“You’ve thought this out,” I said, trying not to smile to give away my amusement. “Good for you.”
“Yeah,” Thomas said, “if the dude almost beat my ass for helping you out of a corset, he will murder me on the spot when he sees our modern interpretation of the ‘Rape of Persephone’.”
Thomas spelling it out for me moved telling Jude about our performance and the “encounters” Thomas and I would share on stage up to number one on the list. The more notice Jude had about it, the more time he could get used to the idea so he, as Thomas had put it, wouldn’t murder him on the spot.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be all right,” I said, stopping outside of the dorm hall.
“I’d say I’ll be anything but ‘all right’ after your boyfriend is done with me, but thanks for the vote of confidence.” Heading down the sidewalk, Thomas waved. “Have a nice break, Lucy.”
I would.
“You too,” I called after him, rushing into the building because I was twenty seconds away from breaking into a chatter fest.
India was already gone by the time I made it back, but she’d left a gift behind. Lying on my bed was a black shopping bag, cascading with red and pink tissue paper. Not the first colors one thought of when they celebrated Thanksgiving.
Tearing into the bag, I tossed the tissue paper behind me, peering inside. My mouth dropped as I pulled out the item on top. It was black, lacy, and had holes in places that were normally covered.
“India,” I muttered, shaking my head. Tossing the lingerie off to the side, I grabbed the first thing in the bag my fingers fell on. Something cold and hard. I pulled out a pair of hardcore handcuffs, complete with key, dangling from my finger. Throwing them back in the bag like they’d stung me, I rolled the top of the bag over and stuffed it into the depths of our closet.
I might be ready to take the next step with Jude, but I wasn’t ready to go from A to Z in the same night. I’d be regifting these gems at Christmas to the girl who’d so carefully selected them for her resident prude.
I hurried through my last assignment and emailed it off to the professor by eight that night. Having a cup of hot tea and a microwave vegetarian burger for dinner, I turned off the lights and crawled into bed, hoping I’d fall into a deep sleep.
After tossing and turning my sheets into a tornado three hours later, I realized sleep and I weren’t making things easy for one another. Giving up some time after midnight, I threw an old DVD into the player and watched two movies all the way through before I managed to nod off. My alarm was blaring less than two hours later.
So much for the recuperative qualities of sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
I was on my third cup of coffee, and somewhere in between my second and third, I’d crossed the line from alert to jumpy. Oh well, edgy was better than comatose.
The knowledge Jude would be arriving any time helped my outlook significantly. My parents had made reservations at some fancy place downtown, wanting to treat us to a nice meal for Thanksgiving. I’d insisted that we didn’t need anything fancy, but Mom said she’d just landed a big new account and things were looking up. No matter what I said, she hadn’t relented, so the four of us were eating at some swanky place in SoHo.
Jude had already texted me asking what I was wearing and wondering if this was a tie required kind of joint. I’d replied telling him it was a whatever-he-showed-up-in kind of a joint because Jude always looked amazing. Tie or no tie.
I’d selected something fancier, a cranberry colored vintage style dress, because I’d been living in jeans and sweaters and it felt good to dress up every now and then. Sliding into my Mary Jane’s, a knock sounded at the door.
I practically danced across the room. Throwing the door open, I found Jude standing there, looking a bit uncomfortable in his tie and dress shirt, holding his hands behind his back. His discomfort melted when he took a good look at me.
“You get more beautiful every time I see you,” he said, taking me in like he was trying to cement this moment in his memory.
“Thank you,” I replied, taking a curtsy. “And you clean up rather nicely yourself.” I ran my fingers down his tie.
“It’s Tony’s,” he said, guessing my thoughts.
“Tony has ties?” It didn’t fit my picture of the charmer I knew.
“He’s Catholic,” Jude said, watching my fingers slide down the tie. “And his mom calls him every Sunday to make sure he went to mass. So yeah, Tony’s got a shitload of ties.”
“It looks nice on you,” I said, letting the charcoal tie fall back into place.