Sure, I’d probably idealized him in my mind. I knew this, but I didn’t even care. I needed a father figure, even if that father figure was a fantasy based on a real person who’d given me a glimpse of kindness, and I’d run with it.
He was the one who would one day come back and be a real father to me.
Of course, he never did, but at least I had the fantasy.
The purple monkey he’d left behind was a symbol of hope and that man’s kindness to me, however brief. It was the only tangible evidence I had from my youngest years that any sort of father figure had ever cared about me.
In my fantasies, the purple monkey was a talisman, a protective charm, purposely left behind to keep me safe by someone who cared.
I knew it was silly, even when I was young.
But it still meant something to me.
He gave me the monkey when I was a baby, and he left when I was five. My mom told me, many times, that he wasn’t my real dad—as if that somehow made his leaving irrelevant. And after he’d left, when I cried about it for days, she couldn’t even seem to understand why.
He’s not your dad, Roni girl, she told me. And I told him not to come back. I don’t love him. You want me to spend my life with a man I don’t love, to make you happy?
That, or some version of that, was what she’d said every time I cried or asked if he would come back to see me.
So eventually, I stopped asking, and I stopped crying about it in front of my mom. But I still hoped.
For years, actually, until I was about twelve or so, I hoped.
Which was why I put the monkey in baby Nick’s crib. Because no matter what happened, he’d always have his Auntie Roni looking out for him. And the monkey would be my assurance that even if I wasn’t here to give him a hug or tell him everything would be alright, or listen to whatever had made him upset, he’d have his purple monkey to hold onto, just like I did.
Whoever said I wasn’t sentimental didn’t know jack shit about me.
I could be sentimental as hell.
I still had, of all things, the ticket from that Dirty show at the Back Door where Jude stomped on my heart.
Why? Tangible evidence.
That little bit of something I could look at and touch was proof to me of everything that had happened between us and what we’d almost had… even if it had ended badly.
Even if it was going to end badly all over again.
It had been three days since we’d fought and Jude had stormed out of my place, and I had no idea how long he’d be gone this time.
Days?
Years?
Maybe I couldn’t even blame him for disappearing. But I was not about to go running after him.
I just couldn’t. Not after everything we’d been through. All the times he’d pushed me away… I couldn’t put myself out there again and risk him rejecting me, again.
I was strong. I’d always been strong. Maybe because so many early experiences in my life had abraded me until I had to be outwardly tough to survive. Something like that. But I really didn’t want to stand there, face-to-face with Jude Grayson, ever again, and have him turn me down, push me away.
Because maybe it would be that push that would be the one that would shatter my heart, irreversibly.
To that end, I knew I was holding myself back, even when I was with him.
Protecting myself.
Drinking too much to give myself an excuse to lose my inhibitions with him. Flirting instead of being straight with him. Using sex and our whole stupid “fuck buddy” arrangement to get close to him without actually getting close.
He was protecting himself, too.
I knew he was.
I knew I’d hurt him too, long ago.
And so, we were both playing the game. A game neither of us was willing to lose.
Making carefully-calculated moves.
He stepped forward, I pulled back. And vice versa.
But we still weren’t actually having a relationship with one another.
I wondered if we would ever be able to make any kind of a real relationship work, or if he’d ever even wanted to.
I wondered if it was already over before it had begun.
Just like the last time.
And all the times before that.
After Jude took my hand in that bar and told me we’re not goin’ down that road, you better believe I stayed the hell away from him.
Days became weeks, and then months passed.
Almost two years passed.
At some point, I started dating Ben, one of Piper’s best friends and a King who went by the road name Blazer. Unlike Piper, Ben had pursued me. It was fun, sometimes, but we weren’t always the world’s best match. We were on and off and on again. He treated me with respect, mostly, but like my other relationships with men—other than Jude—it wasn’t deep.
Meanwhile, Jessa had kept doing whatever she was doing with Seth. But things between them seemed rocky and about as on and off as Ben and me.
Dirty had landed a record deal off their demo. Even when it happened, I didn’t realize what a life-changing thing that would be for them.
Or how much farther it would take Jude away from me.
Brody had gotten some huge inheritance when his dad died, and he bought a house in North Vancouver which became the band’s party palace. But I never went to those parties. Dirty’s debut album, Love Struck, was released and they had a number one hit right out of the gate with “Dirty Like Me,” a song Jessa had co-written. She’d co-written the entire album, but she didn’t seem to want to stick around to reap the benefits; she refused to go on tour with the band in support of the album even though her brother wanted her to go and I told her she was crazy.
We actually fought about it; she cried.
She seemed dead set on modeling instead and left for the summer to model overseas. Then she came back to start college in the fall, and while she was in her first year of college and I was working at a store in the mall, just trying to scrape together enough money to make rent on the apartment I shared with two roommates and borrowing Jessa’s study materials—she was studying media and public relations, something I would’ve liked to do if I could figure out how to afford it—Dirty left on their first world tour.
And Jude went with them.
I would’ve liked to see the band before they left, but by that point there was really no getting close to Dirty unless you knew someone who could get you close. They’d moved into a new, private rehearsal space and Jessa never hung out with them anymore, didn’t go to shows and didn’t hang out at rehearsals or anything. And I was hardly gonna show up and rely on Jude to let me in.
I hadn’t seen him even once since that show at the Back Door—the one where he ripped out my heart and served it to me on an ice-cold platter. If he ever showed up at some party I was at with Ben, which happened on occasion, I turned around and left the party just as fast.
I wanted to be able to put on a brave face and wish him and the band well when they left town. But it still hurt.
So I settled for messaging Jesse. I never saw him anymore either, but I had his phone number, so I texted to wish him well on the tour and left it at that.
Months later, the band came home for a break from the tour. There was a party at Brody’s house, and to my surprise, not only was Jessa going but she asked me if I wanted to go with her.
To my surprise, I said yes.
She’d also invited a friend from college, Maggie, and I soon realized the only reason Jessa was even going to this party was because Maggie wanted to work in the music industry and Jessa said she’d introduce her to Brody.
Jessa also brought some skeezy guy she’d been dating; a dude who offered us cocaine and crank while we drove to the party in Maggie’s car.
I declined, and was relieved as fuck when both Jessa and Maggie did too. I wasn’t against a little experimentation in the right circumstances, but this dude was dirty, and no way was I ever trying meth.
&n
bsp; The party was great. Tons of people, tons of booze, hot guys, drunk girls, the usual. I hung out with the band a bit, mainly Jesse and Seth, who’d always been nice to me. I made sure to say hi to Brody and thank him for having me and all that. And I did my best to keep an eye on Jessa and her skeezy date.
Jude, of course, was at the party.
I didn’t talk to him, at first.
He didn’t talk to me either.
The first time I saw him, he and Brody seemed to be in a mood. I saw them pull Jesse aside, and a short while later I watched as Jude escorted Jessa’s date right out the door and tossed him in the street. Then Jessa and Brody got in a screaming match. Well, Jessa screamed. Brody just kind of stood there, ashen-faced and looking like he wanted to strangle her. Then she stormed off into the house and I went after her.
I found her at the bar in the party room, where I helped her polish off an army of shots. Mostly, she did the polishing. I just had a few. I felt way more nervous than I thought I would seeing Jude, especially when he barely looked at me, and I was scared of getting wasted and doing or saying something horrifying in front of him.
Every time I caught a glimpse of him, I tried not to stare and just ended up staring.
Then, at some point in the night, he started staring back.
And my heart fucking ached.
Never mind that I was currently on again with Ben; I had a boyfriend, yes, but he’d never made me feel like that across a room.
Or even right close up.
Late in the night, probably a good hour or so after I should’ve cut Jessa off and gotten us the hell out of there, she got into a fight with Seth about God-knew-what.
I’d been looking for her, and had actually gone so far as to go out the front door (no one was in the front yard) and walk all the way around the giant house, through the trees that wrapped around it, just in case she’d ended up in the woods and passed out puking or something.
I found her in the backyard, just inside the edge of the trees in the dark, arguing with Seth.
I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but I’d definitely seen her popping pills with him earlier and who knew what the fuck they were on. Jessa had tears streaking down her cheeks, and I’d definitely never heard that sad, terrible, whiny tone coming out of her mouth before.
I stood back in the trees and watched. I was worried about her, but I really didn’t know if I should interrupt. I didn’t think she was in any danger with Seth; he was definitely the gentle stoner type. But she was definitely wasted and she seemed distraught.
“Nothin’ you can do about that.”
I looked over as Jude came up beside me. He was holding a drink in his hand, and he was looking at Seth and Jessa.
I hugged myself. It was chilly between the trees. “Do you think she’s okay?”
He looked at me in the dark, and I could just make out the stony expression on his face. The one that said, Like fuck I’d let anything happen to her.
“I should take her home soon,” I said. But I just stood there.
Jude didn’t say anything, but he just stood there, too.
So I turned toward him. “How are you?”
He stared at me. “Thought you left,” he said, not answering my question.
“I’m right here.”
“Yeah.” His gaze wandered down my body, and the way his eyes flicked back up to mine, kinda lazily, and he wavered on his feet a bit… I realized he was drunk. He smelled like booze, and I’d rarely seen Jude truly drunk. “You look good, V.”
V.
Oh, for the love of Christ. He called me V, like we were still friends or something. Like we were still us.
As if there’d ever been any us.
“You look good too, Jude,” I said. “Always do.”
He did.
He looked exactly the same. Maybe a little bigger. Every time I saw him he was bigger. His hair was a little longer. I knew he’d been patched in as a King, long ago, and I’d seen him wearing his cut with the Nomad patch inside the house. He wasn’t wearing it now. Just a black hoodie.
Everything else looked the same.
Everything felt the same.
Including my feelings for him, which hadn’t cooled, or crawled away and fucking died like I would’ve hoped they would by now.
Really, I should’ve known exactly what was coming by the way he was looking at me…
He put his hand on the side of my face. His thumb smoothed over my bottom lip… and the world stopped turning.
Then he leaned in and kissed me.
I closed my eyes, and for one lingering heartbeat I allowed myself to just soak it all in. The faint, woodsy, boozy smell of him, and his crazy-soft, liquor-drenched lips.
Jude and his fucking kisses.
Why was this guy always kissing me out of nowhere?
I pulled away. I pulled my face right out of his hand. Because it was Jude, and the last time he spoke to me, he told me, You and me, we’re not goin’ down that road.
And, because I had a man.
“I’m with Blazer,” I told him. I used his club brother’s road name because I figured it would have impact.
It did.
His jaw turned to jagged granite. He made a snort-growl noise that was absolutely oozing with contempt—or maybe it was disgust. But I knew this information wasn’t new to him. I’d definitely avoided the Kings clubhouse and pretty much anywhere I might run into Jude over the last two years, but I knew he had to have heard at some point that Ben was seeing me.
The ice clinked in his glass. He took a swig, downing the amber liquid. Jude had never been all that much of a drinker, especially in comparison with the company he kept on both the biker side and the rock ’n’ roll side of his life.
He was definitely loaded right now.
“What?” I asked him, already feeling exhausted by this game. “You want to fuck me, is that it?” I was only twenty years old and my relationship with Jude—or my non-relationship with him—already felt ancient.
He glared at me. “No.”
“That’s good. Because I’m not fucking another guy while I have a boyfriend.”
“Good for you.” He sucked back his ice and crunched on it, and raised his glass in the air like he was toasting nothing. “Good for him.” Then he tossed the rest of the ice cubes over his shoulder and started to walk away. “Have a nice life, Roni Webber.” He slurred my name, and I grabbed his arm, stopping him.
He did stop. He stopped dead and just stood there with his back to me. My hand dropped away. He didn’t turn to face me, but he didn’t leave, either.
So I took a deep breath and asked him what I’d wanted to ask him ever since he told me we’re not goin’ down that road.
“If I’d never had sex with Piper, would you have fallen in love with me?”
He turned slowly to face me, weaving a bit before he found his feet.
“Would you have thought about marrying me?” I asked him. “Making me your girl? Going down that road with me?”
He blinked at me, then stared me down with red-rimmed eyes. “You?” He chuckled, an ugly, ugly sound in the night. “You… Veronica Webber… are not the kind of girl a guy marries.” He stumbled a bit as he took a step toward me.
I stood my ground.
His gaze fell to my mouth as he loomed over me. “You’re the kind of girl some guys fuck on a kitchen counter and forget…” His eyes skipped back up to mine. “And other guys never get over.”
I just stared at him.
I felt sick all over.
In that moment, I hated him, and I loved him so, so much. It ripped me right down the middle. I wanted to cry and shove him away and wrap him in my arms.
“Jude!”
Jesse interrupted, throwing his arm around Jude’s shoulders. “Brother, where the fuck have you been?” The way he leaned on Jude, I could tell he was drunk, too. “Jessa’s trying to leave and Brody’s losing his mind and…” He looked up kind of belatedly and seemed to n
otice me standing there. “Oh, hey, Roni.”
“Hey.” I looked into the dark, but Jessa and Seth were no longer there in the trees.
“MOTHAFUCKAAAS!” Zane, out of nowhere, jumped on Jude’s back and stuck a bottle of liquor in his face. Jude stumbled back but caught Zane’s legs and held him there, as Zane jammed the bottle into Jude’s mouth and poured liquor into him, cackling all the way.
Jude wrenched his head away and spat out liquid. Then he dumped Zane on the ground, snatched the liquor bottle from him and dumped the contents all over him… and Jesse fucking died laughing.
Zane just lay there, laughing like a drunken hyena.
Jesus Christ…
What was I even doing here?
There was no conversation to be had with any of these men tonight.
With Jude, there never really was.
I went back into the house. I tried to find Jessa, but as far as I could figure out, she was most likely in Brody’s bedroom—with him—since I couldn’t find either of them and it was the only room with a closed door I couldn’t get into. Maggie was deep in a conversation with Elle, so I called a cab. I sent Jessa a text to let her know I was leaving, then went home.
I didn’t talk to Jude again.
Why would I want to talk to someone who just kept hurting me?
But his words haunted me.
You’re the kind of girl some guys fuck on a kitchen counter and forget… And other guys never get over.
Was he seriously never going to forgive that I’d once had sex with his brother—before we’d even hooked up?
And what was he implying? That he was never getting over me?
He sure acted like he was over me. Way the fuck over me.
Except for that kiss…
The morning after that party, Dirty headed back out on the road to finish their tour, and Jude went with them again.
While they were away, Jessa finished her first year of college and left Vancouver in pursuit of modeling; her agency sent her to work with their sister agency in New York.
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 23