It all felt like a setup.
I wanted Mom to run and hide with me, but she wouldn’t. And it tore me up. My stepsisters have their activities, their sports clubs. Cheer practice. Their friends. My stepdad John has his job. Mom has her job and her bingo buddies and her rosebushes and how can she leave all that? She’ll be fine. I was pleading on the phone from the airport, bawling my eyes out and Mom sounded upset too but told me she’d be fine.
I was terrified, so I pay Tori for semi-regular updates and occasional messages passed back and forth.
And the only saving grace I think was that at that wedding where I met Thad, he asked me about my family. This was after the creepy story he told me, so I told him all that I had was me and my mother. He asked if we were close, if the family would get to meet her and something inside me made me shake my head and say, “Naw, not likely. We aren’t close at all.”
That earlier conversation still in my mind made me say that and that might be the only reason why he didn’t go after her.
Or maybe he’s waiting until he knows where I am and that’s when he’s planning to strike. That’s when he’s going to hurt me - by first hurting her. He’s probably the type that wants to know I’ll know about it.
“Talk to me,” Jude requests.
“I can’t right now,” I whisper.
“Digesting?” he inquires.
After a minute he adds, “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you. Okay?”
I nod, still saying nothing.
“Ally, baby, talk to me.”
“I’m hungry,” I tell him and then I rise and climb out of the tub.
I grab one of the two big blue towels I got out of the cabinet under his sink and quickly wrap it around myself, then grab the other one and wrap my hair up before lifting Georgie off my suitcase to pull it out. She follows.
Jude watches, from the tub, looking male model gorgeous in the beautiful bathroom, as if posing for a photo shoot.
Once back in his room and out of his field of vision, I quickly get into my yellow Peeps onesie with the yellow marshmallow chicks all over it.
I towel dry my hair and then head down to his gorgeous kitchen and open the fridge. Not much of anything, not surprisingly since he’s been at my place. Condiments, some drinks, but that’s pretty much it.
I open the freezer. Stocked. Baka, no doubt.
But no boxed frozen dinners or pizza I can just pop in the microwave or the oven, so I go back up and fetch my phone, seeing a missed call from Carly. He’s still in the tub, lounging, eyes closed, head tipped back.
“I’m ordering fried chicken. What’s your address?”
He rises and then bends over and I hear the water going down the drain. I watch him get out, all those muscles covered in suds and water droplets, that beautiful cock hanging heavy between his gorgeous thighs.
My eyes bounce up to his as I see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“That thing you’re wearing.”
“I’m getting chicken and waffles. Do you want something?”
“I’ll do it. Lemme get dressed. You got a preferred place? I’ve got that delivery app on my phone.”
“Where is it?”
“My jeans. Code 7687.”
“Any preferences?”
“Whatever.”
“Cool,” I say fake-casually and fish his phone out of his jeans on the floor, then wander off, scrolling until I find the food delivery app on his phone.
I’ve got the urge to look at his texts. At his phone log. But I don’t. Because if there’s one thing I don’t need right now, it’s more information to chew on and “digest”.
What I do need? To stuff my face and fall asleep so that I can get to work tomorrow and have a minute to figure myself out.
I order chicken, waffles, tater tots, three kinds of salads and double order of buttered biscuits plus an apple crumble and then return Carly’s call from the bathroom on the second level. This bathroom is as big as the bathroom on the top floor, has a massive shower, but no tub. And it has one of those Juliet balcony windows. I climb out the window to go out there to call Carly back. There’s not enough room here for a table and chairs, but there’s enough room for me to sit down and make a phone call.
A girl walking her dog does a double take. Yeah. It’s not every day you see a pink-haired girl in a Peeps onesie. Whatever.
“Ally?” Carly asks. “Are you okay? Where are you? I knocked on your door.”
“Hey. Two things real quick. One: Jude kidnapped me and made me go to his place. And two: your husband is a fucking alphahole.”
“Don’t be mad at Aiden,” she replies.