Me: This one was pretty good. Not as good as Rebecca’s, though.
Jude: It looks dry as cardboard.
Me: Maybe not CARDBOARD. But it needed a lot of cream. Can you eat one of hers for me? Or just send me a picture of one? Or a video so I can pretend I’m sniffing it?
Jude: Good Lord, you sound like an addict.
Jude: Here. It’s got currants in it.
I laughed when I saw the picture he attached, him shoving half the scone into his mouth. The sight of him wasn’t a punch to the heart or anything, one side effect of being able to see him on TV every week when I got the chance to watch one of his matches. But this was a different Jude than the one I saw on the pitch. Despite the silly picture, he looked tired. It was in the dark circles under his eyes, the lines on his face that hadn’t been so prominent when I’d last seen him.
Molly sipped her coffee across the cafe table and watched me. “It’s going okay with him?”
I shrugged. “As good as it can, I suppose.”
“Do you miss him?”
My eldest sister was the only one who dared to ask me about him. Maybe because she was the most romantic to her soft little heart. She’d tamed her big beast of an athlete in Noah, and I knew she was holding out hope that I’d still be able to overcome … everything … when it came to Jude.
Staring at the picture, the scruff along his jaw and the mess of his dark hair, I rubbed my thumb over the image, and then cleared it away so I wouldn’t obsess.
“Yeah.” There was no point in lying to Molly. And I wouldn’t have lied to anyone else either if they’d asked, but along with the realization that I was very skilled at moving through life restlessly was the fact that my family was used to that. They probably thought I’d brush them off with a
It’s totally fine, guys, look at how completely fine it all is.
“But I don’t think missing him is the problem. It’s figuring out what we’re like outside of missing each other. He’s finally talking to me about stuff, but it’s not like I can just hop back over to England because the thought of him makes me heartsick.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “No one is perfect, but you already know that, and I don’t think that’s what you want from him.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t need perfection. I think my problem was that it felt so good when we weren’t worrying about anything else, and now that everything else has surfaced, I can’t think about how good it was between us until those things are better, at least. And they may never be.”
Molly watched with a soft smile when I curled my hand over my stomach. A soft bump greeted me, and I motioned for her hand. She slid her chair closer, eyes widening. “Can you feel it moving?”
“Yeah.” I took her hand and set it along the top of my bump, and we waited. I tried pushing on the side, and then felt it again.
Molly gasped. “Ohhhh, hi little Banana, I’m your favorite Aunt Molly.”
I laughed as she tucked her head down beneath the table and kept talking to my stomach. A couple passed us, not even trying to hide their WTF faces. I waved.
“And we’re going to do so much fun stuff,” she kept going, rubbing the top of my gently moving stomach with her palm. “And I just love you so, so much.” When she sat back, her eyes were bright. “Goodness, that’s amazing.”
“You should have one,” I said slyly.
Her cheeks went pink almost immediately. “Noah said that the other day.”
“Really?” I squealed. “Oh please, please, please, get knocked up so we can have babies grow up together.”
She laughed. “I caught him looking at baby Wolves stuff the other day, and I think it’s Jude’s fault for sending that jersey at Christmas. It got him thinking about, I don’t know, everything. We’re so happy and so busy, but if you wait for life to be the perfect time to do things like get married or have babies or travel, you’ll never do it.”
“Very true.” I thought about Jude, and how if it hadn’t been for our night at the bar, and my shitty memory with birth control, he’d still be alone. I was young, so it was different for me. “Do you think Noah will propose soon?”
Her eyes sparkled happily. “I do. I overheard him asking Paige something about her ring, and he didn’t realize I was in the next room.”
“Molly!”
It was her turn to squeal. “I know!”
“Promise me something,” I said, gripping her hands with mine.
Her eyes got big at my grave tone. “What?”
“Please try not to get married like, the week of my due date. Because then my options are being as big as a whale in your wedding pictures or missing it because I’m in labor and I don’t particularly like either option.”
She laughed. “How about we wait until he proposes first, then I can worry about setting a date.” Molly nudged me under the table with her knee. “Look at you, Lee, planning ahead and everything. Did you swap personalities with Claire?”
“I know, I know.”
“Ready to go?” Molly asked.
“Yeah. I told Paige I’d help her make the dough tonight for family dinner.”
“Oooh. Pizza?”
I nodded. “Little Banana wants some.”
“Another reason me and that kid are going to get along just fine.”
I followed Molly out of the cafe and found myself glancing back at my phone screen. Wanting that glimpse felt a little bit like his tease about being addicted to scones. Two months away from Jude, and I still craved the pieces I could get. Even though the picture was in thumbnail, I stared at his face, wishing that any planning I did could include a clearer picture of what role he’d have in my life, in Little Banana’s life.
But as February came to a close, and March dawned a little warmer, a little less gloomy, we stayed exactly in the same place—getting to know each other—and I knew that I’d have to be okay with that.
JUDE
I’d learned a lot as winter thawed into an early spring in England. Not all things I wanted to learn, mind you, but I’d learned them all the same.
First, it was entirely possible to sit out of a game and still feel the amount of pressure you felt when you were starting. And losses hurt just as bad from that vantage point as well.
Second thing I learned was that I yelled. A lot.
The starting players began calling me Boss, and not necessarily as a term of endearment. My manager normally just looked back at me with raised eyebrows as he calmly watched us navigate through the middle of the season in complete and utter fucking mediocrity.
“Get your head out of his arse, Williams,” I bellowed. “Learn how to clear the ball.”
“Do you want to stand here?” Conworth asked dryly with a quick glance over his shoulder.
“No, but if you don’t do your bloody job, I will,” I muttered. The young player next to me must’ve heard me because he snorted.
I gave him a look, and his cheeks reddened.
Third, I learned with complete and utter fucking clarity that Lia might’ve been thousands of miles away from me, but I couldn’t get her out of my head for a single second. It was hell.
And the reason it was hell was because I couldn’t do anything about it, except try to forge a friendly truce until the season was over.
In the locker room after the match, a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa, I sat on the bench in front of my cubby and stared down at my phone.
She’d started sending me “bump pics” as she called them. Always right in the middle of our weekly phone calls.
I hated them.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.