“Ah,” I said, folding my upper half across my legs to stretch muscles that were about to snap. “There’s the truth. Finally,” I muttered just loud enough that he could hear me.

“I need to tell you a lot more truth, Luce,” he said, looking the most lost I’d seen him. That look appealed to my already Jude friendly heartstrings, and before I knew what I was doing, I patted the patch of wood beside me.

“I need to stretch, and it sounds like you need to talk,” I said, forcing myself to stretch so far it felt like I was about to break. “Let’s get this over with.”

He crossed the room, his body looking relieved, but his face looked wary. “I meant what I said. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, sliding down beside me. “I didn’t know you were so damn talented. You’re going to be the star of some big-wig ballet production where millionaires pay like a thousand bucks for a front row seat,” he said, while I tried not to smile at his obvious ignorance for ballet lingo, “or some crazy shit like that.”

I laughed as I straightened and crossed my left arm in front of me. “I think you’re right. I’m quite certain my life is destined for plenty of crazy shit,” I quoted, elbowing him with my other arm.

“You and me both, kiddo,” he said, tilting his head up. “But me for real and you just as a figure of speech. Your name’s going to end up in lights and mine’s going to be replaced by a number on some warden’s list.”

Stretching the other arm, I inhaled, trying to muster up all the anger I had for him just hours ago. I couldn’t do it. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”

His forehead lined as he unwrapped that philosophical present. He opened his mouth; nothing came out, so he closed it again. Seeing Jude tongue-tied made me smile; it somehow made him less intimidating.

Finally, he said. “That’s some stinkin’ smart shit,” he said, hanging his arms over his knees. “Who said that?”

Folding one leg over the other, I shrugged. “I did.”

“You are one smart little señorita, you know that, Luce?” he said, appraising me with warm eyes. “Not only is your name going to be in lights, you’re going to have, like, three acronyms after your name: Lucy Larson, M.D, P.H.D, and some other smart fill in the blank D.”

“Enough with the flattery, Ryder,” I said, wiping my forehead off with the back of my arm. “You’ve got some explaining to do. Some honest explaining to do,” I edited. “Yeah, I do,” he said, thumping his head against the mirror. “Why is the truth so damn hard to admit?”

“Because it’s honest,” I said.

“So damn smart,” he said under his breath, looking over at me.

 This man was the pope, president, and god of dodging the topic. Too bad for him he was dealing with the queen, holy mother, and empress of seeing through a man’s stream of shit.

“Ryder.” I turned his face towards mine. I leveled him with a no nonsense look. “Explanation.” I leaned in, lifting my brows. “Now.”

“Bossy, too,” he muttered.

Since playing nice was getting me nowhere, I elbowed him in the ribs and decided to get this conversation ball rolling. “So you stole a car?” How could I sound so casual talking about this? Only one answer to that riddle. Jude Ryder.

“I prefer the term borrowed,” he said, clasping his hands together.

“I suppose most felons do,” I said, biting my tongue two words too late.

“No, you’re right,” he said, trying to comfort me after my flash of bitchiness. “I am a felon. A repeat felon. And if I was eighteen, I would have been locked away for at least a solid month, not just a few nights. It goes on my record as car theft, but I did, in my mind that night, borrow the car.”

I inhaled a dose of patience. This was new conversation territory for me and I was running low on sympathy. “Explain to me why, in your eyes, you borrowed a stolen car.”

He shifted in his seat. “The Chevelle was parked in a buddy of mine’s garage. Damon is a few years old than me and would have graduated from Southpointe, but he dropped out after his junior year and opened up his own garage. He specializes in rebuilding old cars, like real piecers, and turns them into beauties doctors and lawyers pay a hundred grand for,” he said, getting all animated. “You should have seen this one El Camino that came in once, it was a real hunk of junk, not even good enough for scrap metal, and Damon—”

“Jude,” I stopped him. “It thrills me to see you’ve got a passion in life other than women and being the honorary president of the Bad Boys Club of America, but I’ve got about fifteen minutes before my parents start blowing up my phone if I’m not home.”

“Sorry,” he said, cracking his neck. “So I do side jobs for Damon from time to time. I’ve got a knack for getting underneath the hood of a sexy ass machine and making her purr.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “I bet you do.”

“Ah, Luce,” he said, curling his nose at me. “You have a sick, sick mind. You know that?”

“I learned from the best.”

“Ouch,” he said. “But deserved.”

“Very,” I added.

“So someone had just dropped the Chevelle off last week to have a full body detail job done. Damon left town for the weekend to visit his girl on the east side of the state, so he left me in charge of the garage.”

This is where I began to wince because I began to see the picture in the connect the dots he was drawing for me.

“Saturday came and Damon was gone, the owner wasn’t expecting the car back until Monday, and the keys were still in the ignition,” he said, taking a breath. “And me, being the morally corrupt idiot that I am, saw an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

“If Damon was on the opposite side of the state, and the owner wasn’t planning on picking it up for a couple days, how did the cops find out you’d taken it?” I asked, feeling sympathy trickling back into my heart.

“Because I didn’t follow my number one rule of always expecting the worst.” He sighed, rubbing his forearms. “Damon’s girl chose Saturday night to break up with his sorry ass, so when he got back to the garage and saw the Chevelle was missing, he assumed it was stolen and called the cops.”

“Wait,” I said, feeling a little numb. “Why would Damon head to the garage at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?” That was working a 24/7 work week.

“There’s a little loft above the garage he lives in,” Jude answered, staring straight ahead.

“And the cops found the car, and then they found you, and you got arrested.” Oversimplification at its worst, but I wasn’t capable of anything more complicated at the moment.

“Pretty much.”

“But didn’t you get to tell your side of the story?” I asked, taking my time untying my pointe shoes because I needed something else to focus on. “Didn’t they understand that it was all just an honest mistake?”

“I took a car that wasn’t mine, Luce,” Jude said, his voice quiet. “From where the cops are standing, that’s not an honest mistake. Plus, they called the owner, and the prick is so pissed, he’s threatening to sue Damon. Over nothing more than a few miles on one of his six cars he never even would have known was missing if Damon—” Cutting himself short, he tapped the floor with his fist. “If I hadn’t taken the car in the first place.”

“God, Jude.” Again, I had no other words.

“I know. I know,” he said. “So, not only have I jeopardized a buddy’s business he’s worked his ass off to turn into something, I added another mark on my two page record, and I’m likely out of a job too.”

I didn’t know how to solve any of those problems, and I was the master at problem solving. Throw me a problem and I’ll toss you back an answer, but I was coming up with a whole lot of nothing. “Can’t you get a new job?” I asked finally, a weak attempt at solving Jude’s problems.