Jude (A Cocky Cage Fighter Novel Book 2) (21 page)

Walking away I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Stay with Brayden right down the street from Jude? Stay with my midlife crisis mom in Jersey? Heck no to both options. I'd rather take my chances on a stranger.

I wipe the tears away with the heels of my hands as I weave my way through the crowd to Linc and his team.

"Hey, you okay, doll?" Linc asks, giving me a hug with his good arm. I half sob, half laugh against his chest, trying not to touch his injured arm.

"Don't worry about me. The question is are you okay?" I respond, looking up at his bloody and beaten face.

"Hurts like a son of a bitch. It might be your turn to provide me with some comic relief."

"Sounds fair. Would it be enough to earn me temporary room and board, too?"

"You don't have to do anything for that," he says.

"Did you send Jude a text telling him we fucked last night?" I ask point blank while looking into his blue eyes. It's a shitty time to ask, but I need to know.

"Hell no," Linc says surprised, at the same time Josh pipes up, and says, "He didn't, but I did."

We both look over at the skinny kid, and then Linc pushes him with his good hand so hard the boy's ass hits the ground. "Mind your own goddamn business, you stupid fucker!"

"I'm sorry, Sadie," Linc says to me, wincing and holding his sore, wrapped up arm with the slight movement. "How can I make it up to ya?"

"Get me out of here?" I ask when more tears race down my cheeks.

"Come on. I'll show ya around my home state," he says, putting his good arm around me. "Just as soon as we make a quick stop at the emergency room."

Jude

It's hard to think past the throbbing in my head, but I know one thing for sure. It's been eighteen days since I last spoke to Sadie. Eighteen long fucking days.

Instead of getting better, each day is worse than the last. I haven't trained a second since the fight. Fuck it. I'm the goddamn champion, so what the hell's the point?

I recorded the fight from the TV replay and watch it just to see her gorgeous face. Of course the media found out during the argument at the weigh-in that she had been my girlfriend and then left with Linc. They'd played that shit up during the entire fight, too. Seeing her beautiful smile is bittersweet, especially since she's looking at him when it lights up her face.                   

I don't know where Sadie is and have no way to reach her. Well, I don't want to think about where she’s probably staying. Coach said she showed up in town fifteen days ago, grabbed some shit from the house, and then left just as suddenly before I could see her. 

"
Jude
!" Jax bangs on the bedroom door and yells, making me cringe at his brain splintering volume.

"Go away," I say, barely above a whisper because it hurts my head to be any louder.

"Get your ass up!"

"No."

"All right, I warned you," he says.

I sigh in relief when he leaves and it's quiet again. Reaching down beside the bed I feel around until my hand hits the glass bottle then lift it to my lips. Empty. Fuck.

My door flies open with a bang so loud it's excruciating, and then I'm drenched with cold water.

"What the fuck!" I yell, coming out of the bed swinging. Water drips down my face, hair and unshaven beard, causing my cotton shirt and shorts to stick to my skin. "Now my bed's soaking wet, you asshole!"

"That's the point. Maybe you'll finally get the fuck out of it," Jax replies, throwing the empty bucket to the floor.                                              

"Why? I don't have anything else to do. Screw it. I'll just go sleep in your old bed," I tell him, pulling off my soggy clothes and using them to mop off my face as I leave my room. 

I've been staying at my dad's house since the fight. Everything in my apartment only reminds me of Sadie since she helped me pick out all the furniture, and some of her clothes and girly bathroom things are still there. Then there's the bed we shared for weeks that I can’t stand to look at.  

"Jude, stop this shit! I'm worried about you. Like seriously fucking worried about you. We all are," Jax says as he follows me down the hall. 

"Leave me the hell alone."

"Page talked to Sadie last night."

"I don't give a fuck!" I exclaim. My jaw clenches at hearing her name.

"She's still at Linc's place in Raleigh."

"You think I don't fucking know that?" I yell. Hearing
his
name makes me want to break shit. I took his title and he took my girl. That's not even close to being a fair trade.

"She said she's not screwing him." Jax feeds me the idiotic lie.

"What-the-fuck-ever," I reply, squeezing my eyes shut like that will keep out the god-awful images. "Maybe not anymore, but she was."

"They just sleep in the same bed."

"
Bullshit
!" I throw myself down on top of the dry bed, certain my head is going to explode either from pain or from the thought of him and her in bed together. It's a toss-up. But there's no fucking way that sonofabitch sleeps in the bed with a woman as hot as Sadie and keeps his hands or dick off of her. Unless he's gay. And even then I wouldn't be surprised if she couldn’t tempt him enough to change his orientation.             

"So
you,"
Jax pauses beside the mattress as if to emphasize the words for some reason.
"YOU
are telling me that
a man and woman can't sleep in the same bed without fucking?"

"Hell no."

"So you lied, and you
did
in fact fuck Page right after my trial?" he asks.

"What the hell? No, I'd never-" Then I remembered the weeks where Page was upset and cried all the time. I'd slept with her, just so she wouldn't feel alone. To try and provide some small piece of comfort since Jax couldn't be there with her.

"Uh-huh," Jax says with a smirk when I glance over at him, thinking he has me.

"That was an extenuating circumstance. You had just been sent away to
prison
! Page blamed herself and had just found out she was pregnant when you were being a dick to her. You told me to take care of her!"

"Yeah, well Sadie thought you
genuinely
cared about her, and after weeks of thinking she loved you, found out it all started as a setup. A setup her own fucking father arranged for a goddamn fight! I'd say being hurt by your father and your first love at the same time would be pretty damn devastating to an eighteen-year-old girl. She misses you. You know that however shitty you feel right now, she feels the same way, maybe even worse."

"No, the difference is she's moving on, with fucking Linc Abrams."  

"Do you know that for sure? You're just going to throw in the towel and never see her again?"

"She won't talk to me."

"Have you even
tried
to talk to her since the fight?"

"How can I? I can't call her."

Not that I haven't tried. Ever since I broke her phone, whenever I dial her number it goes straight to voicemail. I don't know if she got a new phone with a new number or just never replaced hers.

"Then go see her. You know where she is."

"I will murder the motherfucker if I see him."

"They're just friends."

"
Bullshit
!" I shout and I think I may have ruptured something in my skull. I press the heel of my hand against my temple to try and put it back in place. That's when I notice my hair is almost the length of Jax's and feels sticky, which is really damn disgusting.                             

"Fine, then go see for yourself. What else do you have to do other than sit around here shit-faced drunk all day?" he asks before covering his nose. "You might want to shower and shave first, though. You smell like shit and look like hell. I should’ve added soap to the bucket of water before I threw it on you."

"I don't remember the last time I had a shower. A week ago? It might’ve been longer."

"Yeah, I don't doubt it. You're disgusting. And you've probably lost at least fifteen pounds. You look like a skeleton, bro."

"I've lost the will to live," I joke but can't make myself smile even if my life depended on it. 

"Oh stop being so goddamn dramatic, you pussy. It's time to man. The fuck. Up.
Hey Jude, don’t let me down. You have found her, now go and get her.
"

Those words trigger a hazy memory. Or the lyrics rather. Lyrics I've heard sung a million times over the years because of my name, but no one has ever sang it in the same lullaby way as she did.

“She used to sing that to me, didn’t she?” I ask.

“Oh yeah,” Jax grumbles. “All the fucking time. It was her favorite, which is why she named you Jude.”

I don’t remember much about our mother, but I do actually recall that one small thing about her.

“I was so jealous that you had your own song. Those first few years...I hated you because she loved you...but not,” he pauses, shaking his head and looking away. "The last thing she said to me was that she'd miss you. She'd miss
you
, but not me."

"Jax, she was a bitch, and pissed because she'd gotten caught. It was her decisions that resulted in Dad making her leave, not yours. Stop letting that shit get to you."

"You know I've always felt guilty for taking her from you. You cried for her for
weeks
, killing me a little more every damn day," he says, surprising me with his painful honesty. "I can't stand to see you hurting like that again, especially when there's a chance you can get Sadie back."

Is there still a chance I can get her back? Yeah, but only if she's not with Linc and if she'll forgive me. I may have better luck getting struck by lightning.

And have I even forgiven
her
?

She intentionally broke my fucking heart with the one person she knew would hurt me the most to see her with. And even so, I still want to be with her. How fucked up is that?
Sure Sadie, screw some other dude and I'll still want you back because I'm so crazy messed up in the head in love with you
.

This has the potential to blow up in my face when I see her with him...but that small chance, like the small chance I thought I had to beat him, is enough to convince me to at least go and find out. Find out so I can maybe have some closure. 

"Fine. I'll go to North Carolina." I face-palm myself in defeat. "But you and Page may have to come down there and bail me out of jail."        

…

Sadie

I'm pretty sure hell would feel comfortable after dealing with the unbreathable, blistering, humid July days in North Carolina. In a way it's fitting, since all hope seems lost. My life is now a miserable, living hell.

Except for Linc.

He's my unexpected, cool glass of lemonade helping me survive purgatory. He can't pull me out of its depths, but he keeps me company while I wither away. I still miss Jude almost more than I can stand. The first few days I was here I kept hoping he'd show up, and with some grand gesture like in a romantic comedy, he'd beg me to give him another chance.

Now I know that's never going to happen, and it fucking hurts. Page was right, my decision the night before the fight drove us further apart, and was apparently too much for Jude to forgive. All I can do now is try and move on. Try and start my new life here. 

"Climax," Linc says, and I can hear the smile in his voice even though I can't see him.

"Fake," I answer, pushing my sunglasses up on my nose while I lounge on an inflatable island, complete with blow up palm tree in his in-ground pool.

A splash of cool water covers me from head to toe, cooling me off and taking my breath at the same time. "Seriously?" I ask.

"Seriously. It's a real place up near Asheboro."

"Okay, next."

"Penistone."

"Fake."

"Correct. Although, there is a city by that name in the United Kingdom."

"Ha! Give me another one."    

“Efland.”

“Real,” I say after a few seconds deliberation.

“Correct. Lizard Lick," he says, swimming shark like circles around me. All I can see is the white, plastic covered cast on his arm held above the water, serving as his fin.

"That is so damn fake," I respond. "Now you're not even trying."

Another cool wave of water washes over me.

"No," I say, removing my glasses to shake the water droplets off of them. "There is not a fucking city in North Carolina named 'Lizard Lick’."

"There most certainly is." He laughs. "It's just twenty minutes from here. I can take ya to it one day, so you can take a picture with the sign. They even had a reality TV show about a repo company from there."

"This is the strangest state ever."

"Gotta love the dirty south. Speakin' of dirty, while you were in the shower this mornin’ I checked out a few pages of the book you're readin' on your Kindle."

"You didn't!" I exclaim. "You nosy bastard!"                       

"I think we should have story time where you read aloud, you know like they do for kids in libraries, except ours would be with your porn. Ooh! Or you could enable the text to speech feature and we can listen to it say '
hard cock
' and '
fuck
' in that funny little robot voice."

"Whatever," I say with my cheeks burning.   

"Don't be embarrassed, doll. Everyone has needs. Some of us are just needier than others and prefer regular porn. Several hours a day."

"I'm a cock-blocker, aren’t I?" I cringe knowing it's true. "In just a week I'll finally get out of your bachelor pad, so you can go back to big pimpin'."

"Nah, screw the hoes. I'm gonna miss having ya around. Ya sure you can't just commute?"

"Spend an hour each way in bumper to bumper traffic every single day? I don’t think so."

The sound of crunching gravel at the front of Linc's house silences us both. "Expecting company?" I ask.

"No." Heading for the steps he climbs out of the pool, letting the water pour off of his muscles like a commercial for men's cologne.

“Ooh, maybe it’s my textbooks!” I suddenly remember, trying to use my hand in the water to paddle my way to the steps.                 

“Oh yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry, doll. I’ve got it.”