The Rules of You and Me (17 page)

“
Are you two dating or what?”

I sighed. “No. Like I said before, we’re just friends.” I hadn’t told her about making out with Jude. I knew she would jump to too many conclusions if she heard about that.

“
You two spend a lot of time together for people who are just friends.”

“
You and I spend a lot of time together,” I pointed out. “Are
we
dating?”

Ashton waved a hand. “You’re not exactly my type, babe.”

“
I know. You like them broad shouldered and firm, but with a sweet smile.” I grinned at her over the magazine I flipped through.

“
Ugh.” Ashton closed her eyes and groaned. “Why can’t I talk to Carter the way you talk to Jude?”

“
That’s different,” I said. “I don’t have a massive crush on Jude.”

Ashton snorted.

“
What?” I snapped.

“
Nothing,” she said.

“
What?
” I asked again, glaring at her.

“
I just think maybe you’re deceiving yourself,” Ashton said as she sat up. “I mean, you have this guy you like spending time with and who likes spending time with you. You’re friends, and trust me, Hannah, Jude doesn’t have very many friends anymore. It’s obvious that you like him with the way you talk about him, so why don’t you take the next step and see what happens?”

“
I didn’t come here to find a boyfriend. I don’t need that kind of complication in my life right now.”

“
Maybe it doesn’t have to be complicated,” Ashton said.

I snapped the page of my magazine, causing a little rip in the corner. “Relationships are always complicated. That’s why you’re too afraid to tell Carter how you feel, because you know it will complicate things.”

Ashton was quiet as she flipped through another magazine before tossing it aside. “That’s different.”

“
How?” I challenged.

“
Because you know Jude likes you.”

“
It’s not like that!” I hissed, glancing around quickly to make sure no one was listening in on our conversation. The music over the sound system and the hair dryers humming hopefully drowned out our voices.

“
Keep telling yourself that, Hannah.” Ashton smirked.

I clenched my teeth to keep from saying something back. It wasn’t worth it to argue. Everyone thought they knew everything, but Jude was right. It really didn’t matter what anyone else thought. We had something good going between us and trying to turn it into something else would only complicate it. No complications, that was the first rule we’d made.

Ashton looked at the cover of another magazine in the stand next to the couch. “You should try something different with your hair,” she said.

“
I’m not cutting it,” I told her.

“
What about a little color?” Ashton grabbed the magazine and pointed to the pink streaks in the woman’s hair. “Just a couple of streaks.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t like pink.”

“
It doesn’t have to be pink. You can pick any color you want.”

I opened my mouth to say my mom would kill me if I went back home with dyed hair, but then I stopped. Why did it matter what my mom thought? The Hannah she wanted me to be wouldn’t dye streaks in her hair, but maybe the real Hannah I was inside would. It didn’t sound so bad, and the color would eventually fade.

“
It’s just hair,” Ashton told me. “That’s the good thing about it. It grows back if you cut it too short and turns back to its natural color after a while.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“
So I have a favor to ask you.”

Jude looked up at me from under the hood of his truck. “Uh-huh,” he said. He held out his hand. “Wrench.”

I plunked the greasy tool into his palm and he went back to work. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I’d found him bent over his truck when I arrived at his house fifteen minutes before. I was starting to suspect that he really just liked to play around under the hood and wasn’t really doing anything in particular.

“
You can say no,” I told him.

“
I probably won’t,” he said. “What is it?”

I sighed. “My aunt wants you to come to dinner. At her house. Tomorrow night.”

Jude glanced up at me again, his forehead crinkling. “Why?”

“
Because she doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘we’re just friends.’ I don’t know. She said since we’ve been spending so much time together, she thinks it’s her duty to get to know you too.” I leaned against the truck, propping my elbow on the frame and my chin in my hand. “All you have to do is show up and eat. Maybe an hour, tops. I promise it won’t be too bad.”

“
Okay.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Okay?”

Jude wiped his hands on a cloth. “Okay, I’ll go. I’ll have dinner with you and your aunt.”

“
Thank you,” I told him.

Jude leaned over his side of the truck, a wicked gleam in his eye. “On one condition.”

I didn’t like that look. “What’s that?”

“
That
you
cook for me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t cook.”

Jude shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll stay home and eat a can of soup.”

“
You’re an evil creature,” I said.

“
It’ll taste better if you cook it,” Jude said.

“
It’ll be so burnt you won’t be able to taste it at all.”

Jude finished whatever he was doing and closed the hood. “I’ll take my chances.”

I groaned. “Fine. I’ll cook. Any requests?”

Jude tilted his head to the side. “I’m a steak kind of guy. With steaming mashed potatoes. Homemade, not the packet. Lots of butter.”

“
You’ll be lucky to get pizza,” I snapped.

Jude walked around the front of the truck, smiling as he looked down at me. “And don’t forget the most important ingredient,” he said.

“
What’s that?” I asked, imagining Jude sending me off in search of some made up spice just to drive me crazy.

He thumped my nose with his thumb. “
Love
, Hannah. It has to come from the heart.”

I swatted at him, but he laughed and twisted out of the way.

“
You’re all greasy.” I rubbed at my nose. “You better not have gotten anything on me.”

“
Just a little,” Jude said. He nodded toward the house. “Come on, you can wash up inside.”

I hesitated as I looked at the little brick house. Memories of lying in Jude’s bed flashed through my mind, along with the odor of stale cigarettes and rotten food. My stomach gurgled a little and I swallowed hard.

“
You coming?” Jude asked. He had reached the front door and looked back at where I still stood in the driveway.

What would Natalie think if she saw me now? We hadn’t talked or texted since the phone call last week about Paris. I didn’t really want her to be mad at me, but I didn’t want to keep making up excuses about why she couldn’t come visit me. It was better off this way.

I followed Jude into the house, stopping suddenly as my eyes took in the living room. It was clean. Well, as clean as it could be with stained carpet and worn furniture. But there were no dishes stacked on the coffee table or clothes tossed around the floor. Even the air smelled nicer, like floral-scented air freshener.

“
I cleaned up a little,” Jude said, rubbing his hand over his head and shrugging.

“
It looks good,” I told him.

Jude led me down the hall and I avoided looking at his bedroom as we walked by.

“
Here.” Jude flicked on a light, showing me a tiny bathroom barely big enough for one person.

“
I’ll wash up in the kitchen,” Jude said. “It’s not exactly big enough for two.” He gave me a nervous grin in the cracked mirror. We stood so close in the tiny room, my back almost pressed to his chest.

I smiled as he eased past me and disappeared back down the hall. I pushed aside the thoughts of Jude’s kiss, the feel of his warmth close to me and his fingers on my skin. We were friends, just friends. That was how it had to be.

Jude sat at the little kitchen table when I found him, with a cup of milk and a package of Oreos in front of him. He nodded toward a second cup of milk at the seat next to him.

“
Mmm, milk and cookies,” I said as I sat down.

“
Don’t let it be said that I don’t know how to take a girl out for a nice meal,” Jude told me with a wink.

I dunked my cookie low in the milk, until my fingertips touched the cold liquid. How long had it been since I’d had milk and cookies? I was usually so busy, a lot of times I’d forget to eat anything until I became light-headed and dizzy.

My gaze fell on a stack of mail at the other end of the table. Bright red letters on the envelope on top stood out at me: PAST DUE - THIRD NOTICE. The return address was the familiar logo of Willowbrook Bank & Trust. My dad’s bank.

“
So,” I said, breaking the silence that had fallen between us, “where is your mom today?”

Jude crunched his cookie as he stared down into his milk. “Don’t worry, she probably won’t be home until tonight. You don’t have to see her again.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. I meant, did she get a new job? She was fired from the last one, right? Or she quit?”

“
Who knows,” Jude said. “You can’t believe a word she says. She always makes herself out to be the victim.”

I bit into my milk-sodden cookie. Jude’s body had tensed when I asked about his mom. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about her. I reminded myself that it wasn’t my business to ask about their financial situation. People always got so weird about money. Rule #30: Everyone has a price. One of my dad’s rules.

After a few moments, Jude said, “I’m sorry about what she said to you.”

“
It’s okay—”

“
No, it’s not. I don’t—I don’t think those things about you.” He looked up, meeting my gaze with his serious gray eyes.

Heat crept up my neck and I looked back down at my cup. My thumbnail traced a hairline crack along the rim. “It’s okay. We both let things get carried away. It’s over, we don’t have to talk about this.”

I thought he would protest, I thought he’d say more, that we did need to talk about it. But he didn’t. He dunked his cookie into his milk and chewed silently for a long time.

“
My mom wasn’t always like that,” he said at last when he had swallowed. “She’d drink every now and then, but she didn’t get so bad until Liam died. I can understand in a way. There are a lot of times when I want to forget everything, numb the pain until it all stops hurting.” He sighed. “But I don’t think Liam would have liked that.”

“
No,” I agreed. “From what you’ve told me of your brother, I don’t think he would.”

“
You know, I haven’t even been to his grave since the funeral?” Jude turned a cookie over and over in his hands. “I haven’t had the courage to go there. I haven’t had the courage to do a lot of things in the past year.”

“
You climb to the top of a towering rock on a mountain,” I pointed out. “You have a lot more courage than I do. I can’t even tell my mom that I don’t want to go to Yale.”

Jude twisted the cookie apart and licked the cream out of the middle. “It’s your life. You can do whatever you want.”

“
And so can you,” I told him. “You’re not responsible for what your mom does.”

Jude popped the cookie into his mouth and then drank his cup of milk. “So,” he said, with a gleam in his eye, “what are you making me for dinner?”

“
Can you get that?” I called as I pulled the pan of steaming chicken from the oven. I poked at the browned bird, praying that it was cooked all the way through.

The doorbell rang again and then Aunt Lydia hurried through the kitchen. “I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” she said as she breezed by. She was wearing nice black slacks and a white blouse instead of her usual paint spattered T-shirts and baggy jeans. If I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken Aunt Lydia for Mom. I had never realized just how much they looked alike, especially when Aunt Lydia was dressed in a Mom outfit.

“
Hello, Jude,” I heard her say in an overly cheerful voice.

Please let this night not be a disaster,
I said silently. I checked the pot of mashed potatoes and fluffed the top with a fork again.

I wiped my hands on my apron and then pulled it off just as Aunt Lydia walked into the room with Jude at her heels. She smiled brightly at me. “Our guest has arrived,” she chirped.

Jude smiled nervously, running a hand over his head. He’d cut his hair, I noticed. Just a little trim, a couple of inches. He wore a nice gray polo shirt, which looked pressed and starched. His khakis had a perfect crease down each leg and even his shoes looked shiny.

“
You look nice,” I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.