Blue Notes (25 page)

 Thirty-Three 

I
t’s Halloween. I’m wearing cat ears sticking up from a headband. My hair is loose and poofy a la Anne Hathaway, although I don’t fill out my rented Catwoman suit the way she does in the movies. I don’t know what Jude’s going to be. We agreed to surprise each other, after he asked me to go to the on-campus Halloween dance Adelaide told him about. So goofy. Off the charts lame. But I’m bouncing on my toes, waiting for him to pick me up.

To my surprise, Janey is getting dressed up too. She slips into a long white nylon dress that’s been splattered with red paint. A blood-covered blonde wig and tiara complete her
Carrie
ensemble.

“You didn’t tell me you were going out,” I say.

She smiles a little. “You’ve been kinda preoccupied.”

“Crap. I’m sorry.” I slump into the bed. “Did you tell me and I missed it, or have I been so checked out that you didn’t bother?”

“Didn’t bother.”

“Janey—”

“Look, it’s okay. Really. I’m just going out with some other geeky chem chicks. There’s only about four of us. Like,
total
.” She grins as she sits on her bed. “We’re going to the Mortuary Haunted House over on Canal Street. The place is supposed to be actually haunted, so maybe they’ll try harder to keep it from being lame. Not that it matters. I need to get out more.” She shrugs. “I’m really glad we’re roommates. You’re the best friend I have on campus. But . . .” Here, her grin turns a little naughty, a little sad. “Sometimes you have other places to be.”

“Tell me I shouldn’t feel bad about this. Wait, only if you mean it.”

“I mean it. Don’t feel bad. Just do what I’ve said from the start, okay? Be careful.”

She likes Jude well enough, although I think she still holds out reservations about him. I can’t blame her, because I do too—when I let make myself climb down from the clouds for a few moments of critical thinking. She always seems surprised when he keeps proving to be a good guy.

There’s a knock at our open dorm door. Janey and I turn to find Jude standing there in a fantastic 1920s pinstripe suit, from fedora to spats. I should’ve worn a flapper costume instead of trying to be a superhero. I don’t have the tits for Gotham City, but definitely for the Jazz Age.

“Well, hell,” he says, sweeping off his hat. “I think we’ll skip the dance.”

“What?”

“I need to get you home and out of that. Pronto.”

Janey snickers and leans back in her chair to watch. “That doesn’t sound very Gatsby.”

“Okay,” he says. “Hey, doll, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“I have
no
idea what that’s from,” I say, laughing.

He extends his arm. “C’mon. We have a super awesome university dance to get to.”

I flutter my hands. “It’s like prom!”

“I never went to prom,” Janey says.

“Eh, neither did I.” I loop my arm through Jude’s and smile. “I guess I’ll have to make do.”

“I dare you to tell me straight up that you’re just making do,” he whispers.

I shake my head, then give my hair a fluff. “Not a dare I care to take, Mr. Villars.”

“It’s Jude,” he says, teasing.

“Not when you’re dressed like that, gangsta boy.”

Janey waves us good night. The air is finally starting to get a little cooler in the evenings, but anywhere up north, they’d already be taking parkas out of storage and getting cars winterized. I’ve considered telling Jude about Chicago, about seasons, but then I’d have to tell him why.

Part of me insists on holding on to those far-back memories, when I’ve had better experiences in Baton Rouge and even here. Maybe . . . Maybe it’s because we’d been normal once—my folks and I. They might have started their bad shit there, but I didn’t know about it. Only when we hit the road did things become too bad to overlook, even for a kid.

So yeah, there it is. Answer found, finally. I still can’t tell him. There are too many details that might come spilling out. Unless I’m ready to hit the self-destruct button on Keeley Chambers, I can’t do much other than sketch out the big picture.

The dance is just what I need to get that crap out of my head. He finds a table and orders us a few sodas while I hit the bathroom. Catsuit + public stall = a circle of hell. But the best thing happens when I finish reprimping. I step into the ballroom used for ceremonies and welcome orientations. Now it’s decked out with orange and black crepe ribbon, a really great strobe light, and every cheesy fake spider and shriveled plastic corpse to be had in the city. “Poker Face” comes on just as I start walking.

I love strut songs. Songs where, if given enough space—for example, a long stretch of sidewalk between classes—you can walk in perfect time with the beat. I keep a playlist just for those walks, now that I know where I’m going ninety percent of the time. “Poker Face” is a little too high school for me, but it’s definitely a strut song. I swing my hips, work my three inch stiletto boots, and fasten my gaze on Jude. He watches me the whole way. I feel radiant and beautiful. Then I feel like a queen when a few guys part ways to let me through. Jude’s shifting eyes tell me the guys haven’t stopped watching me saunter away. He has the sexiest possessive streak. It’s what gets on Adelaide’s nerves, but I’d get down on my knees for him to wrap that protectiveness around me for the rest of my life.

I would never be scared again.

I shake off that thought in favor of the desire written across Jude’s expression. “Damn,” he whispers. “Can you wear that every day?”

“Nope. One time only.”

He catches me by the hips. The latex ripples and creaks under his intense squeezes. “Then we’ll have to make the most of it.”

“Later,” I say, catching his tie. He’s just too damn handsome for words. “I want to dance.”

There are a lot of things I’ve gotten used to, living in Louisiana. The best is that the guys can dance. Not only that, but they like to. It’s a way of life in New Orleans, and it’s a rare person who doesn’t know the basics. Jude can
move
. He’s sexy as hell in his suit, his fedora tipped low so that his eyes are almost entirely shaded. Only when I slink up his chest toward the underside of his jaw, seeking out his gaze, does he look down at me and wink. Then he laughs, and those shaded eyes turn to half moons that make my heart pinch.

It’s so weird when “American Pie” comes on. That line about being in love with him, dancing there in the gym . . . it hits like a hammer. Decked out with crepe, and after our cracks about going to prom, the ballroom could double as an overdressed gym. And I adore Jude Villars. When he turns me in a two-step spin, I swear I’m going to fall. I can see it. Falling. In slow motion. All my saunter and sexy Catwoman vibe sprawled across the parquet. But that’s not how Jude operates. He catches me under the arms, gives me another spin, and suddenly we’re facing one another again. I’m secure in his arms. We’re still dancing bye-bye, Miss American Pie, and he’s still laughing.

“I gotcha,” he says close to my ear. “Can’t have you break an ankle. We’d have to spend the night in the ER. No good.”

“Because I’d be in screaming pain?”

“No, because I have a meeting at seven in the morning. Sucks balls.”

“So gallant.”

He lets out an exaggerated sigh. “I’ll just have to make do with you sucking—”

I stand on tiptoes and kiss him before he can say it. But that’s just asking for trouble. I’m still on a whirligig ride with only Jude to hold. I cling to his middle, with my hands under his pinstripe coat. He clings to my ass.

“Let’s get out of here.” His voice is dripping with sex. He angles one of my wrists down his body. He’s pulsing and hard. I give him a squeeze, just to watch his eyes roll shut and his lips part. “I’m serious, Keeley.”

We’re out of the gym in no time, me strutting, Jude dragging me. I like being caught, but hard to get is fun too. Not that I can keep up the pretense for long. We reach his car, which is parked in a darkened student lot. He’s managed to find the only parking spot in the place where lamplight doesn’t follow us. “I would’ve called for one of those walk me home guys if I had to go through here to get back to the dorm.”

“Lucky for us, you have me. Get in, Catwoman.”

He ducks me into the backseat. I’m made of champagne and nitroglycerin when he finds the zipper that runs down the back of the latex suit. Within seconds, he bares my back and my ass. He covers me with the drape of his undone suit coat. The sound of his zipper is next, followed by the foil of a condom wrapper. I’m on my hands and knees and, oh, damn, he’s got his hands everywhere. I’m already moaning when he pushes deep.

Jude bows over me. His breathing is quick and sharp. “You never fail to surprise me, sugar.”

“I’m surprising me too.”

He helps get my arms out of the suit. I don’t think it’s altruistic. He just wants access to my bare body. Fine with me. I arch into his hands, then balance when he guides my hand between my legs. “I’m not doing all the work here,” he says with a brilliant smile in his voice.

I wiggle so that my nipples bead against his palms. “At least do your half.”

“Can do.”

Sometimes we can take hours making love—a night in, when dinner is just pretext, although I love talking and laughing with him. Most times I can forget my own head and live in his world. The world we build together. Then we take as much time as we want, like the first time, where every movement was deliberate, slow, aching.

This isn’t one of those times.

“You’re gonna get us caught,” he whispers against my nape. He scrapes his teeth there, making me shudder from head to heel. “I’m being good, holding off. You’re taking forever, just to tease me. You want someone to see us. Sure, I’ve got this coat over you, but would anyone mistake what’s going on in here if they walked past?”

“No.”

“What would they think?”

“That you’re talking too much. Shut up and let me—”

He nibbles my nape, which—oh my God—it’s become one of my favorite things. There’s nothing more possessive. You can think what you like about different positions and vows and promises and all that pretty stuff, but the deep, primal, gut,
scary
part of me loves it when he uses his teeth there, his kiss claiming me. It’s never deep. It never hurts. It’s just a reminder that he’s over and around me.

I shoot into the sky on an orgasm that makes my throat hurt. He’s poised with his mouth on my skin when he follows me over the edge. I’m still zinging and floating when he gives me one last forceful drive. His moan is pure music—the most erotic music. I take it into myself and store it away. A hundred new memories a day.

“I should’ve known. Setting off that fire alarm was only the beginning.”

He’s an animal at times like this, which I love. It’s thrilling and so bizarre to think,
This is me. This is who I am now.

But then Jude, my gentleman, comes back to me in a few blinks and a few rasping breaths. He takes off the costume coat. I use it as concealment as he zips me up. I’m back to normal—well, normal for Catwoman—when he brushes the hair away from my neck. Softly, he kisses my nape. It’s almost an apology, although I want to tell him it’s so very not necessary.

“I imagine sometimes . . .” he says, before breaking off. I have to pinch the back of his hand where it rests at my waist. “Sometimes I imagine you keep those deep kisses with you. That if anyone lifted your hair, they’d see that I’d taken you.”

I shudder and dive into his arms. I’m not going to let go. I think that every time, but something always happens to end it. No embrace can last forever.

“I need to take you home. That meeting of mine. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. This was . . .” Laughing, I give him a kiss. “This was perfect.”

Although the nitroglycerin feeling has eased—blown apart when we came—I’m still filled with champagne bubbles when he drops me off at the residence hall. After ten minutes of kisses and good nights, I wave at the Mercedes’s taillights and turn to head inside.

Brandon is behind the desk. My blood goes cold. He looks freakish in his own Halloween costume: an undertaker who looks as dead as the stiffs he’d bury. Thick black paint rings beneath his eyes accentuate the hollows of his cheeks. Otherwise he’s chalk white.