The knowledge Jude would be arriving any time helped my outlook significantly. My parents had made reservations at some fancy place downtown, wanting to treat us to a nice meal for Thanksgiving. I’d insisted that we didn’t need anything fancy, but Mom said she’d just landed a big new account and things were looking up. No matter what I said, she hadn’t relented, so the four of us were eating at some swanky place in SoHo.

Jude had already texted me asking what I was wearing and wondering if this was a tie required kind of joint. I’d replied telling him it was a whatever-he-showed-up-in kind of a joint because Jude always looked amazing. Tie or no tie.

I’d selected something fancier, a cranberry colored vintage style dress, because I’d been living in jeans and sweaters and it felt good to dress up every now and then. Sliding into my Mary Jane’s, a knock sounded at the door.

I practically danced across the room. Throwing the door open, I found Jude standing there, looking a bit uncomfortable in his tie and dress shirt, holding his hands behind his back. His discomfort melted when he took a good look at me.

“You get more beautiful every time I see you,” he said, taking me in like he was trying to cement this moment in his memory.

“Thank you,” I replied, taking a curtsy. “And you clean up rather nicely yourself.” I ran my fingers down his tie.

“It’s Tony’s,” he said, guessing my thoughts.

“Tony has ties?” It didn’t fit my picture of the charmer I knew.

“He’s Catholic,” Jude said, watching my fingers slide down the tie. “And his mom calls him every Sunday to make sure he went to mass. So yeah, Tony’s got a shitload of ties.”

“It looks nice on you,” I said, letting the charcoal tie fall back into place.

“Tony had to help me tie it because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he said, popping his neck from side to side like the thing was strangling him.

“Do you have your bag?” I asked, not seeing one in view.

Jude’s face fell. “What bag?”

My face fell right along with his. “The bag you were supposed to pack to spend four whole days with me,” I said, wanting to pout. “That bag.”

“Oh,” Jude said, his arm reaching for something, “you mean this bag?”

Snatching it out of his hands, I tossed it onto the bed. There. Now we were set for the weekend.

“And this is also for you,” he said, removing his other hand from his back. Another rose. A pink one this time. We were making progress; it still wasn’t the red rose of love, passion, and in my book, sex, but it was a step in the right direction from the white rose of purity he’d given to me last.

He chuckled as I continued to study the rose. “It’s just a flower, Luce. Not the answer to all of life’s questions.”

Taking it from him, I rested it on my pillow. “Everything means something. Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not.”

Walking into my room, he stared at my bed before looking back up at me. He gave me a stupid little smile as he grabbed my coat hanging over the swivel chair.

“I suppose that’s true,” Jude admitted, holding my coat open for me, “if you’re a woman. But for us men, a rose is a rose. And unless we’re in love with a girl or hoping to get our brains screwed out of our ears, we don’t go out of our way to get them.”

Stuffing my arms into my knee length wool coat, Jude slid my hair out from beneath the collar. His fingers just barely grazed my neck and it shot like a bolt through my body. Anticipation made his touch even more flammable.

“So which of those man reasons reduced you to buying a rose for a girl?” Cinching the coat’s belt, I turned to face him.

He had that same smile on his face. He lifted his brows. “Both.”

My stomach flopped and dropped.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the room. “We’ve got all weekend. Let’s make it to Thanksgiving lunch, brunch, whatever it is, before the clothes start flying.”

Closing the door behind us, I blew out a breath. “If we have to.”

Jude chuckled as we made our way down the hall. “Since your parents kind of flew across the country so they could have dinner with their precious daughter and her son of a bitch boyfriend at some yuppie restaurant, yeah, I’d say we have to.”

“You make a lot of sense for a member of the male species,” I said as we made our way down the stairwell.

Jude gave me a look that said obviously.

My heels clanged down the stairwell, filling the space with the echo.

“How in the hell do you girls walk in those things?” Jude said, studying the shoes with a wince.

“We have special powers that enable us to do so.”

Jude stopped on the stair below me. “Yeah, well, special powers or not”‌—‌scooping me into his arms, he heaved me against his chest‌—‌”I don’t want you breaking your neck on the stairs.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You’re going to carry me down four more sets of stairs?”

“No,” he replied, his eyes flashing down at me. “I’m going to kiss you down four more sets of stairs.” Lowering his neck, I lifted mine, and when our mouths connected, I wasn’t sure how he was able to keep bouncing down the stairwell without collapsing, but I wouldn’t have been able to. Maybe that’s the real reason he’d decided to carry me.