17
It Will Be A Wonderful Death
TJ
I daydream more than I should the next few days at the office. Normally, reporting on the falling pound and the Bank of England’s plans for interest rates keep my mind trained on the here and now.
Also, you know, deadlines.
But that didn’t help me on Monday. Tuesday. Or today.
This article is due at four, and I’m only half done, and it’s one-thirty. I need to call another source, but as the rain patters down on the city outside my office window, I’m someplace else.
I’m in the park three days ago, my fingers threading through Jude’s hair.
I’m outside in the rain this afternoon, kissing him in an alleyway, up against a wall.
I’m at home in our flat tonight—
And I can’t.
I have to shut down those thoughts. They’ve zigzagged through my head since Sunday.
I swivel my chair, return to my laptop, and crank up the music in my earbuds. I need to drown out the sounds of the office, of other phone calls in other cubicles, of reporters tapping furiously on keyboards, of editors barking out orders.
Need to focus.
I laser in on the next few sentences in my assignment. But one paragraph later, my fingers itch to recheck my phone. I give in and tap out a quick text.
TJ: Any word yet?
Jude:No. It’s been eighty-four years, and I’m dying.
TJ:Don’t die before you get the part.
Jude:It’s no use. I’ve keeled over. It was lovely knowing you.
TJ:Does it normally take this long to hear about a callback?
Jude:This is a message from Jude in the afterlife. He says that waiting to know if you got a gig takes approximately a millennium.
TJ:Well, if you need a distraction, there’s a band playing tonight at The Cat’s Meow. The lead singer is in some show on the West End called Wicked (*shudders*) but when the theater is dark, she moonlights with her band, Ten-Speed Rabbit.
Jude: There is so much to unpack in that text that you raised me from the dead. First, is the band named after a vibrator? Second, YOU MEAN AMELIA STONE? Third, you don’t like Wicked????????
I smile as I reply, the music ricocheting through my head—a sexy, dirty song from Ten-Speed Rabbit.
TJ:I hate musicals. And before you ask why, it’s because no one breaks out in song in real life. And yes, it seems Amelia named her band for a very specific sex toy. I’m guessing because Sex Toys was taken, or maybe she went with Ten-Speed Rabbit out of cheek.
Jude:Never underestimate the value of cheek. But the flaw in your rationale for your dislike of musicals? International teenage spy Rhys Locke didn’t actually rappel from buildings to save millions in stolen sapphires, and yet you still like those Alistair Edwin’s novels. Since when did something have to be real for you to like it?
TJ:When music was added to plays.
Jude:I will never understand you. And yes, I would love a distraction, but I have to work tonight.
Jude’s been working every night. I haven’t seen him since Sunday—our schedules this week are the opposite.
Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe I should stop texting him. Maybe that’ll make me stop feeling things for him.
But before I set down the phone, he replies once more.
Jude:But do you want to go to the graffiti tunnels tomorrow evening? I’m not working Thursday night. I have some commercial auditions during the day and a voiceover thingy. But I could go around seven.
TJ:Yes. I want to go.
I’m grinning foolishly, and it’s because of an outing with my roomie. When I set down the phone, I startle at the sight of Alex staring at me over the top of my cubicle wall, drumming his fingers on the divider and shooting me a you’re busted look from behind his black glasses.
I take out my earbuds. “What’s up?”
“What are you all smiles about? Let me guess. You’re getting laid, you scored a scoop, or you scored discount tickets to that band you were telling me about?”
“Sadly, none of the above,” I say.
“Dude, you need to change all of that. Stat.”
“Don’t I know,” I sigh.
“So, then the answer is . . .?”
Man, reporters are persistent fuckers. “Just texting a friend.” That’s true enough.
Alex is not appeased. “A friend you’d like to yada yada with?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “You’re a bold man, Alex.”
He tilts his head. “And you still didn’t answer me.”
I huff, then relent. Somewhat. “A guy. Okay?”
He waggles his brows. “So, you are enjoying London?”
“Yes,” I say. But that’s all I’ll admit.
“Cool. Want to go out with a bunch of us tomorrow night? There’s a pinball arcade that has awesome cocktails.”
I’m mildly tempted. “I love pinball. I am also fucking amazing at it, so I’d probably destroy all of you.”
“So, you’re in?”
I shake my head since even pinball can’t tear me away from my plans. “Can’t. I have a thing.”
“With your friend?”
“Yes,” I say.
“All right, Mister One-Word Answers. I can take a hint. This friend is the one you’re daydreaming about?”
I jerk my gaze back to Alex. “What?”
“I saw you staring out the window. I don’t think you were thinking about the London Stock Exchange. More like the London Sex Exchange,” he says.
“Dude, you should be an investigative reporter.”
“I’m pushy. I’m nosy. And I’m proud of it,” he says.
“You are.” It’s nice to have this easy banter with him—a colleague who’s becoming a friend. “Hey, since tomorrow night won’t work out, what about Sunday? I’m going to a club this weekend to check out some bands, and I’m trying to round up a group.”
“I’m in,” he says. “And now, I’m gonna pound out this story.”
As Alex walks away, I spin toward the window and catch the outline of my reflection. Is it obvious I’m thinking about a friend?
I peer close into the rain-streaked glass.
It’s painfully obvious.
That evening, I skip The Cat’s Meow. Instead, I hunker down in Coffee O’Clock, trying to send my hero to the creepy church to investigate a clue, but he’s delayed in the park.
By his love interest.
Our hero’s been longing for this person for ages. He can feel it in his bones. My fingers tingle as I type, and something feels so right. Righter than it ever has before. When I reread the scene, my heart races. Yup. My book was missing a romantic subplot.
Like that, I write more. I pour all my rainy daydreams into the story, and suddenly, this whodunit sparks in a whole new way.
Finally, I feel a little obsessed with this story, and I half want to tell someone. But William’s not here, and is he truly the one I want to share this realization with?
Later, when I return home, Jude’s not there.
That’s probably for the best. His absence saving me from sharing more than I should.
When I leave work on Thursday, I’m jittery. I haven’t seen Jude since Sunday night, but I’m meeting him this evening to go to The Vaults.
I could go straight to the tunnels, but they’re close to our flat, and I wouldn’t mind changing into something more casual, so I head home and take a quick shower to wash the day off me. But the showerhead is loose again, so when I get out, I wrap a towel around my waist and head for the kitchen to grab the toolkit.
The door swings open.
“I got the part!” Jude calls out.
With my hair wet, water droplets sliding down my chest, and tools in hand, I turn around. “Holy shit! That’s amazing. I knew it!”
With his back to me, he shuts the door, then spins around. Like a cartoon character, his eyes pop out on springs. “Oh, fuck me.” He holds up a hand. “I have to back away right now. If I don’t, I will literally climb you like a tree.”
Then, as fast as he comes in, he leaves. His footfalls on the stairs echo as I return to the bathroom and fix the showerhead.
With a smile I can’t wipe off, I head to my room and get dressed. When I’m in jeans and the baseball-print shirt, I text him at last.
TJ:The coast is clear.
Jude:I have not recovered. I am dead again from the sight of you in NOTHING BUT A FUCKING TOWEL AND A TOOLKIT. DO NOT EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN. (UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO HUMP YOUR RIGHT LEG, YOUR LEFT LEG, AND YOUR THIRD LEG.) IF I SEE YOU LIKE THAT, I WILL HAVE A HEART ATTACK BUT IT WILL BE A WONDERFUL DEATH.
TJ:Sorry, not sorry.
Jude:I am at Angie’s Vintage Duds. I had to go shopping to try to get the sight of you, wet, out of my head. And I mean my little head.
I laugh again, and I wish I weren’t so fucking amused and delighted by him. I wish I weren’t so attracted to him. I wish I weren’t so close to wildly infatuated with him.
But I am.
I am all of those things.
When I push open the door to Angie’s, Jude is chatting with Eggplant Helen.
“I could have sworn she was still with him,” he tells her. “Well, it just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the tabloids.”
She laughs. “You can’t, but it sure is fun to devour every little detail about the royal family.”
“Completely,” he says.
Helen grins like a cat as she points from Jude to me. “So, you two found each other.” She sounds as pleased as a cat too.
Jude swings his gaze my way, looking at me with a whole new kind of smile. It’s dirty like he’s still thinking of me in that towel. But it’s also . . . private. Like he knows on some intrinsic level that I told Helen about him that first day because he enthralled me.
If he only knew I was so enthralled, a spark is sliding down my back from his smile. Yeah, it’s devastating, all right.
“We did find each other,” Jude says.
“I had a feeling you two lovebirds would,” she says, singsong.
“It’s not like that,” I put in quickly, needing to dispel that for my own sanity. Hell, for my hold on reality.
“Yeah, it’s not like that at all,” he echoes, quickly too.
“Why not?” she asks in disbelief.
Jude drapes an arm around her, then sighs heavily. “We live together. TJ’s my roomie,” he says, and that warning is for her, maybe, and possibly for me, but mostly I can tell it’s for him.
He’s underlining the roomie rules we need to follow.
Rules I will follow because I care deeply about his dreams.
Helen sighs, aggrieved. “I can’t listen to such rubbish.”
Jude kisses her cheek. “Gotta go, love. Doesn’t TJ look smashing in his new shirt?”
“He’s the scrummiest,” she says.
“I know,” Jude says with a note of pride.
We leave, and once we’re out on the street, I’m a little lost as to what’s next. I want to hug him. I want to congratulate him. But I also don’t want to fuck things up. Awkwardly, I offer a hand for him to shake.
He scoffs. “You want to shake my hand?”
“I’m congratulating you. I’m really fucking excited for you,” I explain.
“Then congratulate me properly.”
With a blow job, I say to myself. “With a hug?” I ask out loud.
“A hug and a beer and a dinner so fucking filling that it will take sex off my mind,” he says.
Cracking up, I step in for a hug. It’s thoroughly bro-dude style. A clap on the back. A pat on the shoulder. I do not linger.
I hope it takes sex off both our minds.
“Tell me everything about the gig,” I say when I let go.
We walk, and he launches into the details. The shoot starts next week. The show is running on a streaming service that’s gaining some traction. The actress is great. The director is too. “I’ll be busy every day for a couple of weeks. And every night at the bookshop. And the pay is seriously not bad. Also, they said our chemistry was electric.”
“Good,” I say, and I don’t push the topic. I don’t ask if it’s because he was thinking of me. I don’t have to ask because I know.
And knowing does something to my heart that I haven’t felt before. Not like this. Not this intensely. Or this deeply.
And definitely never this dangerously.
“So, this is a big break for you?” I ask, keeping the conversation only on work.
“It could be. I mean, it’s not like I was cast in an American TV show or a BBC one. Or on the West End or in a Hollywood film.”
I stop, put a hand on his arm. “Don’t put it down. Don’t compare it. It’s amazing in and of itself. This is a big deal, Jude.”
He smiles, his shoulders relaxing. “I’m really, really happy.”
“I can tell.”
“TJ?”
“Yes?”
“This is all I’ve ever wanted.” We stop at the corner near Waterloo Bridge, waiting at the traffic light. “When I was six, I fell off the swing at a local park. Knocked out my two front teeth,” he says, flashing a smile like he’s showing me the missing teeth. His are perfectly straight.
“That doesn’t sound like fun,” I say.
“It took a while for my adult teeth to come in. But at that point, it was hard for me to say S properly. I had to see a speech therapist to learn to pronounce it properly,” he tells me. “Her name was Alice, and she had three orange cats who roamed all over her house on the outskirts of London. She had me do monologues and recite poetry to work on my speech. And it was like . . . magic. I knew then that I wanted to perform.”
Chills rush down my arms. His passion is infectious. “It’s kind of amazing when something clicks, right?”
“It unlocked me,” he says, and we cross the street. “And I felt alive and excited. I could see my future. I could feel it so deeply. I wanted this job so badly. Sometimes when I’m out with my friends, I don’t always let on how much I crave the work. I try to act cool and casual. I even did that with my own brother the other day when we were having tea. But I’m not cool and casual about it. Not one bit. I just can’t be.”
“I understand completely,” I say, and when we reach the entrance to The Vaults, I stop. “Jude?”
“Yes?”
Here goes. This feels like stripping naked, like showing him the most vulnerable parts of me. My hopes and dreams. But it also feels right to tell Jude before my brother, before work friends, before my friends back home. “I’m writing a novel.”
His smile is like the sun rising in the morning. It’s slow and unstoppable, and when it coasts across his gorgeous face, it lights up the entire sky. “Is that so?”
“What you just said, that unlocking—that’s how I felt when I came to London when I was thirteen. When I went to the bookshop, that was my light bulb. When I knew what I wanted to do, that’s why I visited all these places in London. For my novel,” I say, and wow, that was hard.
But so necessary.
For a few seconds, Jude’s lips twitch like he’s trying to rein in an emotion that borders on laughter. But it’s not a chuckle he’s holding in. It’s more like a look of utter delight.
Like he’s even happier than he was when he got the part. “Let’s visit all the places.”
I revise my estimate to completely, utterly, absolutely infatuated.