Wild, Hungry Hearts

by Unknown

  Sadie’s lips parted, but nothing came out of her mouth. The color washed completely out of her face. Was she going to faint?

  “Sadie, sit down,” Esme insisted, hurrying to pull out the chair nearest to her.

  “I don’t need to sit down,” Sadie said numbly. Nevertheless, she plopped down heavily when Esme guided her toward the chair. Esme sat down next to her.

  “You saw that?” Sadie asked, a flicker of pain going through her drawn face.

  Esme just nodded.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Esme shrugged. “I guess I knew you wouldn’t want to talk about it. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

  Sadie put her hand to her forehead and clenched her eyelids shut. A pain shot through Esme at witnessing her raw distress.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Sadie said, clearly at a loss.

  “You don’t have to say anything. Well…except maybe one thing…”

  “What?” Sadie asked hoarsely, opening her eyelids.

  “Are you in love with Jude?”

  A puff of air popped out of Sadie’s throat.

  “Because I think I can handle knowing that we’ve both been with him—even if it is weird as hell—if only I knew for certain that you two weren’t still…into each other,” Esme tried to explain.

  “You think I’m into Jude?”

  “I think there’s some kind of emotion brewing between the two of you. I heard it last night, in that hallway.”

  “I’m not in love with Jude. And he’s certainly not in love with me. We never felt that way about each other,” Sadie declared starkly. “That’s one of many reasons why I’m so uncomfortable with the whole thing. It was crazy what we did. So stupid. It was a huge mistake, Esme. And I want you to know, it was just that one time, and if I hadn’t been so desperate, and drank like…a quart of vodka, it would never, ever have happened.”

  Esme sat back in her chair, a little taken aback by her sister’s wild emotion. Sadie was typically so contained. “Well…you were only eighteen years old, right? It’s not like teenagers aren’t prone to screw-ups. I mean, I could write a book on all the idiotic things I did.”

  Sadie just blinked.

  “Sadie? Are you okay?” Esme asked, a trickle of unease going through her.

  Sadie just nodded. She leaned forward and grabbed Esme’s hand. “I wouldn’t want what happened that summer to effect you, Es. It’s got nothing to do with you, or who Jude is now. Today. You get that, right?”

  Esme nodded. “I wouldn’t want Jude and I being involved now to effect you. I mean…sisters before misters, and all that.”

  Sadie shook her head adamantly. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Es. Please believe me. It was never Jude—”

  Sadie broke off, glancing around furtively. In the distance, Esme heard Ursa’s light step approaching in the great hall. Sadie squeezed her hand and gave her an earnest look.

  “I just want you to be happy,” Sadie said in a pressured whisper. “And if you’re happy with Jude, I think that’s great.”

  Esme wanted to tell her sister how much she wanted her happiness, too. She couldn’t quite understand why Sadie seemed so sad. Had Sadie’s sadness always been there, and Esme had always just been so wrapped up in her own world that she hadn’t noticed? Or was her big sister such a great actress, that she could hide her wounds so completely, even from those who loved her most?

  Ursa’s footsteps were close now.

  Instead of speaking, Esme just reached out and hugged Sadie as tight as she could.

  Grandpa Joe, Stephen, Z, and Jude had been invited over for Christmas Eve festivities at six o’clock that evening. They’d have dinner, open some gifts, play a few games they traditionally amused themselves with during the holidays, and then go to midnight mass.

  Soon after her interrupted conversation with Sadie, Esme had checked her phone and realized Jude had neither texted nor called her since she’d left the café with Mat last night.

  Which meant that he was angry with her.

  She didn’t blame him. She was mad at herself, too. Jude hadn’t done anything wrong. All he’d done last night was to try and extricate himself from a promise he’d once made to Sadie, so that he could be honest with Esme. And Esme had responded by freaking out over the emotion she felt resonating between Sadie and Jude.

  Why wouldn’t there be emotion? Sadie and Jude were bound to care about each other. Just like Esme and Z cared about each other, for instance.

  They worked their butts off to get things ready for Christmas Eve, the wedding, and Christmas dinner. All afternoon as she cooked with her sisters and Mom, she thought of Jude. She thought of Mat’s advice. She recalled how sad and distressed Sadie had been, but how sincere she’d seemed when she’d insisted Jude and her didn’t have those kinds of feelings for each other.

  A little after four o’clock, everyone finished up their preparations and went to their rooms to get ready. But Esme lingered behind until they’d all gone upstairs. Then she grabbed her coat and headed out the front door.

  She didn’t have a key for the Lodge, but she did know the garage door code. She entered the mudroom, which led to the kitchen, breathless with anxiety about being caught by Stephen or Z. They probably wouldn’t blink an eye at finding her there. But she was so nervous, she was concerned they wouldn’t believe her lie about why she was wandering around their house uninvited.

  All was quiet in the familiar kitchen. As she tiptoed down the hallway, however, she heard muted male voices in the distant living room. She wasn’t certain, but if she had to bet, she would have said the voices belonged to Stephen and Z. Hopefully, Z was coming clean about why he was so conflicted about Stephen being his uncle, and the wedding tomorrow.

  She hastened up the staircase, wincing at the occasional, inevitable squeak she made on the old stairs. A few seconds later, she opened Jude’s bedroom door without knocking and slipped inside. She pressed her back to the door to close it silently, feeling out of breath and anxious due to her home invasion. She glanced up.

  Her lungs locked.

  Jude paused in the process of exiting his bathroom, steam trailing after him. He wore nothing but a towel wrapped low around his narrow hips. A light sheen of moisture still covered his cut, muscular torso. He’d been using another towel to carelessly dry his hair, an action she’d seen him make several times now, after he showered. The recognition of this new, intimate knowledge of his habits—not to mention his blatant male gorgeousness—made Esme temporarily mute.

  He merely looked at her, his full lips slowly pressing into a frown.

  “I know I did the same to you the other day, but given everything, I kind of think these unannounced drop-ins have to stop,” he said grimly. He tossed aside the towel onto a chair and moved over to his dresser.

  “I had to see you,” she said to his rippling, glistening bare back.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked casually, jerking open a drawer. “Why’s that?”

  “You know why.”

  “I’m not really sure I do,” he said, yanking some white boxer briefs out of the drawer, then shutting it with a bang. “I’m not too sure I get what’s going on in your head at all anymore, Esme.”

  “I’m sorry about last night,” she blurted out, crossing the room toward him. “I’m sorry about running away.”

  He opened another drawer so forcefully, the contents almost spilled out onto the floor.

  “Were you always this jealous, and I just didn’t get it?” he asked with fake casualness as he rooted around what appeared to be folded T-shirts. “Or is your suspicion and jealousy just focused on Sadie?”

  “It’s just focused on Sadie and you, apparently,” she replied miserably.

  He glanced sharply over his shoulder, his eyes blazing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I’m sorry for running off like that. I should have let you try and explain. But what I overheard—it confused me so much,” she said, throwing up he
r hands helplessly. “I’ve always felt like I was playing second-string to Sadie, like I’m the understudy to the star.”

  He opened his mouth and spun around, but she pointed aggressively.

  “Don’t lecture me about it, Jude. Not when you have such a sibling thing going on with Z! Maybe it’s not right. It just is. It’s hard to shut off all those old voices going off in your head, and you know it.”

  He shut his mouth, his frown deepening. She swallowed thickly, trying to dampen the flash of emotion that had gone through her, trying to calm herself so that she could explain.

  “Overhearing you two last night…it just felt like you had all these secrets,” she said more quietly. “Like I was the outsider to them. There was so much feeling between you two. I couldn’t understand it, but somehow…I got it. I got that it was big. Important.”

  He exhaled, his taut abdomen muscles flexing.

  “I don’t know what else to say or do,” he said. “I don’t have the slightest bit of romantic interest in Sadie. And she doesn’t for me.”

  His face tightened in regret. He seemed torn.

  “Okay. Some things are more important than a promise. There was…an incident,” he said with obvious effort. “It was a long, long time ago. When we were kids. I’d have told you more about it, Es. I would have. But Sadie asked me not to—”

  “She told me. Earlier today.”

  He blinked. “She did?”

  Esme grimaced. “Kind of. I mean, she started to, and then I told her I already knew about it all.”

  He took a step toward her, a wary, puzzled expression on his face.

  “You knew what?” he asked.

  She inhaled for courage. Mat had been right. If she cared about Jude…if she cared about what was happening between them, she needed to tell him the truth. The hardest truth.

  “I told Sadie that I’d seen you. That summer. Twelve years ago,” she confessed shakily. “I came home early from art camp. I saw you two. Out by the pool. That’s why I’ve been so paranoid about you and Sadie all these years.»

  A strange expression spread on his face.

  “Us two?”

  She gave him an incredulous glance at his odd question.

  “Yeah. I saw you and Sadie together, naked,” she said, frustrated at having to spell it out when discussing this topic still felt like pouring acid on an open wound.

  “You didn’t see Mat?”

  “Mat. Why would I see—”

  She broke off, staring at Jude while her mouth fell open.

  The truth didn’t dawn on her. Instead, it punched at her from a dozen different angles.

  “Oh my God. The three of you?” she finished, shock making her vibrate like a struck gong.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jude sensed the exact moment Esme understood what had transpired between Mat, Sadie and him twelve years ago. He felt that truth hammer home inside her brain as if he was in her shoes, and hearing it for the first time.

  Imagining it all through her eyes, the whole incident struck him as really sordid. Maybe Sadie had been right to guard the secret so diligently all these years. As a grown man, he deeply regretted it’d ever happened, but his disappointment in his actions had everything to do with how it had affected Mat and Sadie. If it’d happened with strangers, then he probably would have filed it away as another crazy, drunken, hedonistic teenage moment. It hadn’t been strangers, though. And as he stared at Esme’s pale, shocked face, he started to wonder for the first time if it was even possible for her to get past this.

  He reached for her hands and pulled her over to the foot of his bed. She came willingly enough, her manner distracted.

  “Sit, Es,” he insisted quietly.

  They sat on his mattress at the same time. Still holding her hands, he chafed her wrists with his thumbs. He felt bad. Really bad, looking at her delicate, pale face and imagining what she was thinking.

  “It was just the one time,” he said.

  “I know,” she muttered hoarsely. “Sadie told me.”

  “We were hammered out of our minds. I was trying to help, and it all went so fucking wrong,” he said, his voice breaking.

  She turned her chin and regarded him with a blank stare. “Help?”

  “I was trying to get them together,” he said with a helpless shrug. “Mat and Sadie had been crazy about each other since freshman year, but one thing after another kept them from getting together. In Mat’s mind, Sadie was too good for him, and in Sadie’s, he was aloof. Uninterested. Even though in reality, it was the complete opposite. He just got all tongue-tied and messed up when he tried to talk to her. He could charm the pants off any other girl…but Sadie? He turned into a stuttering dipshit every time she was within fifty feet of him.”

  “I had no idea,” Esme said, incredulity breaking through her stunned state. “Mat and Sadie?”

  He nodded somberly.

  “But…she never said a word to me!”

  “Neither one of them talk about it. Then or now.”

  “But Mat told you.”

  “I was the only one. And he would have been better off not telling me,” he added grimly. “That afternoon by the pool…it changed everything for them. I think they might have ended up together, if we all hadn’t—”

  He broke off, frowning. He squeezed her hands. His head fell forward.

  “I’m not proud of it, Es. But I want you to know…even though I was with Sadie that afternoon, I didn’t have intercourse with her. It was her first time. And that, at least, was all about Mat. To be honest, once those two touched each other, I might as well have been invisible.”

  “I don’t understand. I saw you two. Not Mat. You were naked and kissing.”

  Regret stabbed at him. What he wouldn’t give to be able to erase that image from Esme’s brain. He realized Esme would give a hell of a lot more for the same thing. He groaned.

  “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry you saw that. Over the years, I can’t tell you how many times I was grateful we weren’t caught by anyone, but most especially you. Imagining it always made me cringe, and now to find out you really did see us—”

  He winced, lapsing into an uncomfortable silence.

  “I think I know why you just saw Sadie and me,” he said quietly after a moment.

  “Why?”

  “At one point, Mat had gone inside to get some condoms from my room.”

  His head came up when he heard Esme’s soft whimper. She looked distraught. He squeezed her hands tighter.

  “You can ask Sadie. What I said about not having intercourse with her is true, Es.”

  Her face screwed up, as if she were trying to understand something truly incomprehensible.

  “I’m not sure if that matters, one way or another. Does it, Jude?”

  Her shaky uncertainty was so unlike the bold Esme he knew, he felt a tremor of panic go through him.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Over the years, I’ve thought about it a lot. And what I’ve realized is that what was wrong about it all isn’t so much that three teenagers got drunk and fooled around by the pool. It was because it was us that made it so wrong. Mat was my best friend, and I cared about Sadie, but mostly it was fucked up because…”

  “Sadie and Mat loved each other like a couple.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, lowering his head. “And the next morning, they had to face the ugly reality that what should have been special and intimate between them had turned into a drunken, sordid mess.”

  “Do you really think that? That it was sordid?”

  He glanced over at the sound of her soft voice.

  “I’m seeing it through your eyes right now, I think. But no, it didn’t seem sordid to me at the time. I regretted it like hell over the years, but still, it didn’t seem…” He frowned, trying to find the words. “Sleazy or disgusting or something. In fact—”

  “What?”

  He hesitated, studying her face. Talking about this was a hell of a lot harder than
he’d realized it would be.

  “Tell me, Jude,” she said.

  “Sweet,” he confessed gruffly. “Innocent. It was a mistake, what we did, but there was love there, Es,” he said, praying the whole time she’d understand. She just stared at him solemnly with enormous, glistening eyes.

  “But now, I think…Jesus. That was Sadie’s first time.” He grimaced. “I really did fuck things up.”

  “Sounds to me like you all did.”

  Her statement sounded firm. There was no heat or misery in what she said…No judgment beyond the obvious. She seemed so faraway from him in that moment. Detached somehow. A heavy, sickening sense of dread constricted his chest.

  “Am I going to lose you over this?” he asked.

  She turned and looked at him, her expression unreadable.

  “Lose me? Is that something you’re concerned about?”

  He lifted his hand and cradled her delicate jaw. She had the most beautiful face in the world. A treasure. That’s what he held in his hand. He would never get tired of looking at her.

  “I’m not just concerned, Es. I’m afraid. All of a sudden, I’m really afraid,” he admitted.

  She just stared up at him. She seemed more solemn than she had been at her father’s funeral.

  “I’m still soaking it all in,” she finally said. “It’s hard. It hurts, imagining it all. I hurt thinking of Mat and Sadie. You. Me.”

  He feathered his thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m so sorry to hurt you, baby. I know it sounds lame to say it again. But it was a mistake I made when I was a teenager.”

  She nodded, and a single tear spilled onto his thumb. He felt himself fracturing inside at its tiny impact. He saw her neck convulse as she swallowed.

  “Now I get why you said that thing last night, about how it killed you to see Mat and Sadie together,” she sniffed. “I couldn’t make sense of that. I thought maybe you meant that it hurt you, to see her with another guy.”

  “No. They’re so miserable when they see each other. So uncomfortable. I don’t think Sadie has ever gotten over what happened…or that Mat married Shelly soon afterward. And Mat is just miserable, period, and determined to suffer alone. You haven’t noticed?”