Into the Tomorrows (Bleeding Hearts Book 1) (12 page)

* * *

W
hen we got back
to the apartment, Colin took a nap. I noticed he did that often, retreating to his room and shutting the door—effectively closing me out. For someone who had wanted me here, he seemed to spend a lot of time keeping us apart.

I sat on the couch, flipping through channels, waiting for something to grab my attention. When nothing did, I made a pot of coffee and pulled up my laptop to write for Colin.

“Hey.”

I slammed my laptop closed, startled by Jude’s voice. I cleared the guilt from my face and turned my head. “Hey.”

“Whatcha doing?”

I waited two heartbeats. “Investment banking.”

He pursed his lips, nodding. “That’s what I thought.” He walked slowly toward the table, holding a coffee cup. “Mind if I join you?”

I gestured to the open chair beside me. “It’s your apartment.”

“Ah,” he said. “But you live here too. If you need space, you can tell me to get lost.”

He hesitated by the chair, waiting for me to tell him yes. I only nodded. “Where’s your sling?”

“You sound like my mom,” he said, pulling the chair back so that it scraped the tile floor beneath its legs.

“Good.” I placed a protective hand on my laptop, not wanting him to ask about it. My words were private, sacred things. “Your mom must be smart.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “Annoyingly smart, in fact.” He sipped his coffee and set it on the table. “Where’s Colin?”

“Sleeping.”

“Ah,” he said again. “You want to see something cool? Or has investment banking gotten more exciting than I remembered?”

“I mean, it’s pretty much the time of my life, but I can take a short break away for something cool.” He smiled in response, and a little glow bloomed in my chest. Conversation with Jude was often easy, even though his presence alone made my skin tighten and my eyes betray my brain when I firmly told myself not to look into his eyes too long.

“Come on then,” he said, immediately standing. He left his cup on the table and walked to the sliding glass door off of the dining area, to a small porch. “There,” he said, pointing with his good arm to the sun moving down the sky, so close to sliding behind the mountains just beyond the parking lot.

The sky was a mix of blues and pinks, like paint colors that had spilled and mingled. The sun itself was orange, like the wick of a candle right as its embers cooled.

“It’s beautiful,” I admitted, closing the glass door behind me.

“It is. But this isn’t even the best view.”

“It isn’t?”

“Come on,” he said again. He pushed one of the bar top chairs against the siding of the apartment building.

“What are you doing?”

“Going up on the roof,” he said nonchalantly, like it was obvious.

I made the mistake of leaning over the railing just to confirm that we were three stories up. “No freaking way.”

“Yes way.” With his one good arm he reached up onto the tiles and pulled himself upward. Once he was on the slight slant of the roof, he reached his arm down to me. “Come on up.”

“I’m not grabbing your arm,” I said with a shake of my head, but climbed up on the bar height chair anyway. While holding its arms, I placed my feet on the seat and gripped the back of the chair as I pulled myself to standing. I wasn’t expecting the wobble, so my hands reached for the roof tiles immediately, and I was sure he could see the panic in my eyes.

“I won’t let you fall, don’t worry.” He placed one warm hand on my forearm. “Pull yourself up here.”

I closed my eyes a second, breathed in through my nose for courage. And then I hauled myself up onto the roof.

“Good job. Now scoot up here.”

I did, bringing us several feet up the roof to nearly its center.

He was right; the view was even better from this height.

“Look.” Jude drew my attention to the city behind us and we watched as the dark chased the sun’s descent, the darkness falling and drawing closer to us. “This is my second favorite time of the day,” he whispered. “Look at the sun.”

I turned my head back as the sun fell behind the mountain.

“You can feel the light run across your body,” he said, and I could. As it slipped further behind the mountain, the light left my head, then my chest, and then I watched as the darkness flowed down my bare legs and slipped off the roof as the sun fell completely quiet.

“Second favorite time of day?” I asked as we stayed on the roof in a comfortable silence.

“Dawn, of course.” I watched as he closed his eyes and smiled just enough that his lips curved. “Seeing a new day, a new path of light following the dark—that’s what I live for.”

Jude was deeper than I was, but when he spoke, I could clearly see what he meant. “You look forward to the future.”

His eyes opened and he stared at me, those milky brown irises warm, soft. “Of course I do.” He didn’t push me to say the same, and I was grateful. The only time I’d wished for a tomorrow was when I’d held Ellie’s hand in mine on the kitchen floor—but I’d prayed for a tomorrow that wouldn’t exist.

I looked away because his focus was unnerving. Even though the sun had set, there was still a little bit of light left and I wished none of that light was on my face when he was looking.

“Mila said you went to the zoo with Colin today.”

“Yeah, we did.”

“And she said she’s taking you to the mall tomorrow.”

Colin, once he’d put his phone down during dinner, had told me that too. “Yep.”

“Excited?”

“Immensely.” I said it about as monotone as I could manage. Mila seemed great, but the mall just wasn’t my scene, especially when I had to be careful with what money I did have.

“Mila is a force to be reckoned with. She’ll wear you out.”

“That wouldn’t be terrible. I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep since I got here.”

Jude nodded, smiled gently. “The mountains don’t have anything on a memory foam mattress.”

I shrugged. “But they’re nice in other ways. I liked it more than I thought I would.”

“Colin must be happy to hear that.”

“Maybe, but he hasn’t asked me.” Once again, I was annoyed for speaking so freely with Jude, as if he was privy to my relationship and its faults. “I shouldn’t talk to you about Colin.”

“Okay.” And once again, he didn’t push me.

“No offense,” I said, feeling like I needed to explain myself. “But I barely know you.”

“I get it, Trista.”

There he went saying my name again. I shivered and, thankfully, Jude mistook that for me being cold now that the sun was gone.

“Want to go back inside?”

“Not yet.” I picked at my shirt, pulling off lint. “Can I ask you a question?” When he nodded, I asked, “Why are you friends with Colin?”

He blinked. “His parents are friends with mine and” —he stopped himself and scratched his arm— “we get along easily enough.” He paused, stared at the roof tiles between us. “We have a lot of history, and he’s a good friend when you need one.”

“Like how?”

“You really want an example?”

“Yes, I do. We’ve lived apart for four out of the nearly six years we’ve been together. I want to know the Colin you know, as his friend.”

“You think there is more than one Colin?”

Absolutely I did. He was a chameleon, changing himself depending on the company. But I raised an eyebrow, encouraging Jude to explain.

“Colin likes taking risks.” He was resting his arms on his knees, looking relaxed and at home on the roof. “He introduces himself to everyone at a party. He refills their drinks, offers them food—he’s the ultimate host.”

I stared out at the mess of trees just beyond the parking lot, watched them sway in the breeze as if they were moving to a waltz.

“He gives a lot, more than he should.” Jude leaned back on his one good forearm. “And he cares about people, if maybe not always enough.” Instantly, his eyes shuttered and he looked beyond us too.

“I think we know the same Colin.” He was a perfect host, I knew. He was kind, never making anyone feel like they were left out—unless you were his girlfriend. I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs. “You know, when I first saw him in high school, I wondered what he saw in me.” I remembered how he’d seen me in the hall. I’d been so starved for attention that once he gave me some, I couldn’t get enough. Maybe I’d leeched onto him too firmly.

“What do you think he sees in you?”

“Maybe he likes blondes.”

“Maybe. But what is it about you that he likes over all the other blondes in the world?”

I looked at him out the corner of my eye. “When you figure it out, let me know.”

“You’re beautiful.” I shook my head when he said that, not ready for him to say that. “You are. You look like Old Hollywood—like Grace Kelly. But your eyes are sad.”

“What?” I turned my head in his direction and the breeze pulled hair across my face. “I’m just tired,” I said as I removed the strands.

“No, I mean. They’re always that way.”

“You’re not making this better.” Tension stiffened my shoulders and I pulled my legs to my chest tighter. “I don’t have sad eyes.”

“I’ve looked at you, Trista. And let me tell you, your eyes tell a story.”

I was so unused to having anyone analyze me like this that I snapped, “What’s that story?”

“You tell me.” Jude didn’t move from his spot at all; no, I was the uncomfortable one here. “But I think that’s what Colin sees in you.” His chest moved down under his shirt in time with an exhale.

“Why would Colin like me because I look sad?”

“Maybe he wants to be the person to make you happy. I think,” he paused, “that everyone has a mission, and his is to make people happy.” His eyes were soft, his mouth unsmiling, his jaw clenched. His stare was so heavy that a part of me wanted to be crushed under his gaze. I looked away, but didn’t move away and leaned back against the tiles.

What felt like twenty minutes later, Jude asked, “Do you know much about constellations?”

“Hmm?” I turned my head, having relaxed in the quiet beside him.

“Constellations.” He tipped his head up above us and I followed his gaze.

“I know about the Big Dipper.”

The moon had risen and provided us enough light to see one another as he shook his head. “The Big Dipper isn’t a constellation.”

“Yes it is.” My eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“It’s actually part of a constellation, the Great Bear.” He pointed above us and I found myself leaning in to stay in the line of sight of his hand. “There’s the handle,” he said as he moved his fingers along three stars in a curve, “and there’s the cup part.”

“Huh. I had no idea.”

“And between the two dippers,” he moved his hand up, tracing an almost backward five in the sky, “is Draco.”

His fingers stopped and he gestured a circle, “there’s its head.”

“Draco.” My eyes traced its curve over and over, enough that I couldn’t not notice it. “The only Draco I know is from Harry Potter.”

“And that’s his namesake.” I watched as his full lips stretched over his teeth, indicating he was pleased with me. “There’s another constellation, Scorpio. Draco had a son he named Scorpio.”

“You know a lot about Harry Potter.”

“I know a lot about constellations and Harry Potter.”

“What’s the story behind Draco?” I asked, gesturing toward the sky.

“Well, the name itself means dragon or snake, which isn’t surprising given what you know of Draco from the world J.K. Rowling created. And, at least according to Greek and Roman mythology, Draco was a dragon killed by the goddess of wisdom…” he smiled like he was about to let me in on a secret, “Minerva.”

“Another Harry Potter name.”

“J.K. Rowling christened many of her characters with very appropriate names.”

I thought of what my mother had named me. “What does your name mean?”

“Depends on what you believe.”

“What does that mean?”

He smiled. “Names don’t have just one meaning,” he said. “Depending on what you want to believe, I’m either named for the patron saint of lost causes or,” he tilted his head, met me head on, “Judas Iscariot, the traitor.”

I searched his face as I thought about what he said. I licked my lips. “I don’t know you well enough to know which of those you are.” I swallowed, my hands breaking out in a sweat at his close proximity.

“I’m definitely not a saint.” His eyelids lowered and I had the distinct feeling he was looking at my mouth. My breath was held captive in my chest as I waited for his eyes to meet mine. “Let’s play twenty questions.”

My gut twisted and a whisper in my head said it was a bad idea. But I wanted to know who he was probably as much as he wanted to know who I was, even if it didn’t make sense.

“You first,” I invited, pulling away slightly from him now that we were no longer staring at the night sky.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Happy. It was the first thing I thought. It wasn’t that I was necessarily unhappy, but I always wanted one perfect, blindingly happy moment. “I used to want to be a mom.”

“Why?”

“To see if I’d be better at it than my mom.” I blinked, avoiding looking at him. “Your turn.”

I was sure the sigh of relief that left my body was visible, but I shifted my legs to hide the movement.

“I used to want to be a wrestler. Like the ones you see on television—the fake wrestling.”

“Why?”

“Because they were strong.”

For some reason, I wanted to press, to ask why. But because he hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t push him.

“Who is your favorite person in the world?”

As if the question caused him to manifest beside me, I had the distinct whiff of sweet tobacco as I thought of him. “My grandfather. He and my grandmother used to send me home from their house, my pockets laden with foil-wrapped chocolates, telling me to eat one when I missed them.” I laughed a little from the memory. “That’s probably how I began putting on the pounds, because I missed them all the time.”