by Amity Cross
“A best actor award thing,” he said like it didn’t mean anything. “Then I got stuck on this last minute press junket because you’re meant to campaign for these things if you want to win them. It was totally stupid.”
“Jude,” I snapped. “Why couldn’t you have just told me that?”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said with a shrug.
“But it is, and I was here thinking you were an asshole. I would’ve understood—”
“You thought I was an asshole?” he asked, his lips quirking in that unbelievably sexy way that had me struggling with the skin tone in my cheeks.
“A really big one,” I shot back at him. “I was thinking about going back to Atlanta and being a loser there.”
“You’re not a loser,” he said, but I wasn’t listening.
“I’m a loser in New York,” I exclaimed. “All these people and here I am walking the streets on my own like a loser. It’s less confronting to be a loser in a smaller city. Especially one you live in because people expect you to be alone from time to time. You can get away with—”
Jude placed his hand over my mouth, and instantly, I began to malfunction.
“Lux.”
My eyes widened as he stared at me, his lips curving.
“Have you calmed down now?”
I nodded, and he let his hand fall away.
“You got nominated for an award?” I asked breathlessly.
Jude nodded, a lock of hair falling in his eyes. “No big deal.”
“You’re infuriating sometimes, you know that?”
He seemed so nonchalant about things he should be cartwheeling through the streets about, and it peeved me off no end. He’d been the same way about taking my card all that time ago.
“I don’t take stock in awards,” he said sincerely. “Think of chasing that your entire career and not getting it until you’re like eighty or ninety. A lifetime chasing some kind of validity that’s nothing more than a popularity contest.” He shook his head, his gaze fixed on mine. “What an unbelievable waste of time.”
My mouth fell open. This was Jude Atwood? The Jude Atwood who was in an on-off relationship with the biggest fake in the business? I couldn’t believe it.
He smiled at my reaction and linked his arm through mine. “C’mon. Let’s get a cab.”
I let him guide me through the square to the road while my head spun around and around like I was in the Exorcist. I knew he was a pretty smart guy, but he’d just spouted off the most profound thing I’d ever heard in my entire life like he was the human version of Yoda. Jude wasn’t a fake—he was real. I’d always thought it, and I always hoped that it would be true.
When we reached the street, Jude stuck his hand in the air like he was a local, waving down a yellow taxi that had its light switched on. It came to a stop next to us, and he opened the door, climbing in first. I slid in next to him as he gave the driver our destination.
“Corner of Fifth and East Sixtieth Street.”
As the taxi took off through the evening traffic, I turned to Jude. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he declared smugly.
“It’s also late.”
“Lux, it’s like ten p.m. It’s hardly a scandalous hour.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve,” I complained.
“Afraid you’ll be going home when Santa is trying to deliver your presents?” he asked with a chuckle.
I rolled my eyes. “Asshole.”
“Have a little patience,” he said, bumping my shoulder with his. “You’ll see where we’re going soon enough.”
The ride only took ten minutes straight uptown. We were let out at the corner across from the park, and my mind raced through all the possibilities for our adventure while we waited for the traffic lights to change. As they flicked to green, I was still firing blanks.
Crossing the street, which was still quite busy considering what time of year it was, we ventured straight into Central Park. Jude led the way with confidence while I was left wondering if he was taking me someplace secluded to chop me up into little bits.
“Lux?”
I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. “Yeah?”
“I was a jerk the other week,” he said sheepishly. “All that family stuff.”
“Were you feeling bad about that all this time?”
“Kinda.” He stopped just as we were about to turn a corner. “We’re here.”
I glanced around at the empty path, the trees hiding most of the city around us from view. If it wasn’t for the artificial glow dulling the stars above, I would’ve been forgiven for thinking we were in the middle of a forest someplace.
“This is it?” I asked, confused.
“No,” he said with a laugh. “Around the corner. I want to unveil it to you.” Pulling me forward, he waved grandly, a huge grin on his face. “Ta da!”
Coming to a stop, I stared at the white expanse of ice lit up underneath huge floodlights, and I began to tingle. Ice skating? It was very American and very Christmas, which meant I may as well be standing on Mars.
“Ice skating?” I asked him warily.
“The whole thing is ours for the rest of the night.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve. Surely people want to skate?” It must’ve cost him a pretty penny to book out the entire Central Park ice rink. He did this for me? Lux Dawson, desperado dork?
He grinned, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. “Too bad, so sad.”
“How… How…” I was lost for words, and like a broken record, all I could say was how.
“If you’ve got enough money, you can do just about anything,” he said like it didn’t matter, but to someone like me, someone whose life was pretty much nothing up until six or so months ago, it mattered.
I opened my mouth to complain. “But—”
“What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t spend it on the people I care about.”
Before I could reply, Jude grabbed my hand and pulled me down the path. I followed blindly, hardly daring to believe the words he’d said with relative ease. He cared about me.
An attendant was waiting for us as we stopped beside the rink, and we were guided to a booth where we swapped our shoes for skates. Perching on a bench, I slid my feet into them as Jude knelt in front of me.
“I’ve never done this before, just so you know,” I said, trying to warn him that this was going to be a disaster.
“Have you roller-skated before?” he asked, lacing me into my skates.
“No. Never. Deprived childhood and all.”
“Well, it’s all about balance,” he said, moving to my other foot and strapping me in. “Center of gravity and all of that.”
“Is it slippery?”
He winked. “Very.”
Sitting next to me, he pulled on his own skates before standing and holding out his hands. I grasped them in my own, and he pulled me upright. I wobbled as I got used to the strange sensation of having blades on my feet.
“Okay?” he asked, letting my hands go.
“Okay.” I couldn’t chicken out, not after he’d gone to all this trouble, so I edged my way toward the ice.
Hesitating at the edge, Jude stepped out and glided along before turning back for me.
“C’mon,” he said, gesturing for me to follow. “Nice and easy.”
Taking a deep breath, I edged forward until I’d left the nonslip ground behind. I slid across the ice, and it was so quick and smooth, I instantly began to wobble. My arms went straight out and I flailed, trying to get my balance. Jude appeared in front of me, skating like a bloody professional, and he caught me in his arms before I could fall flat on my face.
Holding me against his chest, he laughed. “Don’t fall on your ass just yet.”
“You say it like it’s a given.”
“It probably is,” he shot back.
“Is there anything you’re not good at? It’s humiliating.”
“There are plenty of things I’m shit at, Lu
x.”
He was still holding onto me, and I hoped he wouldn’t let go. Being in Jude’s arms, even if it was only to save me from myself, was otherworldly.
“Yeah? Like what?” I asked.
“Open-heart surgery, quantum physics…”
“Smart-ass.”
His chest rose and fell as he laughed. “Okay, let’s do a lap.”
“Don’t let go of me,” I cried, winding my arms around his waist.
There were several layers between my hands and his back, but I could feel how warm he was. I’d seen him shirtless and in his undies in photos and on the show, so I didn’t have to use my brain that hard to imagine what was underneath it all. My arms were around a body that resembled one of the ancient Greek marble statues that I’d seen at the MET the other day.
Jude pulled away, and his hand found mine. “We’ll go slow until you get used to it,” he said. “Hold onto me, okay?”
He didn’t have to worry about that. There was no way in hell I was ever letting go.
Finding my center of gravity, I began to move, sliding slowly forward.
“That’s it,” Jude said. “Keep going.”
Latching onto his encouragement, I kept moving, working my way around the edge with his hand wedged in mine. A few flakes of snow began to spiral down from the sky above, making the empty rink seem even more magical.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked as we accelerated from the pace of a sloth to a snail.
“Sure,” I replied slowly, tightening my grip on his hand like it was my lifeline.
“What do you want out of life? Out of being here, writing on Naturals?”
Pretending to focus on my skating, I frowned. Talk about a loaded question.
“Honestly,” he prodded.
“I didn’t expect this,” I murmured, staring at the tiny flakes of snow hitting the ice at my feet. They melted on contact, dissolving into nothing. “Everything that I was, was hiding away, writing the life I wished I had. If I couldn’t have it, I was happy with that. Writing and living on the inside. Going through the motions.”
“And now?” he asked gently.
“I want to write and—” I bit my bottom lip, my throat feeling thick.
“And what?”
I couldn’t lie to Jude. Not if he asked me outright. “Love.”
The word hung in the air like this heavy, awful thing, and I shrugged.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said, his voice filled with a strange emotion I couldn’t pinpoint. Was it sadness? Longing? Hopefulness? Resentment? I had no idea.
Leaning against the railing, I took a deep breath. “Since we’re being honest and all, can I ask you something?”
He eyed me warily, but he nodded. “Sure.”
“Sharon said that you pushed for them to hire me.”
Jude paused, his gaze dropping. “She said that?”
“Is it true?”
He nodded, the snow sticking in his hair.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I saw something in you,” he said firmly, his gaze meeting mine.
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
“I’ve told you before, Lux—”
“But you didn’t tell me that you wanted them to hire me that much,” I complained. “I thought all you did was give her my books, not plead my case or anything.”
“Lux,” he said, his eyes darkening. “Your work is good. You deserve it.”
I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to ask the one question I was dying to spill forth. Was that the only reason?
I pushed off the railing and balanced, holding my hands out. Watching as flakes of snow hit my skin and melted, I wished I had the foresight to bring gloves...and something to guard my heart.
I didn’t want to break the spell that this city had cast over us. We’d be back on a plane to Atlanta soon enough, and this little pit stop would be over. Reality would come creeping back in and sink its claws into my heart. I just wanted to stay in this New York bubble and pretend for as long as I could.
We hadn’t been physically intimate, there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening, but the things we talked about seemed to resonate on a deeper level than any touch could. Our conversations seemed special and sacred, like we’d been walking hand-in-hand over hallowed ground…but for all the secrets we shared, there was something still separating us. For the life of me, I didn’t know what it was. Every time I tried to grasp it, the notion evaporated into the air like it was never there to begin with.
How could two people share something so intimate but still be strangers?
For all the parts of him that I knew, there were ten thousand that I didn’t. I thought of all the things I wanted to ask him, and the moment we were together, I forgot them all. There was something there between us that stopped me from opening my mouth, something more than Tessa, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been broken. Maybe he’d been through something too.
What I did know was that I wanted him to grab me, push me against the wall, and kiss me like it was the only thing keeping him alive. I wanted his hands all over me, on my face, in my hair, on my waist, my back, my breasts, his hands between my legs… I wanted it so much that sometimes it was all I could think about.
But if all of this was just a dream—a delusional nightmare, abstruse and figmental—then maybe I should kill my dream self so I could wake up.
He watched my changing expression with unmasked curiosity, but he didn’t ask me once to divulge the reason behind them. This whole trip, this Christmas Eve rendezvous…this suddenly felt like more without it actually being more. It didn’t make sense.
I wanted to ask him what exactly we were doing, but I was afraid of ruining the moment and losing him forever. So, the things that I wanted, the intense physical that told me we were more, were pushed aside. Maybe I was my own worst enemy.
Jude skated out of reach, leaving me to wobble unsteadily, and held his hands out.
“Hey,” I exclaimed, feeling like I was going to fall on my ass at any second.
“Here,” he said, gesturing for me to take his hands in mine. “I’ve got you.”
Reaching out, I grasped his hands, and he began to move, spinning me in a circle that went faster and faster.
“Jude!” I exclaimed.
“Don’t let go,” he said, smiling. “Hold on, Lux.”
As he spun me around on the ice, I knew he’d always hold a special place in my heart. All that stuff that’d gone through my mind…it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. This right here, this magical moment on an empty ice skating rink in Central Park, the snow falling thicker and thicker from the blackened night sky, the uncontrollable spinning, the raw and real things we shared… The pain of not having him was worth it for this one special moment.
This was what I’d been craving my entire life.
For this tiny pinprick of time, I mattered.
Episode Twenty
Winter Is Coming
We never made it to New Year’s Eve.
The day after our Christmas on Ice in Central Park, he got a call that took him away. Some contractual obligation for the network to do with the award or something, but I wasn’t exactly sure because I was too disappointed to focus on the details.
It meant that our grand plan to brave the crowds and hit up Times Square to watch the ball drop was shot to pieces. It didn’t feel the same without him there, so I went back to Atlanta on the next flight that was available. The short time we’d had together was magical¸ and even though he’d left, I was still floating on air.
I was currently curled up on one of the couches in the common room at the Starscape offices. Apart from some of the admin staff, I was the only goose in here. Footsteps echoed down the hall, and I glanced up as Maisy wandered into my line of vision. Two writers in the empty, desolate, holiday wasteland of the Starscape offices.
“Hey,” she said, sitting ne
xt to me. “You’re back in town early.”
“I was away solo,” I replied, something inside of me wanting to keep mine and Jude’s interlude on the down low. “I got a little bored, so I just came back.”
“Where were you?”
“New York.”
“You were bored in New York?” She threw her hands into the air in mock exasperation. “I kinda get it though. It can get clogged to the extreme over the holidays.”
“I’m not used to the huge crowds,” I agreed. “I was going to do the whole Times Square thing, but the thought of that many people squished in there… Yeah, nah.”
“I love how you say yeah, then nah when you can just say no. You Aussies are a hoot,” she said with a giggle. “Are you coming to the party this weekend?”
“Party?” I asked, with a frown.
“Oh, Lux, haven’t you been checking your email? There should be one in there for our annual Naturals Christmas party.”
“No, I’ve been switched off for the holidays,” I replied. “But Christmas is already over, why are they having a party now?”
“People want to have time with their families,” Maisy said. “So, we have a belated party when everyone gets back. We get the pick of the best places in town with a better rate on food and drinks then, too. It’s the week before we start filming again and right before the awards season starts, so it’s perfect timing.”
“Don’t the Emmy’s happen in September or something?” I asked.
“Yeah, but most of the others are early in the year. Sharon thinks we’ll have a shot at some nominations for the big ones this time around. So, are you coming?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Cool. It’s always a great time. Open bar, music, dancing. It’s a real chance to let our hair down before filming the tail end of the season. You’ll love it.”
“Shit,” I cursed, straightening up and shoving my things into my bag. “I’ve got to find something to wear.”
Maisy laughed, shaking her head. “I hear you on that one.”
“Do you want to come?” I asked hopefully. “If you’re not busy, that is. I’m terrible at the whole shopping thing.”
“Shopping?” she asked, feigning surprise. “Thought you’d never ask.”
