Clash (3 page)

“Ryder, man!” one of Jude’s teammates hollered through the pane of glass, appraising the two of us. “You getting your freak on with this fine minx?” Looking at me, Jude’s teammate wagged his brows. “You lucky bastard.”

Looking my way, Jude smirked at me. “Told you.”

A fire crackled at my feet, the stars blinked above me, Jude’s arms held me tight against him, and the sound of an entire college football team belching their way through “Hey Jude” serenaded me.

“I can’t believe this big night I thought you’d planned for us also involved more than fifty football players,” I said, tilting my head back against Jude’s chest so he could see my expression.

“Sorry, baby,” he said, kissing the lines of my forehead. “I thought we’d have a couple hours to ourselves before these animals showed up.”

A couple hours? I would have settled for, oh, about fifteen minutes.

The belching chorus came to an inconclusive ending, the temporary silence only to be interrupted by a chorus of flatulence. I groaned, closing my eyes and pinching my nose.

“Man, that was lame, Ryder.” Tony’s, Jude’s number one wide receiver, unmistakable voice hollered across the campfire. “If I was trying to win a girl back, there’s no way I’d go through the whole effort of bribing her roommate to get her to some mixer so I could have the DJ serenade her with some suckass oldies song why I professed my undying love to her.”

I opened my eyes so I could deliver a glare through the fire at Tony. I loved the guy, his infectious character was impossible not to, most days. This wasn’t one of those days.

“I’d just go up to her and be like, ‘Hey, baby. How’s it going?’ You know, something real suave like that?” Tony smiled like the devil at me.

“Tony,” Jude spoke up, curling his chin over my shoulder, “when was the last time you got one of your old girlfriends to take your sorry ass back?”

Tony’s face scrunched up in contemplation. Shrugging, he answered, “Never.”

“Exactly,” Jude said, lifting his middle finger at him.

My arms were tucked tight into the blanket Jude had wrapped me in earlier, so when he lowered his finger, I nudged him. “One more for me.”

Tony got the bird from Jude again, this one compliments of Lucy Larson.

“Come on, Lucy,” Tony said as the rest of the players rocked in laughter, a few showering him in marshmallows. “You know I think you’re the shit. I’m just jealous because you’re about five times too good for Ryder and I want to get in on that five-times-too-good-for-me benefit too.”

“Maybe if you stopped dropping the ball and started getting it into the end zone, you could manage to find a girl who wanted to do more than run her hands all over those twenty inch biceps,” I said, cocking my head.

Jude stifled his laughter into the blanket. The rest of the team, not so much.

Popping his brows at me, Tony slid the sleeve of his t-shirt up, kissing his grotesquely large bicep, then repeated on the other one. “Stop hating on me, Lucy. Jude’s going to catch onto us if you don’t stop being so obvious,” he said, ducking his head as Jude’s mostly full sports drink bottle sailed past him. “And no need to worry about the end zone tomorrow, baby. I’m making that end zone my bitch.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” I replied, no longer able to contain my smile with Tony’s continued theatrics. At any given time, he was like watching a one man three-ring circus. And, all jesting aside, Tony was one hell of a wide receiver. Together, he and Jude had been setting records that would likely never be challenged.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Tony said, nudging the guy next to him. The team’s number one kicker. I think his name was Kurt. Or maybe it was Kirk. Or Kent. Okay, K something. “In the appearance department, Ryder’s a seven, maybe an eight,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he inspected Jude. Kurt or Kirk appraised Jude, rubbing his chin.

“Then you’re a negative two, Tony,” I muttered, really cursing the fates that I was stuck bantering with a couple of Jude’s teammates while the rest talked about and performed every male thing that should never be known to women.

“His personality gets a suck’s ass,” Tony continued, nudging the K named kicker. “So why, in all things unfair and unholy, does he get all the good ones lining up outside his door?”

Jude leaned forward. “I can give you an eight inch explanation, Rufello.”

Tony and the kicker stared at Jude, then each other, right before their heads tipped back and they exploded with laughter.

Jude joined in about halfway through.

But something Tony said needed a little clearing up. “What good ones are lining up outside Jude’s door?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

Tony’s laughter trailed off, his dark eyes shifting away as soon as they landed on me. Jude’s body stiffened just enough around me to cue me to something being off.

“You,” Tony said, thrusting his hands my direction. “You’re the ‘good ones’ lining up outside his door.”

Nope, I wasn’t buying it. I’d seen Tony close to tears the night his senior year high school VIP trophy got snapped in half when a guy used it as a baseball bat at one of the legendary parties at their house, and even then his smile was almost present. There wasn’t a trace of it now, which meant Tony was working to cover something up.

“You,” he repeated again, when I continued to hold him prisoner with my glare.

“And Adriana Vix,” another one of Jude’s teammates added behind us, sounding like he would be content to make love with the name alone.

Now my body tensed, no longer fitting around Jude’s. Twisting in my seat between his legs, I met his eyes.

Nothing in them gave anything away. That was, perhaps, the worst way they could be.

“Who’s Adriana Vix?” I asked, my voice the perfect blend of anxious and pissed off.

Jude’s hands fitted around my face, staring straight into my eyes. It was hard to breathe when he looked at me like this. “No one,” he answered, not removing his hands or stare from me.

“No one?” the guy from behind cried, taking a seat next to us. “Your definition of ‘no one’ must be girls a man would amputate half his limbs to be with. To be with
once
,” the player whose name I couldn’t remember, but I knew warmed a lot of benches, continued. He was going to be permanently riding benches if he didn’t shove the Adriana Vix worship where the sun didn’t shine.

“Matt,” Jude warned, finally letting my face go, but only to rewrap me into his arms, “shut your trap.”

“Your girl was the one that asked,” he replied, holding up his hands. “I was just answering a question.”

“Well, stop embellishing,” Jude said, his voice level, but I could sense it wavering. About to spill over. “In fact, why don’t you just stop talking for the rest of the night?”

Matt conceded with a shrug, taking a swig of his beer. If it wasn’t for the team’s two beer limit the night before a game, I could write off Matt’s “Adriana Vix” worship as the ramblings of a drunk. Matt was sober as they came, which meant Adriana was as hot as he was implying.

Turning so I could lean my back into the side of Jude’s bent leg, I met his gaze again. He was wearing his old gray beanie tonight, but only because it was cold. He no longer hid behind it.

“She likes you?” High scores for asking the question with as little emotion as possible.

He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe a little,” he answered, his eyes never leaving mine.

“A little?!” Tony hooted across the campfire as a handful of others close by smirked at us. “Thanks to Ryder, the male populace of Syracuse have been enjoying even more of Adriana’s ample bust on display. I thought they were about to pop out of that itty-bitty dress she showed up in yesterday.” Tony whistled through his teeth, his eyes clouding in dreaminess. “That fine thing is on the prowl. And she’s got her sights set on your man, love,” he said, looking at me with a bit of pity. Like I’d already lost the game of Jude by default. Appearance default.

“Say that again, Tony,” Jude warned, his jaw clenched, “and the only thing I’ll be throwing at your pinhead again will be my boot.”

“What?” Tony said. “Telling the truth about Adriana panting in heat for you?”

“No, shithead,” Jude said, notes of anger slipping between his teeth. “Call my girl ‘love’ again. She’s mine. I get to call her that. Not some pissant jerk-off with a big mouth.”

There is was. The territorial Rottweiler that Jude was when it came to me. Usually, it pissed me off when he talked about me like I was something that could be owned, but right now, after hearing about the goddess with tits, I was fine with him going as territorial on me as he wanted.

“My bad,” Tony said, rising and dusting off his pants. “Since I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut, I better put myself to bed before I take a knuckle sandwich to the face.” He smiled at me, but his eyes didn’t match. There was still that hint of pity in them. Like I’d had my time and it was now drawing to a close. I was about to be overthrown by Adriana Vix. “Get all your ugly, hairy asses to bed,” Tony yelled at the last remaining stragglers gazing with lidded eyes into the fire. “We’ve got some ass to kick tomorrow.”

A chorus of grunts and hoots followed as most of the guys shoved themselves up and followed Tony into their respective tents or threw themselves across the tailgates of their trucks. This night was so not how I’d imagined it going.

Jude and I sat huddled together in silence for a minute, both of us staring into the dimming fire, waiting for the other to say something first.

“Do you like her?” I whispered before I realized I’d even thought it.

Jude’s sigh was long and irritated. It was the first time I could remember being relieved that he was irritated at me. Spinning me around so I was facing him, but still sandwiched between his legs, he leveled me with those darkening eyes.

“No,” he answered. “Not in the way your crazy woman mind is thinking.”

He’d only caught a glimpse at how “crazy woman” my mind could get. “And what about in the other way?”

I watched the last flames of the fire’s shadow dying on the side of Jude’s cheek. “She’s all right,” he answered, lifting his brows and waiting. Because he knew enough about me to know something was coming.

“She’s all right?” I repeated, my voice going up. “She’s all right in a I’d-screw-her-in-two-seconds-flat-if-I-was-single kind of way, or she’s all right as in she’s just some girl?”

Jude had warned me months ago not to ask questions I didn’t want honest answers to. I instantly wished I could take my question back.

“Luce,” Jude said, unfurling the blanket cinched around me, grabbing my hands when he pulled them free, “you’re my girl.
The
girl.” To join the other emotions flashing over his face, a trace of pain did as well. “When I look at Adriana, or any other girl for that matter, that’s all I see. Some other girl who isn’t
my
girl. I don’t see them, Luce. I see you,” he continued, his skin lining between his brows. “I’ve only ever seen you.”

The worry clenching my stomach started to unravel.

“So could you please, for the love of God, cut out the paranoid girl act?”

With Jude, when he was like this, the best thing to do was cease and desist. I knew that, but I was never one to follow that advice and I wouldn’t start now.

“Kind of like you didn’t go all paranoid boyfriend on Thomas and me earlier tonight?” If my words didn’t point the finger of hypocrisy his way, my gaze certainly did.

Jude’s words caught in his mouth. Clamping it shut, his forehead lined as he leaned back into the log behind him. Face lined, eyes narrowed, teeth working at the right side of his cheek. This was a new expression of Jude’s I’d become increasingly familiar with lately. It was his look of contemplation, and one he’d worked hard on to replace when his gut reaction was anger.

I waited, giving him as much time and space as he needed.

“Luce,” he said at last, his voice soft, “what do you want me to do?” He paused, waiting for my response, but I wasn’t sure what he was asking, so no response came.

“Please, just tell me,” he continued. “Tell me what you want me to say, and do, when it comes to Adriana or any other girl that looks my way, and I’ll do it. You want me to fire a spit wad between their eyes? So be it. You want me to flip them off any time any one of them looks my way? You got it. You want me to poke my eyes out so I can’t see another one of their suggestive smiles again?” he trailed on, half of his face squishing together. “Well, that would suck, but I’d do it. For you.” Cradling my face in his hands again, he leaned forward so his eyes were staring into mine from half a foot away. “Just tell me, baby. What do you want me to do?”

I couldn’t put it into words because when asked point blank, I didn’t even know what I wanted him to do or say when it came to other women shaking their tits Jude’s way. Men like Jude couldn’t walk through a cemetery without being hit on. So what did I want from him when it came to the never ending supply of girls ready and willing to throw themselves into his bed at the first chance? Did I want him to be mean to them? Well, yeah, kind of, but some save-the-world part of me recognized this wasn’t the answer. So what was?

That question would have to remain unanswered because I had something else on my mind.

Lacing my fingers through his where they warmed my face, I scooted closer until I’d killed the half foot space keeping us apart. “I want you to take me to bed.”

I was sure I’d never seen the wrinkles lining Jude’s face disappear so quickly. “Now that, I can’t only do,” he replied, scooping me into his arms before rising, “I can do it with a smile.”

I could have laughed if I’d let myself, but one name still hung between us. I wasn’t ready or able to push the delete button on Adriana Vix trying to get her claws into my man.

“Wait until you get a look at the set up I made for us,” Jude said, his voice light as he carried me across the makeshift campground to his rusted out truck. It was so rusted you couldn’t tell if it’d originally been black or grey or some shade in between. He’d gotten the truck for next to nothing from some old farmer and had used part of the funds he made working at the garage to buy the parts it needed. The inside of the car was in fine working shape, but judging from the exterior, the truck looked like it needed to be junked.