at me; his thoughts hidden. "You think you've got me figured out then?"
"I want to, Jude." I held my arms out. "But we've talked about nothing. We've ignored all the important things, and we ... we just ..."
My speech-making skills faltered, as thunderclouds formed on his handsome face. "We just, what? Got to know each other naturally? That's how you categorize all the nights we spent together. Wasted. Nothing. Unimportant."
"No," I said in a rush, "no, I just mean ... we didn't talk about anything. Your job, your family, my family, the future. What are we going to do when I go home?"
"Well, you've got it all cleared up, I suppose. Why don't you explain to me how this whole sharing thing works, and I'll follow the bullet points as best I can." He held up a hand. "Just make sure the words are small. Not all of us go to Oxford."
He was like a lion, sitting back with a bloodied paw, swiping at anything that came close. Maybe I hadn't been the one to injure him, but in his mind, I was digging straight into the wound all the same. All I could do was shake my head. Anger wouldn't help right now, even if I wanted to tell him he was acting like a freaking child.
"Tell me what you want to hear, love, and I'll say it."
"Don't call me that," I snapped. "Not like that."
He pushed off the desk, where he'd leaned his weight. His eyes had a strange flatness to them. They were cold, behind the normally warm color. "Maybe it's best you're leaving soon then."
I sucked in a breath. "Why are you acting like this? Jude, we have to be able to talk to each other about the hard things, and I-I avoided that because it's what I do. I storm out when I should stay and I don’t push to have uncomfortable conversations. I'm not perfect."
"You felt pretty perfect to me," he said silkily. Like he was wearing a mask, his lips curled up in a slight smile, but I wanted to slap it off his face. "Don't worry, love, all the distractions were my fault. Not the best idea, I'd wager, considering it just mucks things up now when we have to be adults."
Disappointment was ... I wasn't even sure what it was. It wasn't a rock in my gut because it felt so, so much bigger and more painful than that. I wasn't a poetic thinker, but all sorts of dramatic proclamations ran through my head because like I'd told Isabel, I'd started falling in love with him before I even realized it happened.
And maybe this, this version of Jude that was smooth and slick and studied—was armor, but I didn't want the man I gave my heart to, the man who I'd made a child with, to use that armor with me.
I rubbed my forehead. "Jude, maybe I came in here wrong, but I just ... I don't want our issues to bleed into this new life. You've got yours, and I've got mine."
"Oh, I'd wager mine wins, love."
"It's not a competition," I said, with an edge of frost in my words, "and you know nothing about what my family has been through."
The mask dropped, just for a split second, and it was the regret in his eyes that tempered my immediate flare of anger.
He held up his hands. "You're right. I don't. Because you haven't told me much either."
Embarrassment and shame warred mightily in my chest, because I had no choice but to concede his point. I was just as much at fault as he was, maybe even more, since only one of us bolted from the pub.
I didn’t want it to be like this anymore. And there was only one way to change it.
"My mom left a few years after my dad died." As I said the words, Jude's forehead creased, his eyes taking on a curious light. I shrugged one shoulder. "That's why Logan raised the four of us. Why my family is so important to me. And I hate talking about it, so I get it, Jude. I get it more than you can imagine. I just ... don't want to make things worse by doing the same things over and over simply because they're easier."
"You're right." He sounded exhausted, and I took absolutely no pleasure in hearing the words.
In the wake of his concession, I deflated. Everything on my body felt like it dropped an inch, simply