Stick a fork in me because I was done.

“Mr. Ryder,” a dulled voice cut through the din of noise exploding around us. “Mr. Ryder!”

Jude groaned against my lips, not letting me go when he turned to Coach A.

“Think you’re about done here?” Coach A asked, smirking. “We’ve got a game to win.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be done here, Coach,” he called back, earning a few laughs from the bleachers and making me flush down to my toes.

“In that case, wrap it up and get your ass back out here,” he hollered. “Starting quarterbacks don’t make out with their girlfriends when they’ve got forty points to make up.”

“This one does,” Jude whispered, lifting me up onto my tiptoes and kissing me again. “Wait for me after the game. I’ve got some unfinished business with you.” Setting me down, he pulled the blanket tight around me again before leaping over the fence and jogging back onto the field.

I don’t know how he was able to bound and sprint like that because I couldn’t move. What the hell had just happened? Whatever it was, I wanted to rinse and repeat until I took my dying breath.

“What. The. Hell.”

My sentiments exactly.

Taylor marched up to me, arms crossed, and stare pointed. “Friends, eh?”

“Friendship is a pivotal element of our relationship.” I was still breathless, but at least I could form words like pivotal.

“Yeah, but not the defining element. Obviously.” For whatever reason, Taylor seemed pissed. I guess she was going to revoke my pom-pom privileges.

“Oh?” I was back to one syllable responses.

“Jude Ryder just kissed you in front of a gazillion people and he didn’t dispute it when Couch Arcadia called you his girlfriend.”

Now that the aftereffects of the kiss were wearing off, I could form and think a logical string of thoughts, and what Taylor was saying was true. Jude might as well have posted our make out moment to the internet for the number of people that had and would see it, and he’d barely flinched when Coach A used the “G” word.

“I’m his girlfriend?” It was meant to be a question to myself, but Taylor couldn’t let it go unanswered.

“You’re the first,” she said, looking at me like I was a puzzle. “You lucky bitch.”

CHAPTER TEN

That was all I could think about the next night as I needed all my focus on getting homecoming ready—being Jude’s first girlfriend. At first it had been a title I’d been over the moon to wear, but after I’d carefully agonized over it all night as any self-respecting teenage girl would, I wasn’t so sure how I felt about being Jude’s first now.

Girlfriend, that is.

A guy like him, with a reputation like his, had likely spanned dozens of women. So none of them were his girlfriends, big deal, they’d been intimate with him in ways I had yet to even touch. Although I was fairly certain I wanted to touch that, knowing I wouldn’t be the first, or the tenth, or—hold in the shiver—the hundredth, kind of put a damper on the whole feeling special to be his first girlfriend meter.

I wasn’t naive enough to hope a boyfriend of mine wouldn’t have a history. Hell, I had a history that wouldn’t exactly qualify me as shiny and new, but Jude’s tag ‘em and bag ‘em reputation was well known across three counties and one state line.

Now I was all for second chances. I was the second chance champion, it had nothing to do with that. My concern lay in passing every single woman that gave him a suggestive smile or a once over and wondering if that was one of Jude’s once upon a time conquests. He was allowed to have made mistakes and have regrets, but could I live with those and the consequences of them?

Letting the last hot roller tumble out of my hair, I realized there was only one way to find out. The only way for me to know if I could handle everything that came with Jude, his past, his seeming inability to talk about anything personal, his take it as it comes future, was to take it one day at a time. The only way to know if Jude Ryder was going to ultimately break my heart was to open it to him.

That epiphany should have been more terrifying than it was. Hell or heartbreak, I was in it all the way. All in, as I liked to say, because that was the only way to ensure a relationship had a fighting chance.

Checking my phone, I sighed my relief. I still had fifteen minutes to finish my makeup, get into my dress, and collect my wits as they’d need to be to get through a night of being pressed up against Jude.

And that’s when the doorbell rang.

I let myself have a second of panic before scrambling into my robe and running down the stairs. Dad and Mom were out on a rare date night, thanks to me. I’d purchased a gift certificate to their favorite French cafe on the lake and a couple of movie passes to the Cineplex twenty minutes away. I’d even made reservations to ensure they’d be out when Jude showed up.

It was deceitful, and I didn’t want Jude to think I was ashamed of him, but my parents were complicated people with memories that didn’t allow for second chances. Plus, they were parents to a teenage daughter. My dad had once told me, crimson red deep in “the talk,” that with sons, all he had to worry about was one penis, but with a daughter, he had to worry about everyone else’s. That little gem had stuck with me, probably because when I was twelve years old, I couldn’t hear the word penis without breaking into a laughing fit.

I knew if Jude and I continued on at this rate, I couldn’t keep them a secret from one another, but for tonight, it was the easiest solution to the situation that was Jude.

Pulling the door open, I tried not to gawk, but it was the only thing that seemed appropriate with Jude Ryder standing under the light of my front porch, dressed in a tux, a corsage box in hand. His trusty beanie in place. If anyone could rock the formal meets grunge trend—if one ever cropped up—it would have been him.

“I’m early,” he started, “so I know I should blame it on losing complete track of time, but really I just couldn’t wait to get here.”

Stop staring, Lucy. Stop staring, Lucy, was my mantra, but it wasn’t working.

“Okay, so don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m enjoying the view,” he began, averting his eyes to the ceiling, “I’m really enjoying the view, but I promised myself I was going to be one of those schmucky gentlemen all night and you’re not making my promise easy to keep.”

My head was foggy and I was still incapable of speech, but at least I could muster up an expression of confusion.

“Ah, hell, Luce,” Jude cursed, wincing when he glanced the shortest look over at me. “You forgot to tie your damn bathrobe.”

Gazing down confirmed it. Nothing but a strapless bra, a matching pair of panties, and a hell of a lot of skin were on full display. Honest mistake? Maybe. Freudian slip? Positively.

“Sorry,” I said, spinning around to properly cover myself up.

I heard his footsteps as he came up behind me. Brushing my hair away from my neck, his mouth fell just below my jaw. “I’m not,” he whispered, sucking the tender skin.

One touch, one kiss, and I was a mess. Right then, I wanted nothing else but to turn in his arms, tear off both our clothes, and leave nothing to the imagination that night. It was intoxicating, and overwhelming, and some part, deep within, knew it was marginally unhealthy.

“Go get your dress on so I can go show you off,” he said, pressing one final kiss into my neck before stepping back.

“Why don’t we skip the dance?” I turned to face him, playing with the tie of my robe.

“Dammit, Lucy,” he groaned, using my full name for the first time in a long time. “It’s taking every last ounce of willpower I have to keep from throwing you down on the table and doing everything to you I’ve played out in my mind a thousand times,” he said, waving his hands from me to the table to the sky. “But you’re better than that. You deserve better than that. You don’t deserve to be one of those girls screwed on your parents’ kitchen table. You deserve so much more than that,” he said, challenging me with his eyes. “So leave that robe in place and don’t tempt me again.”