Page 42 of Someone Just Like You

“You all right in there?” Jude knocked on the door. “Mole?”

“Fine!” I spat the water from my mouth and slowly stood, using the wall for balance. Then I turned off the shower and sat on the edge of the tub. I needed time to regain my bearings…like seven hours or so.

“If you don’t come out in five seconds, I’m coming in.”

“No…no…I got this.” My legs wobbled like the bones had been removed.

The doorknob turned. “You decent?”

“No!” The thought of Jude seeing me naked was terrifying, but if I were being honest, it was a different kind of scary than years past. I was in no condition to process it.Blessedly.

“I’m covering my eyes.”

I hid behind the shower curtain. “Toss me the towel hanging on the hook. Please.”

The door opened, followed by the thump of terrycloth hitting me over the head. I wrapped the white towel around my body and slid open the shower curtain. Then I looked up at Jude. “Is this what we have to look forward to when we’re old?”

He gave me a wry smile and lifted me up.

I held on to him with one hand, using the other to secure my towel, and he led me to my bedroom. “I’ll wait out here. Put some clothes on and get back into bed.”

My impulse was to make a joke about sleeping naked but that would be flirting. Jude and I didn’t flirt. So I put on clean underwear and an oversize t-shirt and slipped under the covers instead. “You can come in now.”

Jude entered carrying a glass of water. “Dehydration is bad.” He handed it to me.

I took a few gulps and placed the glass on the nightstand.

“I think you’ll feel better next time you wake up.”

“What will you do now?” Was it weird that I wanted him to stay? It was totally weird.Don’t say it out loud.

“I have to walk Yogi who, by the way, dug up some weird hairband that looks like it has cherries on it. Sorry.”

“It was my mom’s. They called it a ‘bunch’ in the seventies. Very retro.” I closed my eyes.

“Shit.”

I mumbled, “Don’t worry about it,” and fell asleep.

When I woke up next, the plague had ended, and Jude was gone.

Chapter Twenty

After three months of planning, the party was the coming weekend. The six “siblings” had a Zoom call the Thursday before to discuss the final details. By some miracle, seven p.m. worked for everyone, although it was clear from the view out the window behind Alison that she was still at her office in Manhattan. And, from the noise coming from Jude’s computer, he was at Hillstone.

“Mute your computer, little brother,” Eddie said.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Jude shrugged apologetically.

My cheeks heated up. Why was I blushing? And imagining him straight out of the shower in a towel? I doubted he was flashing back to seeingmein a towel. Why was my mind even connecting Jude with either of us in towels?Snap out of it!

This was Jude—the guy who’d cut the hair off my favorite Barbie doll and drawn a dick between Ken’s legs. I’d pulled equally, if not more, immature stunts on him—acts I could justify when Jude was my enemy, but not the object of my fantasies. Not to mention the whole shattered-his-baseball-career abomination. Yes, it was safer to see him as my rival—my not-at-all-sexy rival—than wrapped in a towel with water glistening from his lean but muscular bare chest.

“We won’t keep you long,” Nicole said, bringing the meeting to order. “I just want to make sure everyone understands the plan for Saturday.”

“You Blums have it easier, since your parents already know they’re going into the city for dinner. So, all you need to worry about is timing,” Eddie said.

“They’re planning to arrive in my neighborhood around six, park in the area, then the four of us will take an Uber to the restaurant,” Nicole said.

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