“Hello.” His smile was lopsided. Lazy, but kind.
“Uh…hello.”
He looked familiar, yet somehow I knew I’d never met him before. If I had, I would remember. Tall. Attractive. With blond curls, deep-set blue eyes, and a tan that could only be the result of endless days in the sun. He looked to be a little older than me, maybe late twenties, and a whole lot sweet, with life-earned creases around his mouth and eyes. When he smiled, he did so with his entire face, and I found myself smiling, too.
“Sorry to interrupt, but…you snagged the last copy of The Times.” His grin was dimpled, like I knew it would be.
I stuttered an apology and handed him the paper, which I’d already read. “Sorry.”
“Never apologize unless it’s warranted. Besides, we seem to be sharing the same interests.” He glanced at my desk.
“Mine’s work.” I felt the need to explain, as if my usual hobbies consisted of being suspended in the air by nothing but nipple clamps and swimming with sharks.
“Mine too,” he beamed. “Where is work?”
“LBC.”
“The coincidences continue.” He wiggled his brows.
Hey, Jesus? Did you send me someone to get over my obsession with Célian Laurent?
“Girl, I’m not even talking to you after the last few weeks.”
“Really?” I cleared my throat, straightening in my seat.
I mean, he could be working for the website three floors up. But he seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t have an office job. He took the seat in front of mine, leaning forward and thumbing through the magazine I’d just dropped. “Yup. Just got back from a stint in Syria yesterday. I’m catching up on things now. And, of course, eating my body weight in Katz’s cheesesteak.”
I laughed. “That good?”
“You never had it before?” His eyebrows shot to his forehead. “We’ll need to rectify that as soon as possible, before you get your New Yorker card suspended.”
“I’m Jude.” I offered him my hand. He took it and kissed the inside of my palm—which was ten times more intimate than doing it the right way—and the butterflies I thought could only flutter for my boss stirred in my chest, stretching their wings, albeit lazily.
“Phoenix Townley.”
“Just like James Townl—” I started, before pulling my head back to examine him thoroughly. So that’s why he looked so familiar. His father was the anchor, or Mr. Numbers for the high ratings he scored every night. Now I was the one beaming, and it felt strange, but good. Like someone had unlocked a new setting for my face.
“I can see the resemblance. I like your dad a lot.”
“Ditto. Well, most of the time.” He reached for my candy bag without asking and bit a foam banana in half. “Another hour of fine reading and then a trip across town for that cheesesteak?”
It was scary, the way I accepted the invitation with little to no additional thought. Jude Humphry was a calculated girl. She’d been shaped and molded through the heartache of knowing how unpredictable life could be. I wasn’t planning on dating anyone anytime soon, especially after the entire Milton fiasco. Part of me didn’t even know if I should. If I wasn’t going to fall in love, was there really a point in trying?
But Phoenix was nice, and he seemed to be easygoing and fun. He would make a good friend. And, not only was I single, but the man I pined after was engaged—full-blown about to marry someone else. Not to mention, he was into an open, uncommitted relationship, and I wanted more. I needed more. Maybe Phoenix Townley was exactly what the doctor ordered. Maybe he would rise from the ashes of my love life and defy my mother’s curse.
We read together, then left the library with arms swinging. And even though it didn’t feel like he could reach into my chest, grab my heart, and pull it from my body like a certain news director could, I still enjoyed my time with Phoenix.
“Can I ask you one question?” I stopped when we got to the deli.
He pretended to weigh that for a second. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Why did you come back?”
He looked down and pulled up the long sleeve of his shirt, and a tattoo of a girl I didn’t recognize smiled back at me from his inner forearm. “Time is too precious not to be spent with the people you love most. I learned that the hard way. Because of her.”
Going into Chucks’s apartment wasn’t the most constructive thing to do, considering the little fixation I was developing.
I could smell her skin, the undertone of her vanilla scent, and her ginger-and-jasmine shampoo on every piece of furniture in her tiny apartment. The place screamed Judith. Her personality jumped out of every corner of the rooms.
I saw her in the cider-scented candles lined up neatly on the mantel like soldiers and in the framed pictures from her graduation—her hugging her father with a huge smile on her face and kissing someone I assumed was Milton, the brainless dick. She was in the curtains that were drawn open, inviting the sun to pour into the room, and in the small, organized stack of newspapers and books on the coffee table, as well as the ring stain of a mug beside them that told me her favorite pastime. And in the unlikely picture hanging above the TV, of a girl reaching up to a heart-shaped balloon, watching it drift skyward and away from her.