Crash - Williams Nicole (читаем бесплатно книги полностью .txt) 📗

He laughed one low note. “I live in a boys’ home and I have the record of a seasoned criminal. I can’t even get hired on as a burger flipper. I worked off the books for Damon because I don’t exactly pass background checks and the state says the boys’ home provides for all of our needs, so we aren’t technically allowed to get income paying jobs until we leave.” Grabbing one of my pointe shoes, he admired the pale ribbons, running them through his fingers.

“If you ever need something, money for whatever,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’ve got some money saved up from waiting tables during summers. You could have some whenever—”

Jude lifted his hand. “Luce, thanks, but no thanks,” he said, closing his eyes. “That’s sweet as hell of you to offer, but I’m not taking money from anyone, you least of all. I’m not a charity case and I don’t take hand-outs.”

“I never said you were.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, opening his eyes and looking straight into mine. “But everyone else has.”

That put a ball in my throat I couldn’t swallow. Clearing my throat again, I said, “What did you need the money for? Are you saving for college or a car or something?”

He rolled his eyes over college.

“Or are you blowing it all on bubblegum?” I asked, leaning into him.

“That’s more my style, but no. I have responsibilities, you know? Things that need taking care of.”

I didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to know what Jude’s responsibilities were. “Things that I need to take care of and, before working for Damon, the only job I was able to work was the drug dealing one.” He looked over at me, watching my reaction.

Outside, I gave him nothing. Inside, I was falling apart. Jude had quite possibly the biggest heart I’d found in a man. He also had the longest rap sheet I had yet to encounter in a peer. He was the classic example of taking good intentions and delivering them poorly. He had so many problems weighing on his shoulders and I had no way to solve them for him. It was the most helpless I’d felt in five years.

I leaned my forehead into my bent knees. “Why did you take the car, Jude?” It wasn’t something I’d meant to say out loud, just an internal why-is-the-universe-so-unfair? musing.

“Come on, Luce,” he said, the mirrors playing games with the shadows of his face when he looked at me. “I couldn’t show up at your front door with nothing more than my two feet to get us to the dance.”

“Why couldn’t we have doubled up with another couple then?” I said, rubbing the arches of my brutalized feet. “Or why couldn’t we have taken my car? I would’ve even let you drive.” I was now even more pissed at the whole situation. One bad choice made with good intentions, followed by a string of unfortunate events that crashed around him like dominos.

“Because I’m sick of being a leech on society, on everyone around me. Because I’m tired of taking hand outs and I’m tired of the pity in the faces of those that give the hand outs. But really, most of all, because the girl I was taking out deserved the best,” he said, sliding down past my legs and pulling the foot out of my hands. “Let me do that,” he said, his hands swallowing up my whole foot as they gently worked the muscles out.

“Jude, I’m not the girl that wants or needs the best. I’d be over the rainbow with above average or meets expectations as long as the guy I had was the best.”

He focused on my feet, handling them like he was capable of breaking them in half. “You kind of drew the short straw on that one.”

I kept quiet because I wasn’t sure if I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t give away everything I still felt for him, despite knowing I shouldn’t. One part of me wanted Jude like I’d never wanted anything before, and the other part assured me if I followed this desire down its course, I would be left in more pieces than when I started.

“And for the record, since I know those shitheads are all saying I left you behind because I was done with you, or I didn’t want you slowing me down, or at least a dozen other BS explanations, the fact of the matter is I left you because I didn’t want you with me if I got caught,” he said, his shoulders tensing beneath his gray thermal. “I didn’t want them to try to label you an accomplice or anything.” He looked up at me with that fervent expression of his. “So that’s it, that’s the truth. Don’t let those jackasses try to twist it around to make you feel bad, okay?”

I should have felt better, knowing he hadn’t abandoned me like last week’s garbage, but I couldn’t, knowing I’d been one of those that bought into that theory. Jude deserved to have at least one person on his side, and that person should have been me.

“Hey, Luce,” he said, twisting his hands over my other foot. “Okay?”

I closed my eyes because that was my last defense against tears. “Okay.”

“Lucc?” he said, his voice a note high. “Shit, don’t cry. I’m not worth it, not worth even thinking about crying.”

I took in two slow breathes before opening my eyes. “I’m not crying,” I said, trying to convince both of us. “I’m just frustrated. And I get all watery-eyed when I get frustrated.”

He studied me another moment before turning his attention back on my feet. “Why are you frustrated?”

“Pick a topic, any topic, and there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be frustrated about some element of it.”

“That was a nice attempt at being vague, Luce, really it was,” he said, one side of his mouth lifting, “but why are you frustrated, in particular, right now?”

To answer this honestly would require a multi-pronged, day long explanation which would leave me transparent and exposed in every way a girl dreaded most. So I went for the least complicated, most pointed answer I could give him right now. “I’m frustrated with twelve a.m. to twelve p.m. of last Saturday. The whole damn day and everything that could have gone wrong that went wrong,” I began, trying to put a stopper on the verbal explosion. “I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why everything that could go bad did, and I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why you took that car in the first place.”

“I took that car,” he said, being the stopper I needed, “and I would take a hundred more, because even though you say you don’t want the best, I want to give you the best.”

“Why, Jude? Why are you so damned determined that I need to have the best?” I asked, leaning forward.

He lifted a shoulder, his eyes cast down. “Because, Luce. Because you’re the most important person in my life.”

And that was the tipping point. I couldn’t hold the damn tears back. A person he’d known a few weeks, a person who’d turned her back on him when he needed a friend most, a person who had and was still trying to convince herself that he was not the man to fall for. And this person was the most important one to him.

“I don’t deserve that title,” I said, playing with the sleeve of my tunic.

“Why?” he asked, lifting my chin until I was looking at him. “Because you finally accepted what a tumor I am and feel guilty for it?”

My eyes flashed. “No.”

“Then why?” he asked, nothing antagonizing in his voice, just curiosity.

“Because you and I have too much bad history to make a good future.” There it was, the truth without having to burrow into the nitty-gritty. I didn’t have to bring up the fire or the rumors or the stolen car because it was all there between the lines.

“Shit, Luce.” His forehead lined. “Weren’t you the one that just said your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”

I’d never felt like such a hypocrite. My shoulders sagged from sheer mental and physical exhaustion.

“Or does that go for everything but me?”

Jude’s life had been filled with enough crap, he didn’t need any more from me, but I just couldn’t do this. I knew, with absolute certainty, I’d come out in worse shape than I’d gone in if I let Jude into my life the way he wanted to be.