Page 114

“You’re bisexual?” How did I not know this about him?

“Hey! I’m bisexual too!” Jude exclaimed and tried to high-five him. Wyatt swatted his hand away, laughing at Jude’s dramatic disappointment.

“I’m not,” Wyatt told us. “There’s more to life than bi or straight. I’d say I’m more… sexually fluid. I go with the tides of sexy people and see where it takes me.”

“How do we not know this about each other?” I demanded. At that, Wyatt closed his notebook and leaned back to stare at us. He shrugged.

“We don’t really talk about that kind of stuff,” he said. “The deep stuff that is.”

“Fuck it.” Jude groaned as he sat upright. He pointed at me and said, “One thing you do that we don’t know about… and go.”

The way I wanted to say Rhodes to be a smartass, but I held my tongue. That was a conversation for a much later date. Jude not caring that I was gay was one thing, but I knew he’d have feelings—and a lot of them—about me dating his brother.

“C’mon, Theo,” Jude prodded. “There’s got to be something you do that you don’t tell anyone about.”

“I’m sure there’s a lot he does that he doesn’t tell people about,” Wyatt cut in with a smirk.

“Definitely,” I agreed. “Okay, there is one thing… I know how to knit.”

“Is that the thing with the needles?” Jude demanded.

“I’m not very good at it,” I rushed to explain, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I tried making socks with my mom, but we’re not going to talk about how they turned out. I can make really good scarves though.”

“Did you make that scarf you wear every winter?” Wyatt asked.

“I did!” I grinned. “That’s my best one—well, it was. I’ve gotten better.”

“That was a nice scarf,” he agreed, nodding.

“Yeah,” Jude said. “I can pick a lock.”

“Excuse me?” I dropped the shirt I was folding to stare at him, Wyatt matching my bewildered expression across the room. “You can do what?”

“Not criminally!” he replied, laughing hard. “I mean, I could do it criminally—if I wanted! Which I don’t. I just saw it on a show once, and I thought it was cool, so I taught myself how to do it one afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Wyatt scoffed. “What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?”

“And then it got kind of fun because do you know how many different kinds of locking mechanisms there are?” Jude told us. “It just kind of became this real-life game… I just kept leveling up. I can get into most locks now. I don’t have any safes to practice on, but I could probably figure it out.”

Wyatt and I just stared at him like he’d grown a second head. There was no reasonable response to that. Jude had somehow managed to take I taught myself how to pick locks and turn it into the most casual hobby confession imaginable. The fact that he used his intelligence to learn ridiculous things was so like him and so terrifying.

“What else have you taught yourself?” Wyatt asked. Oh, that was a good one—though we probably didn’t want the answer. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was going to say.

“Let’s see…” Jude tossed another M&M in the air and caught it. “There was one weekend this bird was driving me crazy outside my window. It wouldn’t shut up, and I just wanted a nap. Since I couldn’t sleep, I started researching bird calls—tried to find out if I could tell a bird to go fuck himself… or herself. I can recognize and replicate the call of the Black-capped Chickadee, the Tufted Titmouse, the Northern Cardinal, the Blue Jay, the American Woodcock, Bicknell’s Thrush, and the Tufted Puffin.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Why do you need to replicate bird calls?”

“I got the bird to leave, didn’t I?” He shrugged. “Oh! I learned Morse code.”

“Is that why you’re always tapping in class?” I replied.

“Turns out it’s a fun way to take notes.”

“And you just… remember that way?”

“Yup,” Jude said. “Do you remember the Vegas vacation I went on with Mom and Dad a few years ago? I learned how to play piano from one of the performers while I was there. She even let me play a few songs with her on stage. I also learned to juggle while I was there—though I’m not allowed to juggle at home anymore after the cabinet issue.”

Yeah, I didn’t even want to ask him what that meant.