Page 6 of Play With Me
Callie visited me last year—it’s what precipitated me applying to Waldorf College. She’d asked me why Jude and I weren’t together. I’d laughed out loud.
Jude and I had been at dinner with her and her husband. She’d cornered me in the bathroom.
“Jude’s—Jude,” I’d said. “He used to date supermodels.” I didn’t add that it seemed to be a short phase in his life, and that I hadn’t seen him date anyone since I’d known him. Still. “He’s been on the cover of magazines and traveled the world first class. I’m Nora.” I looked down. “Quiet, shortsighted, shy librarian Nora.”
Maybe I was a little tipsy from the wine Jude bought us, but I couldn’t remember saying that out loud before. It sounded pathetic.
“He doesn’t do all those things anymore though, does he?” Callie asked. “You’re like two peas in a pod.”
“Yeah, one big and shiny and one small and hiding in the shell.”
I hadn’t meant to sound so self-pitying, but Callie grabbed me by the shoulders. “You still deserve a big life, Nora. You deserve happiness just as much as anyone else. And no one’s going to get hurt if you go out and spread your wings.”
I hadn’t been able to get that conversation out of my head. I know she’d been talking about me and Jude, which I still thought was laughable, but she’d been right about me keeping my wings clipped. Maybe I didn’t need to take the kind of risks that got people hurt. Maybe I could take sensible risks.
But I’d realized something else, too. Callie thought Jude had been focused on me—and she’d been right. But not in the way she thought. It wasn’t that he was interested in me in any way other than a friend. But I knew so long as I was around, he’d never have to find a woman to love the way he deserved.
He’d never give Cap the mom he needed.
Jude confessed to me once that he had never had a real relationship.
The man was thirty-two years old, and he’d never let himself get close to anyone in that way. And after he found out he was going to be a dad, he hadn’t let himself get close to a woman at all.
I think finding that out was the turning point in our relationship. The point where I knew our close friendship wasn’t just bad for me. It was bad for him, and by extension, Cap, too. The conversation with Callie confirmed it.
That’s why this call from his ex—as terrible as it had gone—was serendipitous. I never believed she ran out of there by choice. And her calling tonight proved it. If anyone could knock him out of his self-imposed austerity, it had to be the mother of his child.
They deserved to be a family again. That made my heart hurt with the sting of a thousand arrows, but I told myself it was just me missing something I’d probably never have.
There was a rustle of leaves, then a thump as Cap jumped out of the tree. “Can I sit with you?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He looked at the branches, then crawled onto my lap.
My chest bloomed with warmth. I loved this kid. So freakin’ much.
“You know when I met your dad,” I said, “I thought he was really silly, the way he was always smiling, and with his hair in a bun on the top of his head, like a ballerina.”
Jude’s hair was only shoulder-length, so it wasn’t actually a neat, twisted bun, but Cap still giggled, hopefully picturing his dad pirouetting. Which, God help us, he’d probably be amazing at. “I still think he’s pretty silly.”
I hesitated, thinking for a moment about what it was like when I was his age. “But sometimes…when people who’re usually calm and kind get angry, it’s really scary. Especially if they’re people you love.”
Cap nodded.
“My dad was like that.”
A beat passed. Then, “Are they lost?”
Cap had said the words so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Lost?”
“Like my mom. She was lost since I was a baby.”
My heart tightened, and I clamped my lips into a line. So that’s whereyour mom isn’t here right now, but she still loves you so muchhad shaped itself into in his little mind. Of course. What else would make sense?
“No,” I said, honestly, swallowing a lump in my throat. “My dad—he died a few years ago.” My chest tightened. My dad had been a single father too. He hadn’t been nearly as amazing as Jude was to Cap, but he’d managed. Christian and I had come out of childhood relatively unscathed. I think. “My mom,” I hesitated. “She’s not lost. She’s just far away. Just like your mom. She left when I was little.”
“When you were little like me?”
