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“Getting us in,” he replied a little too casually.

“What the hell does that mean?” I frowned. He didn’t answer as he crouched beside the lock. As I watched him inspect it, Theo’s comment about my brother picking locks came back to me. My frown deepened. There was no fucking way. “What exactly are you going to do?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Jude countered.

“It looks like you’re picking the lock.”

“So then you know what I’m doing.”

“Jude!” I exclaimed.

“Rhodes!” he retorted, mocking me. The lock clinked, and he twisted it open. As he did, he rotated on the balls of his feet and gave me a cheeky grin. “See? I picked the lock.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a felony,” I said.

“It’s criminal trespassing, which is a misdemeanor in Maine,” he informed me as he stood and pulled the gates open. “The only way it becomes a class C felony is if we commit another crime while inside the cemetery, or if you have two or more prior convictions for trespassing or burglary. Considering it’s you, I doubt you have that.”

I stared at him, completely bewildered by every word coming out of his mouth.

“How the hell do you know how to do that?” I demanded.

“I looked it up.” He shrugged like that much was obvious. “Besides, no one’s going to be upset with us given the circumstances. We can go eat with Mom.”

It was hard to argue with logic like that. Unfortunately, that did nothing to satiate the dozens of questions I had, like how my brother knew how to pick locks and why. The why seemed like a very important question.

I didn’t ask it, though, and just focused on parking along the curb as he’d suggested. I grabbed the coffees and pastries and met him at the gate, pausing long enough for him to pull it shut behind us. As Jude took his cup and led the way, I realized I had no idea as to where Mom had been buried. I had no clue how to find her on my own.

Pine Hollow Cemetery was covered in a blanket of morning mist, making it almost impossible to see the headstones until we were right next to them. Still, Jude seemed to navigate his way with ease, and I committed the path to memory until we found her. The freshly turned dirt was covered in drooping flowers left over from the funeral.

My chest constricted as I stopped and stared at the dirt. My mind struggled to associate it with Mom. I knew I had to get used to it, but a large part of me wanted to fight that concept.

Jude lowered himself onto the grass beside her grave, crossed his legs, and rested his coffee against his knee. I sat next to him and dropped the bag of pastries between us. We forgot them as we sat shoulder to shoulder, quietly staring out across the cemetery.

“I stole her favorite sweater for you,” Jude said finally, breaking the silence. “I decided she’d want you to have it. I took her scarf for myself. Actually, I took a lot of things. I broke in after he passed out in his chair to get my stuff and took a bunch of other stuff too.”

“Wait,” I interjected, caught up on him breaking in over everything else. “When did he kick you out, Jude?”

“We got into a fight after the funeral,” he replied. “I waited at the park until he passed out, so I could get my stuff.”

“And then?” I demanded a little harsher than I meant to. “Where the hell did you sleep?”

“I slept in the backseat of your car.”

“Jude!”

“You were asleep by the time I got here!” Jude exclaimed. “I didn’t want to wake you up. I knew it’d been a bad day, and it wasn’t fair for me to wake you up when I know you have a hard time going back to sleep afterward.”

“Jude,” I repeated with a frustrated sigh. I understood what he was saying and why he did it, but it still bothered me. That wasn’t the kind of relationship I wanted with him—one that had conditions. “In the future, if you need me, you wake me up. If I can’t fall back asleep, so be it.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he muttered, making me groan. The problem was: I couldn’t even blame him. I was the same. I’d rather wait than be an inconvenience to anyone. And so I let it go. I’d show him over and over that he could trust me. Before I could say anything more on the matter, Jude whispered, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Always.”

“What happens to you and me now that Mom is gone?” Jude asked. The question caught me completely off guard. I glanced at him, momentarily unsure of how to answer. He must’ve sensed my hesitation because he quickly added, “I know you were never going to stay in Everdale, and I’m sure you’re going to finish out the season, but what happens then?”

“What do you mean?” I frowned, not entirely following what he was saying.

“What happens to us when you go back to Florida?” His voice was smaller as he elaborated.