Page 189 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

Trouble is, some of the things that make me happy also make me feel uncertain.

Or one thing. Namely, Jude.

By the early afternoon, my head is brimming with questions. Jude is on his way, and my biggest question revolves around him.

Can I be the guy Jude needs this time around?

The guy who gives him the book he bought, the man who tells him about his deals, the one who shares his heart?

I don’t know. But I’m tired of the way these questions own me.

Fuck the secrets.

I call Jude in his Lyft. The second he answers, I speak: “Ask the driver to wait two minutes. I want to show you something.I’m in 4A. The doorman will let you in.” With that invitation, I begin to pry open...theyears.

Jude wastes no time. “I’m there,” he says, leaping at the chance.

Wilde sure was right about romance, but it’s time to face the uncertainty and let Jude into my home.

20

SOME ALBATROSSES

Jude

Everything in 4A is a surprise.

I envisioned something else entirely for TJ’s apartment. “Confession: I thought your home would look like a library,” I say as I gobble up the actual details.

“I wish,” he says wistfully. “Maybe with the next royalty check I’ll go full Beast mode and get a library with a ladder.”

I thrust my arm in the air, “pick me” style. “I’ll be your Belle.”

His smile is sweet but a little hurried—no time to waste. I’ve only got two minutes, and I make the most of them. File everything away to recall later. The tiny kitchen with its gleaming white appliances looks rarely used. The living room where one wall is exposed brick, and the opposite is sky blue, with bright, cartoony images of the Space Needle and Pike’s Place hung in simple frames.

“Seattle. Where you’re from,” I remark.

“Yep,” he says.

They share space with drawings of animals scampering over related puns.

You’ve Got to be Kiddingunder a young goat.

Suck it Upbelow a hummingbird.

“Wordplay. Where you live now,” I tease.

“You’re good.” TJ gives an approving smile, then nods to the hallway. “Want to see the rest?”

Hell yes.

“Of course,” I say, in a supreme understatement, but I’m sure he can hear the excitement in my voice.

I follow him quickly. It’s a short corridor; one door leads to a bathroom, the other to a bedroom. He gestures to the bedroom door, permitting me to gawk.

I take it, happily.

My gaze doesn’t leave the bed, with its dark green duvet and mountain of charcoal gray and silver pillows—late afternoon sunlight streams in through a window. At night, moonlight would coast over TJ’s naked skin. What a sight that would be. “I’m getting ideas,” I whisper.