing about my choices. He considers them poor ones. I consider them smart.

I didn’t want to take advantage of our fake situation. Especially when sleeping with her might have been a little too real for a pretendship.

Angelica is quiet as we gather our things, circling one another in the hotel room. We grab weak coffee from the front lobby before checking out and hit the road, where Angelica remains equally quiet in the car.

Normally, I don’t mind the silence, but I’m coming out of my skin. My thoughts are a blizzard of scenes. A replay of ice skating and hot tubbing. Heated kisses and simple touches. The look on her face when I turned down sex. The fact I told her about my near-death experience.