CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Jude

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jude

This may be the absolute worst I've ever felt, and that includes the time I had chicken pox and a stomach virus all in one week.

It's been a week since I've seen Olive, and I can count on one finger the number of times I've showered.

I stink, I'm tired as hell because I can't sleep for more than three hours a night, and my entire body aches from sitting on my couch for days at a time.

I can't even remember the last time I peed. Have I had anything to drink today? When's the last time I ate?

I glance at the clock on the wall, watching as the seconds tick by. I count them. It's my new favorite game to play.

Well, that and counting how many times I turn my phone off and on to check to see if Olive's called or texted or posted or done anything.

How Many Times I've Looked at My Phone: 567

How Many Times Olive Has Given Me Any Indication She's Alive: 0

I've thought about texting Annie a million times just to check on things, but I haven't.

Olive said she was done, and I want to respect that.

No. That's bullshit. I don't want to respect that. Not at all. In fact, I want to run over to her apartment, bust down her door, and tell her to her face that she's a ninny for bailing on me.

But I don't do any of that either.

I look at the clock again.

Only forty-five seconds have passed.

I check my phone again.

I contemplate getting off the couch.

I check my phone again.

I think about showering.

I check the clock.

I roll over back into the crevice that's now perfectly formed to the shape of my body, then close my eyes.

Time for my daily three-hour nap.

A loud pounding ricochets off every inch of my head, startling me awake.

When did I fall asleep?

I peel my eyes open slowly, looking around. The sunset bathes the apartment in different golds and oranges, shining in bright from the open curtains.

I really need to close those.

I push myself up from the couch, stumbling backward and falling right onto my ass almost instantly.

What the . . .

Am I . . . drunk?

A glance toward the living room table tells me, yes, that's exactly what I am.

I pick up the empty bottle of whiskey, rolling it around in my hand. Bits and pieces of the day come crawling back to me. After falling asleep around noon, I woke back up at two, then promptly checked my phone. When I didn't see anything from Olive, I finally put the thing to use—I placed a grocery order.

And by grocery order, I mean liquor order.

I had four bottles of whiskey delivered right to my door, and judging by the bottle I'm holding, I polished one off already.

My head pounds again, and I reach up to rub my temples.

Fuck, man. It hurts bad. Not just hurts—it throbs.

Ba-boom.

Ba-boom.

Ba-boom.

"Open the fucking door, Jude!"

Oh, cool. So now my headache can talk. I really am drunk.

"Jude! Come on, man!"

Why does my headache sound like my brother?

"I'm giving you one minute. If you don't open this fucking door, I'm busting it down. And you know I can. I do a lot of my own stunts, man."

I roll my eyes, then immediately regret it.

Even my damn eyeballs hurt.

"Forty-five seconds, little brother."

I groan, shoving off the couch once more. Every inch of my body aches with the movement. Muscles I didn't even know I had are sore. I want nothing more than to sit back down as I slowly make my way across my apartment, but I know Jasper isn't messing around. He's using his big-brother voice, so I know he means business.

"Thirty," he warns when I'm only steps away.

I try to pick up my pace, but I can't. Like literally, physically cannot. My bones are too damn heavy.

I reach out to steady myself on the wall, really regretting that last bit of whiskey I slung back before I passed out.

"I'd give you another warning, but based off that disgusting odor wafting from under the door, I'm guessing you're close."

Odor?

I turn my head to the left, lifting my arm to sniff, but I don't have to. The second I move my arm up, I can smell me too.

It's a mix of pine, whiskey, regret, and absolute fucking heartache.

I grab the dead bolt, turning it over. It's barely even unlatched before Jasper is shoving inside, and I'm getting my first look at an actual human in more than a week.

Now he's the one who's stumbling back, his hand coming up to cover his nose.

"Holy fuck, little brother. You smell like ass. Pure ass."

"Hello to you too," I say, my throat scratchy and sore, before turning away from him and making my way back to the couch at a snail's pace.

Jasper follows behind me, coughing and being dramatic, as usual.

I flop back down on the couch, which has shown me more love in the last week than I've shown myself. "What are you doing here?"

"Seriously?" He scowls, shaking his head as he stands over me with his hands on his hips. "What the fuck do you think I'm doing here? I'm worried about you. We all are."

"Why?"

"Because nobody has heard from you in over a week, Jude."

"That's not true. I texted you back."

"Yes, the middle-finger emoji."

"Proof of life," I mutter, sliding down onto my side and tossing my legs back up on the couch. This is much better, especially since the room is starting to spin. "Why do you care so much?"

"Because you're my brother."

"So?"

"And because you just had the movie you've spent so much time on come out, then proceeded to ditch all promotion for it and act like it means nothing to you. You're throwing away everything you've worked so hard for."

Who cares if I've worked so hard for it? Does it even really matter, if this career is going to do nothing but destroy my life? "So?"

He sighs. "Your mother is worried sick about you."

"Well, my mother is your mother, so you can tell her I'm doing just fine."

"You're lucky she's not the one here right now," he continues. He moves the empty pizza box—when did I get that again?—onto the coffee table, setting it next to the near-empty bag of chips and some melted ice cream that smells rancid. "I was barely able to convince her to send me in her place."

"I'm not scared of Mom."

"Well, you fucking should be. You should be scared of her and even Dylan, who has been blowing up my phone too."

"I fired Dylan."

Jasper rolls his eyes. "You did not."

Fine. So I didn't. But I've thought about it. Isn't it her job to make sure I make headlines for all the right reasons? To protect me?

I don't feel very protected right now.

Right now, I feel torn in two, and it's fucking excruciating.

I hate it. I hate it so damn much. I hate that even more, after working so fucking hard on that movie, I couldn't give two shits about it right now. Right now all I can think about is how much this sucks.

About how much I miss Olive.

"Have you talked to her?"

"Dylan? No."

Jasper shakes his head. "No. You know who I mean. Her."

He doesn't say her name. I'm so damn glad he doesn't say her name.

"No." The single word comes out a whisper, like I'm even afraid to say it out loud, and I guess I am.

For the first three days, I had a lot of hope that Olive would realize she was wrong. That what we had was worth fighting for. By day four, that hope had dwindled. And last night, that hope drowned in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey.

Olive and I are done.

"She's miserable, too, you know."

I sit up quickly and regret it even quicker.

"Oh fuck."

I cover my hand with my mouth as nausea rolls through me.

Don't puke, Jude. Don't puke. The only thing worse than being drunk is being a sloppy drunk.

I inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth a few times, working to quell the urge to make a mess all over the place. When the wave of sickness churns down to nothing but a dull ache, I remove my hand.

I look over at Jasper, who is watching me with lifted eyebrows.

"How do you know she's miserable? Have you talked to her?"

"Yes."

"What?" The word bursts out of me so loudly that even I wince. "When? What'd she say?"

"Not much. It was a few days after the news of everything broke, and I finally got curious about it and went to my Instagram, since apparently it was me she was messaging with." Jasper's eyes narrow. "Are you a fucking idiot, Jude?"

"Yes," I tell him honestly.

"Pretending to be me?" he continues like I never spoke. "Why in the world would you ever think that was a good idea? Why the fuck would you go and get me dragged into all this bullshit?"

I shrug. "She liked you."

"No, she didn't. She liked the idea of me. She didn't know me. And if she did, then she'd know I'm a rake and an asshole, just like the tabloids claim." He smiles like he's proud of it, and I don't doubt he is. That's just who Jasper is, and he's okay with it.

"You really are an asshole."

"Yeah, and you're a dick. Getting me caught up in this mess. Souring my good name. And fuck you very much for not telling me about this and letting me find out this way. If you'd have come to me before, I would have understood. Or helped you. Insisted you delete the messages. I could have been there for you, little brother. Cait too. That's what family is for."

I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat.

He's right. I know he is. If I'd gone to him about this and confessed everything, he would have called me a dumbass, but he would have helped me. He would have never let it get this far.

This is all my fault. The messages getting leaked ... Olive getting hurt ... All of it. It's all on me. I should have protected her better than this, and I didn't.

I deserve this hurt right now.

"I'm so confused about why you thought lying to her wasn't going to blow up in your face," Jasper says.

"It did. It blew up in my face big-time."

"How?"

So I tell him about everything. About the night I saw Olive's messages. About her confronting me like a total badass. About me winning her back and getting her to give me a second chance. About what happened while I was in London.

When I'm done, my brother rubs his temples, shaking his head.

"I think this is all my fault," he finally says.

"Your fault?"

"Yeah, I think I might have knocked you out a few times too many when we were kids, because that's the only reason you'd do something so monumentally dumb. Truthfully, I kind of want to knock you around again for it."

He'd have to get in line. I want to knock me around too.

I deserve it, that's for damn sure.

"Seriously, why did you lie to her?"

I shrug. "She was real."

"So you lied?"

My cheeks heat, and not from the whiskey still in my system. I reach up and scratch at the short beard covering my face. "Yeah, it does sound kind of ridiculous, doesn't it."

"Not ‘kind of.' Completely."

"I just ..." I lift my shoulders again. "I liked her. There was something different about her. She seemed so sincere. So honest. I liked it. You of all people should know how that feels, to find something like that. We live in a world of make-believe, Jas. You can't tell me that doesn't get to you sometimes. That all this shit we do—the fake dates and relationships and the perfectly set-up so-called ‘candid shots'—it's all a fucking facade. I wanted something honest, and Olive was that something."

For a moment, I worry he might call me stupid again—not that it wouldn't be a justified insult—but he doesn't.

Instead, he nods, sitting back in the armchair and kicking one leg up onto his knee.

"You're right," he says. "Sometimes real sounds nice."

"Sometimes?"

He arches one brow at me that says, Fine, more than sometimes, but I'm not saying that out loud.

He sighs. "Really wish you would have told me about this before. So that I could have been a little more prepared."

He cuts a glare my way, and I wince. "Sorry."

He's right. I should have told him about it before. I mean, shit, it was his name I used, after all.

I guess I never thought anyone else would ever know about it.

Boy, was I wrong about that or what?

"Has it been bad?" I ask him.

"Eh. I got my publicist on it. Kyle's doing all the damage control he can and trying to figure out who the hell hacked into my account, but I'm really not the one taking the brunt of all this. She is."

That ache that settled into my chest last week grows.

I don't know how it's possible, considering I already feel like I have a permanent hole in my chest, but it does.

I rub at it, trying to ease some of the pain, but it's pointless.

"Has Kyle had any luck?"

"Nope. I've been with Keely for the last few weeks, and she has her people on it too."

"Keely? As in, Keely Haart?"

Jasper grins wolfishly. "Yep. She's hot, and kind of freaky in bed too. You missed out, little brother."

I'm not really interested in hearing about my brother's bedroom activities. But I guess I'm not surprised he's hanging out with her. They fit together. Even Dylan said that.

Speaking of Dylan . . .

"What happened with my publicist? I thought you two might have had something going on."

"I tried." Jasper shrugs. "Dylan didn't want me, though. Something about not mixing business with pleasure, which is a shame because I could have given her a lot of pleasure."

If the alcohol didn't already have my stomach rolling, his words would do the job just fine. I don't love the idea of him and Dylan together at all.

"So," my brother says, "what are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how are you going to win her back this time?"

Oh. That.

I sigh. "I ... I don't think I'm going to."

"What? Pfft. Of course you are."

I shake my head. "I'm not. She said we were done. She said this life was too hard for her, and I get that."

"So she runs at the first sign of trouble?"

"To be fair, her entire life was splashed all over the internet."

"Hmm." He nods. "True. But, I mean, ‘mine' was, too, and I'm still here. Loved your alien dreams, by the way."

I give him his very own real-life middle-finger emoji, and he laughs.

"Come on. I'm being serious. Tell me how you're going to win her back."

I grit my teeth, hating his question because it makes me want to win her back. More than I already want to. But I can't. She's made up her mind. Whatever we had, it's gone, and as much as that sucks, it might be all I have.

"Look at me, Jude."

My brother sits forward in the chair, reaching over and smacking my leg to drag my eyes up to his face. I reluctantly do.

"What?"

"You're Jude motherfucking Rafferty. Are you really not going to fight for the girl you love?"

I sputter out a laugh. "The girl I lo ..."

But the word dies on the tip of my tongue.

Mostly because I'm scared if I say it, I might realize how right Jasper is.

Do I like Olive? Yes.

But do I love her?

Yes.

The word slams into my mind before I can stop it.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Love? This wasn't supposed to be love. This was supposed to ... Well, shit. I don't even know anymore. But love? It can't be ... can it?

But the more I toss the word around in my head, the more I realize how right it feels.

Love.

Me and Olive.

Me and Olive and love.

I ... I'm in love with Olive.

I swallow at the realization.

When did that even happen? How did it even happen?

But that's a dumb question. I know exactly how it happened.

It happened slowly. It happened when she called me Asshat. It happened when she told me her hopes and dreams. It happened when she called me on my bullshit. It happened when I pulled her onto my lap and she didn't back away from the paparazzi. When she ran away from my premiere with me. When she called out my name as she fell apart around me.

It happened in all the little moments.

"You didn't know, did you?"

I shake my head. "No."

"And now that you do?"

"I ..." I snap my mouth shut, my head fighting against my heart.

She said she wanted out. I should let her out.

But that was before I realized how badly I wanted her all in.

No. How badly I needed her all in.

"I think I'm going to win her back."

The ache in my chest heals a little as I say the words.

I can do this. I can get Olive back.

Jasper grins slowly, nodding. "Good, little brother. Good. But can I give you a little advice, brother to brother?"

"Shoot."

"Take a damn shower, man. You reek."

I laugh, and it's the first real laugh that's left me in more than a week. It hurts and feels good all at the same time.

"I can do that."

"Good. I'll wait for you." He curls his lips at the mess on the coffee table. "We can go grab something to eat that doesn't come out of a cardboard box or the microwave."

I'm about to tell him I don't want to go anywhere that's going to cause a stir, but he beats me to it.

"I know a place that's super low-key. No photogs. We'll be good."

I nod. "Okay."

I shove off the couch, moving a little faster than before, the whiskey having worn off after the sobering realization of me being in love with Olive.

I'm nearing my bedroom when Jasper calls my name.

I peek over my shoulder. "Yeah?"

"How come you didn't ask me if I was the one who leaked the messages? I used to read your diary all the time."

"Because you're my brother, Jasper, and that's the kind of shit brothers do. This is different, and you'd never do that to me or to her."

And he wouldn't. I know it. I never questioned it.

But damn if it doesn't make me even more curious to know who did. I have to know who did it. If not for my sake, at least for Olive's. Maybe she thinks we're done, but that doesn't mean I still can't find out and protect her from anything else the monster might do.

Jasper nods. "You're right. I wouldn't."

"You might be an asshole, Jas, but you're not that big of one."

He rolls his eyes, muttering, "Whatever."

"And for the record, I wrote in a journal, not a diary."

"Same fucking thing." He waves me on. "Go shower. I'll clean this mess up. You've got a girl to win back."

He's right.

I do have a girl to win back, and I fully intend on making it happen.