Текст книги "Clash"

Автор книги: Nicole Williams

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CLASH

A novel by

Nicole Williams

Published by Nicole Williams

Visit Nicole Williams’ official website at

nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com

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for the latest news, book details, and other information

Copyright © Nicole Williams, 2012

E-Book formatting: Guido Henkel

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dedicated to all the lovely fans, book bloggers, author friends, and members of Bookaholics Anonymous who made Crash what it is and wouldn’t rest until I gave Jude and Lucy another chapter in their story. I’m thankful to you all in ways I’ll never be able to repay.

#needmorejudedude? Well, you all got it.

CHAPTER ONE

I didn’t let myself focus on the fact that nearly one thousand sets of eyes were locked on me. Progressing into the difficult finale, I danced for only one set. The lights that blinded me to the crowd, the pressure to perform that drove me forward, and the wardrobe malfunction that was one thread from snapping away‌—‌I pushed it all aside and danced for him.

The last few bars of music came to a close as I took my final grand allegro into the air. My pointes landed at the exact moment the last chord flowed through the room.

This was it. The moment I loved. The breath and a half of stillness and silence before I moved into a curtsy and the crowd applauded. A two second window to reflect and revel in the blood, sweat, and tears I’d shed to get to this point. The point where, if I was a spectator at the game of Lucy Larson’s life, I could nod my head and think job well done.

It was a moment I wanted to last forever, but accepted it for what it was. A glimpse at perfection before it was swept away.

Sucking in a breath, I lifted my arms and, moving into curtsy position, I lifted my eyes. Right where Madame Fontaine had trained me to direct them at the conclusion of a performance. Front and center. And then, against everything she’d warned me never to do, a smile played at the corners of my mouth.

It was impossible not to when my front and center was Jude Ryder.

He leapt up from his seat, clapping like he was trying to fill the whole room with it, grinning at me in a way that made my stomach clench. Those around him were already peering over with curiosity, so when Jude jumped onto his seat and began hooting “Bravo” at top volume, those looks of curiosity sharpened into something not nearly as benign.

Not that I cared. I’d learned a while back that being with Jude meant going against society’s flow. We were constantly fighting the current and just about every social norm and generally accepted principle out there. It was a cost worth paying to be with him.

Taking one more curtsy, I met his gaze once more and did the unthinkable. Thank the maker Madame Fontaine hadn’t been here tonight because her perpetually tight bun might have just busted something as I paired my smile with a wink. Aimed right at the man towering over the crowd, cheering for me like I’d just the saved the world from its demise.

The lights fell and, before I hurried off stage, I heard one more round of Jude hooting and whistling. He was breaking every unspoken rule of how one should show their appreciation for the arts. And I loved it.

Like our relationship, we did everything a bit out of the box.

“Think you could try, just for once, to not give a perfect performance? You know, so the rest of us don’t look like such bush-leaguers,” Thomas, a fellow student and dancer, whispered at me as I scurried behind the curtains.

“I could,” I whispered back as the last dancer took the stage. “But where’s the fun in that?”

Smirking, he tossed me a bottle of water. Catching it with one hand, I waved it in thanks and headed backstage to stretch and change. I had a ten minute window before the performance would draw to a conclusion, and I knew from experience Jude would be barreling backstage to find me if I didn’t find him first. He wasn’t exactly a patient man, especially following a dance recital. What watching him play football did to me, me dancing did to him.

Sliding into the dressing room, I grabbed my foot, stretching my quad while I hopped over to my corner of the room, untying my pointe. The nude colored elastic band winding around my neck, holding my corset in place so my performance didn’t turn into a peep show, snapped the moment I stretched my neck to the side. Wardrobe malfunction couldn’t have picked a better time to “malfunction”.

Stretching the other leg back, my fingers worked to undo my other pointe. Tossing both of them into my bag, I pulled out my jeans, sweater, and riding boots. It was Friday night and, since Jude had a home game tomorrow, that meant we got the whole night to ourselves. He had something planned and he’d told me to dress warm. I would have rather been dressing for warm weather, but really, when it came to being with Jude, I didn’t care what I was wearing. In fact, I would have preferred to wear nothing, but the latest patron saint of virtue, Jude Ryder, wasn’t having any of that until he “figured his shit out.”

I’d never wanted shit to get figured out faster.

I really needed to stretch a little longer, but I had two minutes max before Jude would come bursting through the dressing room door. Twisting my arms behind me, I worked at the corsetting of my costume. Where was Eve when I needed her? That girl could fasten and unfasten a corset faster than a playa could lower his zipper in the back seat of his sports car.

I was half contemplating searching for a pair of scissors to escape the satin contraption when a warm set of hands rested over my shoulders.

“May I be of assistance?” Thomas said, grinning at me as I looked over my shoulder.

“If your assistance comes with speed and precision, then yes, please,” I replied.

His grin curled with wickedness. “When it comes to removing women’s clothing, speed and precision are of utmost importance.”

I elbowed him as he laughed. “Anytime today, Mr. Hot Fingers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, cracking his fingers dramatically before moving to the back of my dress.

Thomas was right‌—‌he’d mastered the speed and precision part of undressing a woman. However, there was nothing even remotely intimate about one dancer helping another dancer dress or undress, male or not. You danced long enough, you got used to about every dancer in a three state radius seeing you next to naked. There was no room for being a prude in the world of dance.

“Almost,” Thomas mumbled as his fingers worked towards the bottom rivet of my corset.

I was about to smart back with something of the witty variety when the dressing room door flew open. I didn’t have one hot second to explain before Jude’s face blanched from elation to murder.

“What the hell?” he hollered, his face flaming red.

“Jude,” I began, turning to him and holding up my hands.

“You’re a dead man,” he spit, lunging across the room towards us.

Dodging in front of him, I thrust both hands into his brick wall of a chest. They were going to sting for a while from that maneuver.

“Jude!” This time I yelled. “Stop!” I ordered, dodging in front of him again when he lunged towards Thomas, who was retreating into a corner of the room.

“Sure, I’ll stop,” Jude replied, his silver eyes flashing onyx. “Once this tool is dancing across the stage in a wheelchair.”

I hadn’t seen his rage monster in months and seeing it again in all its grandeur rendered me speechless. This was the kind of anger people told campfire stories about.

Pivoting around me again, Jude thrust towards Thomas, who was staring wide-eyed, half-confused, half-terrified, at the bull of a man trying to obliterate him. My strength was no match for him, not even a tenth of a match, but I had other powers that could render him into servitude. Sprinting in front of him, I jumped, wrapping my arms and legs around him as tight as they would go.

He stilled instantly, the murder dimming in his eyes. Just barely.

“Jude,” I said calmly, waiting for his eyes to shift to mine. They did. “Stop,” I repeated.

I motioned back at Thomas. “He was helping me get out of my costume. I asked him to. He agreed. I wanted to hurry and get changed so I could be with you,” I emphasized, “and unless you wanted to wait a year and a half for me, you should be thanking Thomas.”

Looking between Thomas and me, the lines of his face dimmed. However, his glare landed on me. “Why didn’t you have me help, Luce?” he asked, his jaw clenching.

“Because you weren’t here,” I said, feeling like I was stating the obvious, but if obvious was what it took to talk Jude down from the ledge, that’s what I’d do.

“I’m here now.”

I formed my hands over his cheeks. “Yes, you are,” I said, waiting as his eyes went another shade lighter. His chest was starting to lift and fall in a regular pattern again. “Thanks for the help, Thomas,” I emphasized, glancing back at where he stood, still staring at Jude like he was about to go all nuclear on him again. “Catch up with you later?”

Thomas side-stepped around us, never taking his eyes off of Jude. “Sure, Lucy,” he said, throwing me a tilted smile. “Catch up with you later.”

I smiled my appreciation. “Good night.”

“Bye, Peter Pan,” Jude called after him. “I’ll ‘catch up with you later’ too.”

Thomas was already out the dressing room door, but there was no doubt he’d heard Jude’s latest bout of name-calling threats.

Sighing, I ran both thumbs down his face. “Jude Ryder. What am I going to do with you?” I asked.

It was, perhaps, the most perplexing question I’d ever asked. Nothing was easy about our relationship. Well, nothing but falling hard for each other. Everything else was like trying to swim against a current. You never quite felt like you were making much headway, but the journey made up for the lack of real estate.

Latching onto my hips, Jude planted me back down on the ground. Spinning me around, his fingers worked the satin ribbon free of the last rivets. His hands just barely skimmed my skin, but “just barely” shot bursts of heat deep into my stomach.

“What am I going to do with you, Luce?” he threw back at me, his voice carefully controlled.

The pieces of the man I loved were fitting back together. The rage monster was retreating back into his cage. “Since you’ve almost got me topless, I’ll let you fill in the blanks to that question,” I implied, arching a brow as I turned to face him.

His eyes weren’t liquid like they usually were when we were sharing or about to share an intimate moment. The corners of his mouth weren’t twitching in anticipation. Jude was a pillar of control looking down on me like I’d just behaved like a child.

“Don’t do that again, Luce,” he said, folding the ribbon in his hands before stuffing it into his pocket.

“What?” I said with a shrug, feigning ignorance. I was starting to feel a little belligerent. I didn’t like being talked down to, most of all by Jude.

“You know what.”

I could feel a glower settling into position on my face. “Since I’ve obviously disappointed you, I wouldn’t want to do it again, so why don’t you spell it out for me?”

I cursed myself. The only thing that would result from fighting fire with fire would be some nasty first-degree burns. Jude and I didn’t need our relationship to get any more complicated, so why was I pounding on complicated’s door?

Sucking in a slow breath, I witnessed the effort it took for him to stay calm. He was making the effort to keep this from blowing up into a screaming match‌—‌why wasn’t I?

“Don’t let another man, tight wearing fairy or not, help you out of your clothes again,” he said, his eyes narrowing just enough to know some scalding emotions were firing through him right now. “If you need help out of so much as a sock, you call me, you got it? That’s my job.”

Super. The possessive, over-bearing police were back in town. It seemed as of late, they wanted to take up permanent residence. He could deny it all he wanted, but over-bearing implied he didn’t trust me, and call me a fool, but trust wasn’t only pivotal to a relationship, it was essential.

“Got it, Luce?” he said when I stayed quiet.

God, I loved him. Too much for my sanity’s own good, but I would not be commanded. “No, Jude. I don’t ‘got it,’” I said, a stage away from smoke billowing out of my nose. “So why don’t you go wait outside and let that sink in while I finished getting undressed?

“Alone,” I added before he could open his mouth to object. Because if he did, I wouldn’t be able to say no.

He paused, looking at me with indecision written on his face. Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Is that so you can scare off any other guys who might help me with my costume, or just because you’re waiting patiently and respectfully for your girlfriend?” I said, turning and heading back over to my bag.

Jude’s sigh was as long as it was tortured. “Both,” he said just above a whisper before he closed the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, I felt it. Guilt. Remorse. Followed up by a potent dose of regret.

I knew what I was getting into when Jude and I got back together at the start of the year. I went in willingly with both eyes open; I’d gladly gone in. Jude had been through more shit than any one person should and along with that came certain characteristics that could be classified as less than savory.

But you took the bad with the good. And when it came to Jude Ryder Jamieson, there was a surplus of good that always managed to not necessarily wipe the bad clean, but to make it a fair trade. If I was pointing fingers at who was damaged, I might as well turn that finger around, because I was no innocent, flawless flower.

That was part of the beauty of us being together. It was also part of the problem.

I had as many triggers that ticked at my temper and as many ghosts from my past as Jude did. When his anger flamed, mine responded in kind, and vice versa. The last two minutes case in point.

Then, as it always did, the anger I’d felt towards Jude shifted towards me. If I’d taken a time out to take a step inside Jude’s size twelve Converse, what would I have said or done if I’d walked on in some girl assisting him out of his clothes.

Shrugging into my sweater, I realized my reaction would not have been that far off from his. In fact, my claws would have been mid-swipe before he could open his mouth to explain. The old Jude, the one pre-Lucy, would have kicked ass first and asked questions later. The new Jude, although still not an anger management graduate, had managed to let words diffuse the situation. Not his fists.

Progress. Significant progress he’d made for me. And how had I repaid it?

By yelling at him and throwing him out of the dressing room.

Throwing the rest of my clothes on like I was declaring war on them, I stuffed my costume into my bag at the same time I threw it over my shoulder. I didn’t bother letting my hair out of its headache inducing bun. I didn’t care to wash off the three layer deep pancake makeup covering my face.

I had to get to him. I couldn’t get there fast enough.

Lunging across the room, I threw the door open.

Leaning against the opposite wall, Jude was every shade of tormented. The emotion expressing itself on his face was the exact emotion I was sweltering in.

One side of his mouth curved up as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Dropping my bag, I threw myself against him, wrapping both arms around him so tightly I could feel every one of his ribs hard against my chest. A heartbeat hadn’t passed before his arms dropped around me with just as much urgency and maybe even more relief.

“I’m sorry,” I said, inhaling the boy who, even in scent, exuded a hint of trouble just barely masked by a reluctant sweetness.

Tucking my head under his chin, he exhaled. “I’m sorry, too.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I asked, pressed so tightly against Jude on the bench seat of his old truck every inch of me ran against most every inch of him.

He smiled at the dark road we were bouncing over. Wherever we were going, I doubted there would be modern conveniences like hot water and cell phone reception.

“Because I’m enjoying your attempts to pull it from me far too much,” he answered, glancing over at me. His eyes dripped with wicked joy.

My heart did the sputter to a stop thing. Right before it restarted like it was trying to take flight. “Is that so?”

He made a noise of agreement, wetting his lips.

Against every instinct that had been overthrown by desire, I snapped out of my belt and slid across the bench seat until I was pressed up against the passenger side window. “Still enjoying yourself?”

He looked over at me, his face lined with contemplation, right before he reached across the seat for me. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, sliding me back across the seat, but he didn’t stop there. Grabbing my right thigh, he lifted it, shifting me until my hips had successfully pivoted right over his lap. The truck didn’t slow, it sped up, evening out the bouncing so that my body vibrated above Jude’s.

“I guess I’m not going anywhere,” I whispered, lacing my fingers behind his neck, feeling the press of the steering wheel against my back, feeling the firmness of his body everywhere else.

Keeping one eye on the road and one hand on the steering wheel, he gave the rest of his body’s attention to me. “Damn right, you’re not,” he said, his mouth curving into a smile that disappeared when my mouth covered his.

It wasn’t quite a moan, it went deeper than that, but the sound that came from his chest when my lips parted his and my tongue crept into his mouth was all Jude. I wasn’t paying the truck that much attention, but I thought I might have detected another increase in speed.

Jude kissed me back, matching every slide of my tongue and movement of my lips with one of his own. His free hand slid beneath my sweater, smoothing up the plane of my back. His hand was warm, slightly rough from days spent working in the garage and on the football field, and they were capable.

The truck hit a particularly nasty bump, pounding my lap down hard against his. Heat spread from the area between my legs, and this time it was me who made a noise that had yet to be named. The reality of us driving down a dark, gravel country road at thirty to forty miles an hour didn’t register with me when my hands left his neck to tug at the hem of my sweater. If he wasn’t going to do it, I was. Throwing the sweater over my head, I tossed it across the bench seat.

“Luce,” Jude said, his voice just enough strained to let me know I was doing something very right. “I’m trying to drive here.”

He’d put the brakes on this too many times before, metaphorically speaking‌—‌I wasn’t letting him this time. I was planting my feet beneath that brake before he could slam down on it.

Moving my mouth just outside his ear, I whispered, “Me too,” right before I took his earlobe into my mouth, sucking it softly.

Another sound slid up his throat, this one so loud it vibrated my chest. “Hell with it,” he said, no amount of hesitation or uncertainty in his voice. It was as firm and resolute as his body thrumming beneath mine.

With one flick of his fingers, my bra snapped free from my back, sliding down my arms until it landed on the floor beside Jude’s feet. His mouth covered mine again, hot and unyielding. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to if it meant not being able to kiss Jude like he was kissing me right now. How he could make me feel his passion, his love, and his possession in one kiss was inexplicable. But he could. Jude’s body expressed his feelings, more often than not, better than his words.

“A little help?” he breathed in the space of our mouths. His hand grabbed mine and lifted it to the top button of his shirt. “Unless you want to finish this thing in the hospital, I’ve got to keep one hand on the wheel.” His words were strained, like I knew mine would be if I could talk right now. “I want to feel you against me, Luce,” he said when my fingers forgot what they were supposed to be working on.

Even with both hands fumbling over it, it took me one long kiss to get the first button freed. I was graceful everywhere except being intimate with Jude. Here, I became a fumbling, fiddling mess of nerves and limbs. Deciding we’d be across the state line before I finished the job, I stopped kissing him so I could focus. Focus a bit more.

The way he looked at me rendered me almost useless. The emotions he could convey with those eyes always confounded me, no matter what I was attempting to do at the time.

“Are you sure this is safe?” I asked, forcing myself to take a controlled breath in. I had to replace and store as much oxygen as my lungs were capable before getting back after it. “Not that I really care, but I’m sure we’re breaking about every traffic law ever put into motion, and I did kind of make you promise to stay on the straight and narrow.” Two more buttons free, a few more to go.

I grinned‌—‌it was the little things that made me happy.

Jude’s smile evened out as both eyes met mine for an instant. “Of course you’re safe, Luce,” he promised, one eye shifting back to the road. “I would never put you in harm’s way. I would never let anything happen to you,” he said, like it was a mantra. “You know that. Right?”

Leave it to Jude to take a simple question and to twist it into something it wasn’t.

“Of course I do,” I said, looking up at him before focusing on the next button. I wasn’t letting the turn in conversation stop me. “I was just checking. Straddling a driver while we attempt to undress each other at forty miles per hour is a first for me. Just wanted to get the safety seal of approval before proceeding.”

“This better be a first,” he said, the serious lines of his face fading. “And consider your safety seal stamped. I was driving before I was jerking off, Luce. I can control a vehicle better than I can control myself.”

“Baby,” I said, freeing the last button right before I tugged the shirt free from his pants, “your words never fail to make me want to swoon and squirm at the same time.”

Sweeping his shirt from his body, I slid my chest against his. The soft parts of my body formed against the hard parts of his. The lightest sheen of sweat was covering his chest, exchanging with the sheen of mine. Another uptick in speed.

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Luce,” he said, his free hand clamping tight around my back, fitting my body against his like a key slipping into a lock.

This was the farthest he’d let things get since last spring, right before we graduated and discovered how our families and past tragically wove together. My body had forgotten how to breathe‌—‌I had to remind myself how to do it.

“You never do,” I whispered through a smile as my hands moved down the cut planes of his stomach, settling on the seam of his jeans. Now this button my fingers managed to tug free in the space of one surprised inhalation.

“Luce.” There was warning in his voice, but also welcoming.

I chose to hear the latter.

Pinching his zipper between my thumb and finger, I slid it down, torn between wanting to savor the moment and wanting to let it devour me whole. Done with the zipper, I folded the material of his jeans down and slid over him, moving down his body until I could feel his warmth between my legs.

He growled, moving beneath me, making me gasp out loud.

“Damn it,” he muttered as both arms wound tight around me right before he slammed the brakes. His arms held me firmer than any seat belt could have.

“I thought you could handle it,” I breathed, smirking at him.

His chest rising and falling hard against mine, he met my smirk with one of his own. “I was wrong.”

And then his mouth covered mine, his hands forming over my face. His body pushed against mine, bowing my back over the steering wheel.

“Yes?” I managed to get out against his unyielding mouth. It was a one worded question he didn’t need any further explanation to. It was one I’d been asking a while. One he’d never agreed to, up until tonight.

I felt his smile against my mouth as his tongue teased mine for another moment. Holding my face as firmly as one could and still be considered gently, his mouth left mine, his eyes taking their place.

“Hell, yes,” he replied, his smile a dichotomy of peace and conflict.

Every muscle in my body clenched in anticipation. This was it. Finally. The man who’d slept with more women than I cared to know was finally allowing himself to sleep with his girlfriend.

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking like he’d bust something if I answered in the negative.

“I’ve been so sure I went on the pill the week after we got back together,” I said, sliding up and down over his lap. He groaned again, his head falling back against the seat. “Are you sure?” I asked, moving a bit faster to sway his response.

“Luce, I’ve been so sure I went and got tested and have been carrying this rubber around in my back pocket since the day we got back together,” he said, grinning that tortured kind at me.

I formed my hands around his face, tracing the scar that ran down the length of his cheek with my thumb. This man was everything I wanted‌—‌in every way a woman could want a man‌—‌and at last, I could have him the last way I hadn’t.

“I love you, Jude,” I said. Because that was all there was left to say.

The lines of his forehead ironed out. “And that makes me the luckiest bastard in the world.”

I smiled at him. “Come here,” I said, holding his face while lowering my mouth to his. “I want to know how the luckiest bastard in the world makes love.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said before fitting his lips to mine.

His hands had just found their way to the button of my jeans when a blinding set of headlights exploded into the cab.

I groaned, covering my eyes with my forearm when the driver flicked the truck’s brights on.

“Shit,” Jude cursed, looking over his shoulder.

The truck door exploded open, followed by some male hooting and hollering.

“Expecting company?” I sighed, covering myself with my other arm as I worked my way off of his lap. It was painful, separating myself from that what-could-have-been.

“Not exactly,” he replied, folding himself over my lap and grabbing my sweater. Lifting it over my head, he pulled it on, holding each arm for me as I worked each arm in. The sweater felt scratchier than it had five minutes ago.

Jude had just lifted his zipper when someone threw themselves against the driver side door.

“Ryder, man!” one of Jude’s teammates hollered through the pane of glass, appraising the two of us. “You getting your freak on with this fine minx?” Looking at me, Jude’s teammate wagged his brows. “You lucky bastard.”

Looking my way, Jude smirked at me. “Told you.”

A fire crackled at my feet, the stars blinked above me, Jude’s arms held me tight against him, and the sound of an entire college football team belching their way through “Hey Jude” serenaded me.

“I can’t believe this big night I thought you’d planned for us also involved more than fifty football players,” I said, tilting my head back against Jude’s chest so he could see my expression.

“Sorry, baby,” he said, kissing the lines of my forehead. “I thought we’d have a couple hours to ourselves before these animals showed up.”

A couple hours? I would have settled for, oh, about fifteen minutes.

The belching chorus came to an inconclusive ending, the temporary silence only to be interrupted by a chorus of flatulence. I groaned, closing my eyes and pinching my nose.

“Man, that was lame, Ryder.” Tony’s, Jude’s number one wide receiver, unmistakable voice hollered across the campfire. “If I was trying to win a girl back, there’s no way I’d go through the whole effort of bribing her roommate to get her to some mixer so I could have the DJ serenade her with some suckass oldies song why I professed my undying love to her.”

I opened my eyes so I could deliver a glare through the fire at Tony. I loved the guy, his infectious character was impossible not to, most days. This wasn’t one of those days.

“I’d just go up to her and be like, ‘Hey, baby. How’s it going?’ You know, something real suave like that?” Tony smiled like the devil at me.

“Tony,” Jude spoke up, curling his chin over my shoulder, “when was the last time you got one of your old girlfriends to take your sorry ass back?”

Tony’s face scrunched up in contemplation. Shrugging, he answered, “Never.”

“Exactly,” Jude said, lifting his middle finger at him.

My arms were tucked tight into the blanket Jude had wrapped me in earlier, so when he lowered his finger, I nudged him. “One more for me.”

Tony got the bird from Jude again, this one compliments of Lucy Larson.

“Come on, Lucy,” Tony said as the rest of the players rocked in laughter, a few showering him in marshmallows. “You know I think you’re the shit. I’m just jealous because you’re about five times too good for Ryder and I want to get in on that five-times-too-good-for-me benefit too.”

“Maybe if you stopped dropping the ball and started getting it into the end zone, you could manage to find a girl who wanted to do more than run her hands all over those twenty inch biceps,” I said, cocking my head.

Jude stifled his laughter into the blanket. The rest of the team, not so much.

Popping his brows at me, Tony slid the sleeve of his t-shirt up, kissing his grotesquely large bicep, then repeated on the other one. “Stop hating on me, Lucy. Jude’s going to catch onto us if you don’t stop being so obvious,” he said, ducking his head as Jude’s mostly full sports drink bottle sailed past him. “And no need to worry about the end zone tomorrow, baby. I’m making that end zone my bitch.”