Crash

Damn if he wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d seen in a long time. Maybe ever.

“How have you been?”

“There’s a loaded question,” he said, cocking a brow at me. “How’s Diamond?” he asked as non-emotionally as Jude was capable when he talked about Sawyer.

“Did you just answer a question with a question?”

Rolling the spare around the side, he glanced up at me again. This time for a whole second longer. “I just cancelled out your question with one of my own. You don’t want to answer my question any more than I want to answer yours,” he said. “So we’re square now.”

The man had the most messed up sense of fair and square.

And, because I was the idiot I was, I breeched a topic that I already knew wasn’t going to fly well with him. “Jude,” I began, looking at my hands, “I’m sorry for everything I said and did.”

His body was already tensed as he lifted the spare onto the axel, but it flexed at least fifty percent more. “Can you be any more vague?”

I wasn’t going to get defensive. I wasn’t going to get defensive. “Was that a request or a jab?” I got defensive.

“If you’re thinking about bringing up certain topics,” he began, tightening a lug nut like it had done him a world of wrong, “then it was both.”

Swallow pride. Apologize. My internal dialogue was having to guide me through this. “I’m sorry I followed you that night to Holly’s,” I swallowed, something about that name just didn’t feel right to say, “and I’m sorry I went off on you the next morning.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” he said, clenching his jaw.

“You don’t?” I crossed my arms. “Then why are you still so damn pissed at me you’re about to blow your lid?” Being someone prone to bouts of temper overload, I could spot another’s ticks from ten paces.

Jude exhaled, leaning his forehead into the tire. “Damn it all to hell,” he muttered, banging his socket wrench on the metal cart behind him. “Because,” he began, shifting his eyes over at me, “because you took his word over mine.”

That rendered me speechless. In all my midnight over analyzations, I’d never arrived at this conclusion. “And I was wrong to?” I said slowly. “Because it turned out Sawyer was right.”

“He was right about what?” Jude said in a tone that was scarily controlled.

“You and Holly.” Man, I hated saying that name. I was done. She would now be referred to as the tramp that shall not be named.

“Me and Holly, eh?” He fastened another lug nut into place. “So you didn’t think to ask me about her before you decided to stage a stake out? You didn’t choose to trust me over him?”

“Jude,” I sighed in frustration. He wasn’t getting it, or I wasn’t getting it. One of us was definitely not getting it and neither of us was speaking the same language. “It turns out I had no reason to trust you.”

“And you know this for a fact because?” he asked, fastening the last nut into place. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye; being near him and arguing was better than passing by him and being ignored.

“Because I saw you, Jude,” I said, wondering how much I needed to spell out for him to get it. “I saw you with Holly and . . .” I swallowed, “and the baby. I saw it all.”

“You saw me with Holly and the baby,” he repeated, nodding his head with each word. “And that’s why you can’t trust me?”

This should be more obvious than it was to him. Unless cheating behind one’s back had become a morally accepted practice recently. “I think that pretty much sums it up,” I said, wondering if I was missing something. Something so obvious I was overlooking it.

“Well, there you have it,” he said, striding to the opposite wall. “We’re at an impasse again. Neither one of us trusts the other.” Pressing the lever, the Mazda lowered to the ground.

I didn’t want to go, I wanted to figure out what the hell was going on between us. What gaps we’d been remiss to fill in. “I get you’re still pissed at me and I’m still a little pissed with you too,” I said, following him around the back. “But do you think we can get over it and be friends again?”

He laughed one low note, heaving the flat tire into the trunk.

“I miss you, Jude. I miss having one friend that actually has my back and isn’t throwing daggers at it when I turn around.”

He stopped, keeping his back at me. “Sorry, Lucy. You and I can’t be friends.” Shouldering by me, he went around to the driver’s door and opened it.

“Since when do you call me Lucy?” I asked, feeling a new depth of heartbreak.

“Since we stopped being friends.” He craned his neck to the side, motioning me into the car.

I wouldn’t be herded. I planted my feet and crossed my arms. “You can’t make that choice for the both of us,” I said, glaring at him. “You don’t want to be my friend, fine, that’s real big of you. But you can’t tell me I can’t be your friend. So go screw yourself and deal with it.” Hello, temper, nice to see you raising your ugly head again.

His face didn’t even soften like it used to when I went off on him. “People like you and me cannot be friends, Luce,” he said, staring at me like he used to, “and you know it too.”