Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Or one thing. Namely, Jude.
By the early afternoon, my head is brimming with questions. Jude is on his way, and my biggest question revolves around him.
Can I be the guy Jude needs this time around?
The guy who gives him the book he bought, the man who tells him about his deals, the one who shares his heart?
I don’t know. But I’m tired of the way these questions own me.
Fuck the secrets.
I call Jude in his Lyft. The second he answers, I speak: “Ask the driver to wait two minutes. I want to show you something. I’m in 4A. The doorman will let you in.” With that invitation, I begin to pry open . . . the years.
Jude wastes no time. “I’m there,” he says, leaping at the chance.
Wilde sure was right about romance, but it’s time to face the uncertainty and let Jude into my home.
20
SOME ALBATROSSES
Jude
Everything in 4A is a surprise.
I envisioned something else entirely for TJ’s apartment. “Confession: I thought your home would look like a library,” I say as I gobble up the actual details.
“I wish,” he says wistfully. “Maybe with the next royalty check I’ll go full Beast mode and get a library with a ladder.”
I thrust my arm in the air, “pick me” style. “I’ll be your Belle.”
His smile is sweet but a little hurried—no time to waste. I’ve only got two minutes, and I make the most of them. File everything away to recall later. The tiny kitchen with its gleaming white appliances looks rarely used. The living room where one wall is exposed brick, and the opposite is sky blue, with bright, cartoony images of the Space Needle and Pike’s Place hung in simple frames.
“Seattle. Where you’re from,” I remark.
“Yep,” he says.
They share space with drawings of animals scampering over related puns.
You’ve Got to be Kidding under a young goat.
Suck it Up below a hummingbird.
“Wordplay. Where you live now,” I tease.
“You’re good.” TJ gives an approving smile, then nods to the hallway. “Want to see the rest?”
Hell yes.
“Of course,” I say, in a supreme understatement, but I’m sure he can hear the excitement in my voice.
I follow him quickly. It’s a short corridor; one door leads to a bathroom, the other to a bedroom. He gestures to the bedroom door, permitting me to gawk.
I take it, happily.
My gaze doesn’t leave the bed, with its dark green duvet and mountain of charcoal gray and silver pillows—late afternoon sunlight streams in through a window. At night, moonlight would coast over TJ’s naked skin. What a sight that would be. “I’m getting ideas,” I whisper.
“We’ll miss our flight if your ideas get really good,” he says.
“Fair point.” I spin around and return to the living room, where a question nags at me. “Where do you write?”
He shrugs casually. “Usually at a coffee shop.”
That tracks, but now that he’s answered, it turns out it’s not what I wanted to ask. There’s something else I’m desperate to know, but he keeps talking and walking.
“Sometimes I write on the couch,” he adds, patting the sofa as he moves past it. “Though not when Nolan was crashing here a few months ago. This couch was his bedroom for a while when he was in New York. He and Emerson live together now.” I hear the offer in his voice, but he stops shy of saying, you’ll meet them someday. Still, I like that he’s thinking it.
But I can’t love it because of the elephant that parked its wrinkled gray ass in the middle of the room. TJ mentioned his home was teeming with his books. Yet, I don’t see a single one.
Did he hide his entire oeuvre before inviting me into his space?
My stomach twists. The idea he put away his books because I’d be here is a slap in the face. I want him to trust me. More than that, I want to be trustworthy.
But maybe he still needs to protect himself. Maybe someday, he’ll let me in deeper. “Thank you. I feel like I just got a VIP tour backstage,” I say, doing my best to appreciate what I have rather than pine for what I don’t.
“One more thing,” he says, and when I turn, he’s standing in front of an ottoman.
It opens to double as storage, and it’s stuffed with books, including Top-Notch Boyfriend. TJ picks up a copy. “Space in New York is limited. So, here you go.” He brandishes the book then sets it down with a thud. “The thing that split us up,” he says, sounding resigned to the role his breakout hit played in our breakup.
It makes me sad too. Thanks to my insecurity, I drove the wedge between us after his success.
But the book haunts him for other reasons too. TJ thinks his next book won’t live up to this one. That he won’t write that well again.