Hours later, however, I hadn’t found anything. I’d also texted Sierra a couple times and had not heard back.
I was sitting on my couch and now I shoved my laptop away, pressing my wrists into my eyes. I thought of Sierra beneath me, naked and wide-eyed and gorgeous. I thought of the way our bodies had fit together, how we flew in perfect sync, and how we had always always been there for each other.
You really think Sierra Lowell would choose you?... My little disappointment.
I had to get out. I felt edgy at home with my thoughts and I wasn’t used to sulking like this. It was not my usual M.O.
I ended up heading uptown and then walking to the cemetery where my mom was buried with a little bottle of whiskey in a paper bag. It was a little trash, sure. But it had been my habit for a couple years right after my mother had died, to go visiting her grave with some whiskey. Sometimes Sierra had come with me. I ended up sitting on the grass but not drinking too much. I never wanted to become that guy who just got wasted whenever they were down. I wallowed from time to time, but I’d always been a man of action before.
Except, I didn’t know what the right move was now.
Sierra was moving beyond me and I couldn’t make her stop and wouldn’t want to. If she didn’t love me, she didn’t love me. I sniffed and sat back on my elbows, staring up at the sky and closed my eyes, feeling the warm breeze on my face. I thought of her flying. I’d felt so utterly complete and I guess if I was honest, that was always how I felt when I was with Sierra.
I thought of seeing her at that banquet and how perfectly in her element she had looked as she worked the room. Eddie had looked perfectly in his element too. I could fake it, but as much as I was used to that world, I’d never really fit into it.
Maybe I just didn’t fit into her life at all anymore.
Sierra and I ended up trading a few awkward texts back and forth about meeting to work on her piece about me, or I suppose, about us but on Wednesday I put on a nice suit and left for Mercy West to go do my duty as the good son even though I didn’t feel like one. It was beyond galling to have to smile in front of cameras with my father’s arm around me after he’d basically called me worthless to my face.
I’d done a million of these things before and I knew the routine as the two of us stood in the lobby of Mercy West and shook hands with the hospital’s board chairman. The press was there in full force and I knew my dad wouldn’t want me talking much beyond bland and routine answers. There was a quick photo op and a little speech during which they unveiled a shiny plaque that read Fairchild Corp. Wing in front of a bronze Fairchild sports car statue.
Then, I got a microphone in my face and suddenly… I couldn’t help myself.
“Jude!” The reporter said. “Are you proud of your father today?”
I almost choked saying, “Yes.” I plastered a big, phony smile on my face. Maybe I would have been fine if the reporter had stopped there. I could feel the camera right on me. I could also feel the tension coming off my father in waves. He didn’t trust me not to fuck things up. That really made me want to deliberately fuck things up.
“Jude, you do a lot of work with this program visiting hospitalized children, what are your hopes for the future of this program?”
My dad was standing right next to me and I felt his hand grip the back of my neck even as he smiled at the reporter and opened his mouth to answer on my behalf. Suddenly, I felt like a ventriloquist’s dummy. It wasn’t enough that he thought I was worthless, he couldn’t stand to let me speak for myself either.
My dad was saying, “Jude thinks, as I do, that our continuing work-”
“Fairchild gave the absolute minimum,” I said loudly and crisply into the microphone. “We gave the minimum to set up a wing in our name for the press. Which isn’t nothing but for us, it’s kinda nothing. I’d love to expand our program to be more helpful to not only ill but underprivileged children in a way that really matters, but you’d have to ask my father about that.”
My dad was frozen. I’d expected him to turn red with anger, but instead the blood had drained from his face. It was sort of entertaining to watch his mouth open and close like a fish. But the hand at the back of my neck squeezed tighter and tighter until I clenched my teeth and physically pushed him off me, though I tried to at least be covert about it for the cameras.
“Wow,” the reporter said. It almost made me laugh. The reporter’s eyes were wide. She knew she’d just gotten an amazing quote. “Thank you, Jude!”
My father was saying, “I’d like to add to that-” But several reporters, having heard the exchange, were barking fresh questions at him. They were also barking at me, but I was done. I raised my hands in surrender and walked out of the hospital lobby and down a corridor, looking for a restroom where I could perhaps punch a wall, I was so riled up with both frustration and triumph.
When I found an empty restroom, I slammed inside and leaned back against the door, clenching my teeth before howling low into my hands. Maybe it had been stupid what I’d said, but I felt good about it anyway. Let my dad be pissed. Nothing I’d said was untrue and fuck him to begin with.
I breathed deep and went to a sink to splash some water on my face and get myself together.
My first instinct was to call Sierra but things were weird between us now and it didn’t feel right even though everything in me wanted to call her immediately. I needed my friend.
My mate…
I squeezed my eyes shut. Thinking of her that way only led to trouble and yet it felt so true.
The door blew open and I jerked, standing up straight as my father burst in.
“What the hell was that?” My father said, practically growling. “You worthless piece of shit, you sorry excuse for a dragon, what the hell was that?”
I started to answer but my father grabbed me by the collar and suddenly he was slamming me up against the bathroom wall, in my face and radiating his dragon’s fire. The infuriating part was, I could take him easily. I was a whole lot stronger than him and I’d won fights against guys even bigger than me in both human and dragon form. He knew that. He was counting on me not fighting back. He thought I was too soft and he was wrong.
“You think that was funny? You think humiliating me like that is funny?” My dad spat.
“Jesus Christ, dad. What’s the big deal? Just throw some more money at my charity. You’ve got plenty of it, you stingy dick.” I shoved him back so hard that he stumbled and tripped, falling to the ground.
That made me feel pretty good.
“And don’t touch me again, old man,” I snarled. “Or we can take this into the skies and I can rip your throat out. I’ll see you at the Draceryn Gather. Later, pops.”
I stepped over him and stomped out the door and I found myself stifling a smile as I made my way down the corridor and past the mob of reporters who once again shouted questions at me as I shoved past them and out the door to my waiting car.
It was only as I rode back to my apartment that I started to feel shitty. There’s only so many times your dad can call you worthless before it starts to get in your head. But worse than that, even when he didn’t say it outright like he had the other day, there was always the unspoken knowledge that he still blamed me for my mother’s death. Sierra had tried to convince me otherwise forever, but it was hard to dismiss. It felt like a card my father could always play.
My phone buzzed and it was a text from Sierra.
Can we meet tonight for interview?
“Shit.”
Her big piece on me, or on us, I guess. The thought was not exactly enchanting right now. But I could never deny Sierra anything. I told her to come to my place, and we’d have dinner and she could question me all she wanted. I couldn’t imagine how that would go.
“Hi.” Sierra stood in my door, frozen there for a moment. It was as if we’d only just met each other.
I’d also dressed too nicely for this. It was like I was on a date. Everything about this was already w
eird.
“Hey.” I stepped back, frowning and tipped my head. “You...coming in?”
“Yeah!” Sierra smiled tightly. It was one of those totally awkward, artificial smiles you give to strangers when you don’t know what to do with your face.
It made me feel almost as bad as what my father had said to me.
“I ordered some Thai food,” I said, shrugging. “Hope that’s cool.”
“Yes! Totally!” Her voice was too high. She was dressed too nice too. She was wearing a blouse and a black pencil skirt like she was reporting to temp as a receptionist. I hoped that meant she’d had some meeting and just come from there. If she’d dressed that way for me, it felt like a terrible sign. I’d seen Sierra in three-day-old sweatpants and baggy t-shirts stained with cheeseburger grease. I couldn’t imagine a reason she’d dress like an executive assistant on her first day just to come to my place and talk to me, unless she felt as off kilter as I did. And if so, what the hell did we do about it?
“You’re acting weird,” I said, sighing.
She nodded and sat down on the couch, but she at least relaxed a little, her shoulders dropping. “I don’t know how to act.”
“Like usual? Like nothing is different? That would be ideal.” I said. I went to the kitchen to get us sodas and when I came back, she looked crestfallen. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said. But I heard the strange creak in her voice. She shook her shoulders as if shaking out the awkwardness. “Right. No, you’re right. I mean we’re adults, aren’t we? Just...we’re adults. We should act adult about it.”
“I just can’t lose you as a friend,” I said, squinting. “I think it would kill me.”
Sierra’s eyes seemed glassy, but she nodded. “It would kill me too,” she whispered. “Besides, we shouldn’t be acting weird. The sex was-”
“Great,” I said, shaking my head. “Amazing.”
“Earth shattering,” Sierra murmured.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.
I can do this, I told myself. She broke my heart a long time ago. This isn’t even new.
“Right,” Sierra said, laughing a little. “Now that’s out of the way, how about this interview? We can channel all our weirdness into that?”
“Sounds good.” I scratched my head and Sierra flipped open her laptop. When there was a knock at the door, I sprang to my feet to meet the delivery guy. Maybe food would ease us into this thing.
“How’s things with the old man?” Sierra said warily as I set out our food on the coffee table a couple minutes later. “Still an asshole?”
“Don’t you know it,” I muttered, sitting down to dig into my Pad Thai. “I just got real mouthy about him to a reporter. I’m sure you’ll hear about it. Maybe it’s a good place to start in your piece even.”
“Ooh.” Sierra lit up at that. “I would be a good place. I like that you were mouthy. You should tell him to fuck off. Let him take your money.”
“It’s my mother’s money,” I grumbled. “Mostly.”
Sierra regarded me and we ate in silence. I was quiet, still hung up on what my father had said to me and all the other shit he’d been saying to me lately. It was stuff that maybe I’d used to be able to brush off. But I wasn’t feeling my usual confident self lately. I suppose it was because Sierra was back and I had to agree with my dad; she wasn’t going to choose me. It didn’t make me feel awesome.
“Jude,” Sierra whispered. She’d stopped eating and now she looked at me sadly. With pity, I thought. It only made me feel worse. “Don’t take that bullshit to heart. You know better.”
I couldn’t handle Sierra being sweet to me. Not now. It made me want to go shift and breathe fire and get in a fight for no good reason just to shake off that pitying expression.
“Sierra,” I said, trying to look convincingly devil-may-care, “I am just fine. Let’s do this interview. Oh hey, that Draceryn Gathering is coming up soon. I’m sure that’ll factor into it. You’ll just have to write around the fact that it’s a bunch of dragons being dragons.”
Sierra actually cackled at that and I inwardly felt a little smug that I’d been able to distract her. Things really were off between us if she couldn’t see that immediately. But that worked to my advantage right now. I just couldn’t take Sierra being sweet much less pitying right now. I needed things to be easy.
“Yeah, I’ve done that before,” Sierra said, laughing as she poked at her noodles. “When writing about shifter circles? Then I find out the humans want to know why they weren’t included in some party or event and they can’t figure it out? It’s pretty hilarious.”
“Well, socialites are always hilarious,” I muttered. “Anyway. Let’s go. Hit me with your questions.”
Sierra nodded and said, “Okay. First of all, tell me why you love racing cars?”
I started talking and soon enough it did get easier. It even started to feel like old times; just two friends having a conversation. I talked about growing up a Fairchild around the company and how racing made me feel alive (like flying) but helping kids made me feel good. Sierra herself factored into a lot of it. She was just so inextricably factored into my life that it was impossible to talk about myself for long without her becoming part of the story. She recorded our conversation while also making notes. We also talked about growing up shifters and how much more intense being the children of aristocratic dragons could be culturally. There was so much expected of us, especially in terms of tradition. My own father was more reformed. He just hated me because my mother had died and I was more like her than him, but Sierra had the really old-fashioned parents. They didn’t seem to care about anything but getting her married off to the right type of shifter.
We talked about that too which was how Eddie came up in conversation.
“How are things going with that?” I said, summing up every bit of will not to sound terribly jealous. “I hope what we did together didn’t...you know-”
“No,” Sierra said. She sounded funny too and just like that, things were a little weird again. “I wasn’t dating Eddie. I wasn’t... I’m not. I mean, I might. I’m giving him a chance. But I wouldn’t have cheated on him, Jude. You know that-”
“I know, I know.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “I didn’t mean to imply that you would.”
“Right.”
Just like that, neither of us had anything to say. But I had one pressing question that itched in my head like hives and I couldn’t stop my mouth from blurting out: “Are you sure he’s a good guy?”
“Jude.” Sierra narrowed her eyes. “I know he’s the kind of guy you roll your eyes at-”
“That’s not what I mean. I just get a bad feeling.”
“You’re a protective friend.” Sierra had been sprawled on the couch, her bare feet crossed at her ankles. Now she stood and stretched and I pretended to stare at her legs. She picked up her laptop, and I already missed her. “I get it. But Eddie is fine. I should go.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. I might be able to take my dad or Eddie in a fight, but I still managed to screw up basic interactions. It was like a tick. “I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s okay.” Sierra leaned over and tousled my hair and I closed my eyes, savouring that simple touch. “I’ll see you at the Draceryn Gathering, okay?”
“Right,” I said, staring down at my hands.
Then she was gone.
Chapter Ten: Sierra
I’ve wanted to kill Jude’s dad plenty of times, but after seeing how much Jude was trying to pretend his dad wasn’t getting to him when he clearly was, I wanted to breathe fire right in his face. Jude can carry me with one hand and he could take anyone in a fight yet he can’t seem to fight off the damage his dad does to his head. He’d never been able to since his mother died. I started the piece of Jude and I and I ended up writing a lot about his mother’s death. It would have to be edited down and revised a lot. When I write in a first draft, I tend to rant and then streamline things later. I w
as projecting all my rage onto Mr. Fairchild in his draft. But I couldn't help but think he deserved it.
In the meantime, there was Eddie and maintaining this new, adult version of friendship with Jude. If my heart felt completely shattered because Jude only wanted things to go back to “the usual,” well that was my problem. It was only what I’d expected. I knew what I wanted. Or I thought I did. It was time to forge ahead and forget about teenage crushes that would only end up hurting the both of us.
In the interest of forging ahead, I let my mother pick my outfit for the upcoming Draceryn Gathering. I let Eddie take me to lunch. He seemed to be letting me set the pace and I appreciated that. Sometimes I looked at the way he spoke to people in his stilted formal manner and I did think there was something off about him just like Jude had said. But I put it down to fear. I had cold feet about a real adult relationship and about the possibility of a real mate. That was the only explanation. There was nothing wrong with Eddie even if his eyes seemed to twitch when I talked about my career aspirations. I was sure I was just seeing things. He was perfect.
He was so perfect, my parents were taking him as our guest to the Draceryn Gathering. That was like publicly saying we were engaged even though there had been no talk of that yet.
I was on pins and needles about the whole thing. I spent the days leading up to this traditional gathering of the most important dragon shifters in New York writing, revising, and tuning out my mother who was mildly obsessed with my make-up. All she talked about was the gathering, and yet the day seemed to take me by surprise anyway.
The style of dress for the Draceryn Gathering had changed somewhat over the years. It used to be more formal; ball gowns and tuxedos. Now everyone wore sophisticated but not super formal wear. The whole thing had the feel of a White Party in the Hamptons. It took place at a massive estate owned by one of the oldest and by far the most respected aristocratic dragons on the east coast. It was sort of like going to a Gatsby party if Jay Gatsby had been a dragon. But things weren’t nearly as wild. They were staid and rather dull but they were very pretty to look at and as stuffy as the event could be, there was always a lot of gossip that came out of it.
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