Clash

“Damn, Luce,” he said, his head rising and falling against my chest.

My thoughts exactly. “How do you feel?” I asked, trying to bring my heart rate down. It wasn’t having any of it. “How’s your head?”

“My head’s fine,” he said, winding his arms around my back. “It’s my goddamn heart that’s about ready to bust something.”

I started laughing, feeling as close to euphoric as a snarky, natural pessimist could be. He joined in, his laughter vibrating against me.

And then the door exploded open as the same kind-faced nurse rushed in, her expression lined with concern.

Her eyes landed on the flat-lining machine first, then on where Jude rested bare ass na**d over me. The worry lines faded from her face as she blessed us with a very parental expression. Walking over to the monitor, she shut the screaming thing off before turning and heading out of the room.

“At least you died and went to heaven,” she said in an amused tone before closing us back inside the room.

“Yes,” Jude said into my chest, his laughter dimming. “I most certainly did.”

“Too bad our celestial vacay didn’t last a little longer,” I said, running my fingers over his shaved head.

His body tensed in my hold as I felt that smile curve into the side of my breast. “Who says we can’t make a return trip?” he said, lifting himself over me again.

I didn’t have a chance to reply with my answer‌—‌reality‌—‌before his mouth and body moved into mine again.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jude was sleeping the slumber of a happy man beside me. His crooked smile was still a ghost on his face as his arms held me like vices. Even after a second handrail bracing, body trembling, grit your teeth around a scream, roll in a hospital bed, I hadn’t been able to fall asleep.

Jude had no trouble. In fact, my heart beat hadn’t recovered fully before he’d fallen asleep. So I’d been awake for six hours, staring at the man curled around me, more confused than I’d ever been before. How could we be wrong for each other after one more very big part of a relationship just proved how very right we were for one another? And why, no matter what we seemed to do, did things not want to work out for us?

My flight was leaving in less than two hours. I didn’t have my bag with me, and there would be no way I’d be able to drive to my dorm to get it and make it back before my plane had already landed in sunny south Arizona where my family was spending Christmas with my grandparents.

Thankfully when I’d booked the ticket last month, I guessed I’d be at Jude’s game the Saturday before I flew out and planned on staying at his place that night before driving to the airport. My plans certainly hadn’t factored in a hospital bed, or clenched fingers running down cool metal bed rails, but if I left now, at least I could still make my flight.

I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t let him know I was leaving because he wouldn’t let me go. Or he’d buy a ticket and come along with me.

And one part of me very much wanted that to happen. But the confused part of me, the one that was scratching her head in wonder, contemplating what to do next, needed some time and space to work out this new complication in what was becoming the never ending tale of Jude’s and my story.

More time and space.

I sighed, shifting in bed, trying to weave myself from beneath him. This past month’s “time and space” had done nothing but further confuse me and complicate things between the two of us. So I vowed I would force myself to make a decision by the time that airplane headed back to New York after the New Year. Before I came back here, I would be able to give him a firm and final answer to the question that was Jude and Lucy.

Tucking the sheet around him, I herded up my clothes, jamming my neck and limbs into all the appropriate openings. Grabbing my bag from the table, I paused at the foot of the bed and just stared at him. It seemed like I wouldn’t be able to stop. He was mine. I knew this with all my heart.

But could I have him?

This was the question I wouldn’t rest until I could answer.

Not even daring to run my fingers over the tips of his toes for fear of him waking up and convincing me back into bed, I rushed out the door, careful to close the door without a noise.

I took the stairs, dodging the elevators by the nurses’s station because I didn’t want to explain myself. I couldn’t explain anything right now. Other than I was confused as all hell.

Once I was outside the hospital, I had a line of cabs to choose from. Sliding inside the closest one, I glanced back at the hospital, my eyes shifting to the fifth floor.

“The airport, please,” I said, narrowing my eyes to better focus on the window I was looking into. A shadow moved suddenly away from it. “And please hurry,” I added, the ball reforming in my throat.

The cabdriver followed my request to the speed-defying T. In fact, he put NYC cabdrivers to shame. Less than a half hour after we’d left the hospital, we were pulling up to the airport’s curb. Having no luggage other than my purse, I handed the driver his money plus a nice tip for a job well done.

I hurried my way to the ticket counter, wanting to get off the ground here so I could think. My thoughts were stifled here in New York. I couldn’t think clearly.

Ticket in hand, I got in line at the security checks. Being Christmas Eve, I expected there to be more grumpy faced people and screaming children than there were, and before I’d had time to dig my phone out of my purse to call my parents to let them know I was on my way, a TSA agent was ushering me through the metal detectors.