Chapter 6

Ava

I looked out the window of Jude’s bus, feeling uneasy. The flat lands of Illinois had long since disappeared. It was too late to turn back now, even if a part of me desired it. I rubbed at my aching wrists after finishing up three short articles that my boss needed immediately for print tomorrow morning. I closed my laptop on the small table I’d been working at. I had situated myself here to keep my distance from Jude whenever I felt his presence overwhelming me.

I didn’t care what Jude said. Riding on a bus for fifteen hours was not the most ideal way to travel to Boston. The next two days meant sleeping on the bunk beds outside of Jude’s private bedroom at the back of the bus. It meant sharing a bathroom with three men who didn’t care about cleanliness. It also meant being in close quarters with Jude at all times.

I was used to rolling with the punches, but this was a stake in the heart, being so close to Jude without being able to touch him. I let my gaze settle on him. He was currently stretched out on the couch with his long and lean legs in front of him. His hands were clasped behind the back of his tattooed neck casually while he spoke with Chuck, who sat across from him. From afar, it wasn’t hard to see why legions of fans were in love with the idea of Jude Jacobs.

Passion. Risk. A hint of darkness. He exuded all three. The cocky asshole could win any competition he wanted to race in, and he could get any woman he wanted. There was no doubt about that. But I knew the real Jude Jacobs was laying underneath all of that somewhere. No one knew the actual truth about his childhood, about his past. Not like I did, at least.

His parents were the type who used to have screaming matches out on the front lawn. Everyone knew that the Jacobs family was a dysfunctional one. I couldn’t remember a day that Jude’s father and mother weren’t drunk, yelling at Jude, and then taking their anger out on one another. No one knew that the man they saw walking around with his hair in disarray and so many muscles and tattoos used to come running to our house to hide from it all. No one knew that he would hide beneath blankets with Andy and me when we camped out in the backyard because the monsters we imagined were real for him.

All of that had changed over the years. Jude stopped coming by our house to hide from it all. He no longer sported dark bruises anymore, but his knuckles were cracked and scabbed from fights. He drowned his sorrows in a bottle instead of crying on my shoulder. My heart ached, thinking of that little boy beneath the man sitting across from me. He had made a living thriving off the pain of his childhood, but he couldn’t escape the consequences of living dangerously, either. It was a ripple effect.

And that ripple effect had crashed through my entire family.

“All finished?” Chuck called out, looking up from his iPad. “We can talk about the interview now?”

Jude glanced over at me while I gathered up my pen and pad from inside of my leather satchel. I sat down on the little couch opposite him to keep distance. It put me on the other side of the table from Chuck, who turned to face me eagerly.

“I have a few notes to hand over to you,” he said. “I have a lot of ideas for this piece. Maybe a long autobiography?”

I clenched my teeth to keep control of my temper. I didn’t have a problem with Chuck, but he did seem overly bossy and protective when it came to handling anything with Jude. This piece was no exception.

“Ava wouldn’t be here if we were doing that,” Jude replied calmly as he gazed at me with a small smile. “She grew up with me. She knows more about my family and childhood than you do.”

“So, you plan to talk about all of that then?” Chuck asked.

Jude shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah. Maybe it explains why I’m an asshole.”

I bit the tip of my tongue to keep back my snarky remark to that. “I was actually thinking that we could do a three-thousand-word piece that my boss could publish. Just little snippets adding up to the final piece.”

“What would be the final piece?”

“Whatever Jude wants it to be,” I replied, looking over at Jude, who shrugged his shoulders again. “I don’t want to this to be an autobiography of his life. I could do all of that from home if I wanted to.”

“I don’t care what you do as long as you appeal to his fans,” Chuck said. “Those fans are what got JJ to where he is. There is a dedicated legion of them buying our merchandise. They are following us around the six cities. They are the reason he keeps going. They are the money makers here.”

“Endorsements, too,” Jude added. “We have a lot more endorsements this year.”

Chuck nodded in agreement. “Yes, much more. He’s going to the top this one.” He grinned at Jude widely. “I’ve been a manager for many supercross athletes before. No one has the talent that JJ has. He lives on the edge, which is what it takes to make it in this sport. His bad boy appeal brings in a great female fan base as well.”

Jealousy burned my chest, which irritated the hell out of me. Why was I so jealous of that? It didn’t surprise me that Jude’s appeal was sexual to many women. Resisting his charisma and charm was hard even for me.

“I’m sure it does,” I responded coolly. “I’m sure his dick really loves that part of his job, too.”

Jude burst out laughing. “Damn, Ava. I’m not some sort of man-whore here. I can’t even remember the last time I had sex.”

“Don’t look at me,” Chuck said, holding up his hands up with a grimace. “I keep track of our schedule, and that’s all I keep track of.”

My cheeks burned when Jude glanced at me. His icy eyes were a turbulent blue that reminded me of the ocean on a stormy afternoon. There was something lurking behind those eyes, waiting patiently. Something told me he hoped to break that streak soon.

I shook that observation away before I let it go any further. “I don’t want to know. I’m just here to write the piece. That’s it.”

“Send me drafts, if you can,” Chuck said. “I’ll need to approve them, of course. You understand that, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever I write, you’ll get to read. I won’t write anything that isn’t the truth.”

“That’s nice.” Jude snorted, shaking his head. “There are some things the general public doesn’t need to know about.”

“Like the blanket you used to carry around as a kid?” I suggested, poising a pen over my notepad. “I think it had spaceships on it, right? That’s what it was. You were obsessed with Toy Story and Buzz.”

“Keep that shit out of your piece,” Jude hissed, eyes flashing when I laughed. “I’m serious, Ava. I’d like to get laid in the future. That conflicts with my image here.”

I rolled my eyes to mask the undertone of his other sentence. “Right. You’re the bad boy of motocross. No one can know that you once were a pretty decent guy who was sensitive.”

“It’s an image, Ava,” Jude said. “It’s not who I am when I’m not on the racetrack. Keep that in mind for future reference when you see one of my races.”

“They are amazing,” Chuck added, grinning excitedly. “It’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced. Just wait until the one in Boston. You’ll love it.”

I turned to look out the window at the passing scenery because I didn’t care about going to these stupid races. A bubble of emotion filled me. I blinked back tears while Chuck and Jude continued their conversation without paying attention to me.

Andy would’ve been excited to go watch these types of races. He had the same damn dreams that Jude had about becoming a motocross star.

Yet, it was Jude who was sitting across from me with endorsements, a manager, a fancy tour bus with a trailer full of tools and bikes, and a legion of fans who wanted to know everything they could about him.

I pressed my head up against the windowpane with a sigh. My parents had argued vehemently about me going on this trip because of what happened. “You’re rubbing salt into the wound, Ava. Think about how your brother would feel about this. He wouldn’t be happy about it, and you know that.”

He wasn’t here anymore, though. I knew what Andy would’ve wanted for all of us. The only reason why Jude seemed like the asshole in this situation was because he knew what Andy wanted, too—he wanted us all to keep living our lives the way we had dreamed about before the accident.