Bad Girl (Alphahole Roommates 3)

The loneliness started to get quite palpable because I was thinking of him constantly.

And then I started running into him. Repeatedly. And that probably made me act sketchier, making him suspicious. I couldn’t seem to stop making bad choices where Jude was concerned.

I didn’t know if I was overthinking things and being paranoid or if the universe kept throwing him in my face to taunt me. And the way his eyes were on me, the way he looked at me – I felt like I was in serious danger. Because he was suspicious and maybe looking into me.

I was terrified and trying my hardest to hide it.

I saw him at work and that could be dismissed because he visited Aiden, and Aiden’s office is near my cubicle.

But then a day later, I saw him at the supermarket, and I made a hasty exit. And three days after that, randomly at a mall with Stacy from work. At the supermarket, I pretended I didn’t see him and caught him looking aggravated, so I was guessing he saw me and the sight of me pissed him off. I couldn’t pretend not to see him at the mall because we literally collided. I walked straight into six feet two-ish of inked muscles.

“Ally.” He looked down at me. His large, tatted, hot hands were on my biceps.

“Oh hey. How are you, hey! We’ve got an appointment with the waxing girl so gotta dash, but how are you?” I said this as I grabbed Stacy’s hand and I could swear his hands tightened for the briefest millisecond before he let go. I immediately dragged Stacy in the other direction.

He flexed his jaw and jerked his chin before he kept going.

Stacy quizzed me about what the heck was wrong with me and also about fibbing about a non-existent appointment. I told her he was creeping me out and that the color of his aura was all wrong.

Stacy proceeded to act like I was a crazy person because of how gorgeous Jude is and started asking me aura color questions, which I deflected because I know nothing about that – it’s just something I say because it never gets questioned.

And then he was no longer popping up, no longer texting me, and I was sad even though I was also saying to myself, ‘mission accomplished’, until I heard in passing a month or so later from Aiden and Austin talking by the photocopier about Jude being out of town on some big undercover job.

Another month, almost two go by and I still think about him constantly, but don’t see him and don’t ask about him.

I’m feeling like he’s given up and I’m half relieved but three quarters sad. Carly has asked about him a couple times and I’ve given vague answers about not being into him anymore, but then, out of the blue, I ran into him at another nightclub with Sonia and Stacy from work.

He cornered me by the bathroom.

“What game are you playing?” he asked when I waved casually and tried to walk straight past him.

“Game? Not a gamer, buddy.” I tried to breeze by, and his arm shot up, caging me in.

“Pretending I don’t exist when the two of us met and there was instant chemistry. Flirting. Sexually charged conversations. And then… nothing. No, not nothing,” he glared, giving me a once-over, “You acting like you’ve got the plague and are afraid to give it to me.”

“What? Maybe more like you’ve got it and are gonna give it to me.”

He reacted by spinning his index finger in the air. “The other way around.”

I found this peculiar. And far too intuitive.

“You’re talking months ago. I barely remember,” I lied.

He stared right into my eyes, making my heart skip a beat and it evidently had an impact because I quickly added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to run hot and cold on you, but I was looking for casual, but now I’m seeing somebody and that’s turning out not to be casual, so, I find myself in an awkward spot with you. I’m bad at confrontation.” I shrugged. “Friends?” I held my hand out for him to shake it.

He grabbed my hand and got super close to me. Our mouths barely two inches apart.

“Friends? No fucking way,” he growled, eyes holding mine hostage.

And I probably failed at hiding the mixture of terror and raw lust in mine.

“Later, Ally.”

A promise. A threat. Something that both thrilled and terrified me in equal measure.

He disappeared, then. My eyes kept scanning the club looking for him, but I didn’t find him again.

And I went into a days-long funk because good God, the dreams, the fantasies, the longing. It was all-consuming.

The following Saturday afternoon, I was hanging out upstairs at Carly’s and Aiden dropped into conversation that Jude wanted to know my story.