I swirled around my wine glass, leaning on the doorframe.
"So, your girlfriend dumped you?" I ask, watching Jude tear all the pictures off the wall. He stops at one, hesitates, and then rips it down.
"She wasn't my girlfriend." He hissed coldly, "She was my fiancée."
"Well, you weren't married. Long journey from bended knee to the alter." I take a long sip and watch him think about what I was saying. I honestly didn't know. My eyes were already starting to glaze over, I was drunk.
He turned around, and I saw his red, puffy face. "Why are you here?"
I shrug and take another sip. "Mm… bored." I reply flatly, finally.
He collapsed in a chair and held his face in his hands. "I don't know what happened, Pepper. Everything was so right."
"You changed. Things happen like that, you know? You two became strangers." I finished the wine and looked around for a place to put it. I still had no idea on what I was talking about.
"What is love?"
I put it on a dresser next to the door. "I guess it's different for everyone."
I could tell that didn't help.
"Love for me… is probably the stars." I said airily.
"Stars?" He repeated, curiously.
"Yeah." I half-whispered. "I know that I'm not usually the one to be like this. Especially because you know me." I returned to my normal voice. "You can't really see the stars here, but you could see them in Alliston."
"Oh."
He knew that Alliston is where I used to live, on a farm. It was the basic definition, or excuse, on why I was so unfeminine. I grew up in a pile of horse shit.
Not literally.
"Did you ever…" He trailed off. "Love anyone?"
I laugh a bit, and look over at my glass, wanting it to be full again. "Oh, once."
He wanted to hear more, but I didn't really find a reason to explain it to him. Because he was sad? Because he had felt the pain of rejection too? No, none of those were good enough. At least not for me.
"Where's Max tonight?" I asked, trying to get off the subject.
"I don't know." He replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I was thinking that because you were both bachelors, you could go out…. woman hunting, or something."
"Woman hunting." He mocked, and we both laughed a bit.
"You know what I mean. A guy's night out."
He shrugged and looked away. "I don't know." He said quietly, and I could tell that his mind was going back to thinking about Lucy.
I jumped over, and he looked up.
"Let's have a guy's night in." I said, grinning.
He raised an eyebrow. "But you're a girl..." He said faintly.
"Whatever. There's a show on the… what do you call it in England? Telly?" He smiled at that. "Come on. There's some chicken wings in the fridge… I know you love those. I saw you horking them down the day before yesterday."
He laughed and shook his head.
"Come on." I got down on my knees and looked up at his dark eyes that were surrounded with red circles. "We're friends."
I stood up, and his face moved with mine. He was sitting in the chair, looking up at me, grinning like an idiot.
Then he smiled a tiny, tiny bit, and stood up.
I grinned even wider and ran over to the couch to get the best spot.
It was only when I turned around to taunt Jude when I realized he was running behind me.
"Jesus!" I yelled, when he pushed past me and hogged the entire sofa.
I rolled my eyes and walked into the kitchen to get the chicken wings.
I carried a handful and spilt them all over the coffee table. Jude watched, amused, and then turned on the TV. I licked my fingers, and sat on Jude's feet. Oddly, he didn't move them.
We watched the TV for a while, eating some meat in between commercials. Then I finally looked over at Jude, and said,
"Your feet are making my underpants ride up my ass."
He laughed a bit and then shifted his feet from under me. I grabbed a wine bottle off the table and took a drink from the neck.
"Why do you do that?" Jude asked when I was wiping my face on my sleeve.
"What?"
"Drink it from the bottle."
I smile. "It always tastes better when it's straight from the bottle."
"Does it?" He sits up and I pass him the bottle. He takes a long sip, and then stares at it strangely. "I don't feel anything different."
"That's probably because you drink from the bottle a lot." I make it up, and it's a pretty lame excuse, but it's good for me.
"So you're saying… the more you take of one thing, the less satisfying it gets?"
I shrug. "I guess. Good words to live by." I joke, and then take the bottle from him. I'm definitely drunk by now, and he is probably tipsy as well.
"Do you think it's the same with women?"
I shrug. "I've only kissed a girl once."
"What about men?"
I think about that. "I guess it depends. About how much you love them. About how much they love you. When the loves gone, everything's gone. And the long late night talks, the kisses, the sex, it all loses the meaning."
"How do you know when it's real love?"
"You never know."
He took the beer bottle from my hands and took a long sip. He handed it back to me, and I took a sip as well. My stomach was beginning to feel bloated, so I put it on the table once I was done.
"I think I love you." He whispered, and I swear, if something interesting had been on the TV, I would have missed it.
I didn't say anything to that. I couldn't even look at him after that. Even after being drunk.
"Why won't you look at me?" He whispered, and then turned my face with his gentle hands. I looked at him dead in the eye.
And then I lean in and kiss him lightly on the lips before pulling back immediately.
He doesn't say anything after that. We stare at each other for a few more minutes before he leans in and kisses me again.
It's a short one, just our lips and barely touching.
I'm getting bored with us teasing each other, so I say, louder than I thought, "This isn't fucking spin the bottle."
And then he moves in closer to me and kisses me with an open mouth, our tongues mangling in each others mouths. I felt his hand move on the hem of my pants, and the weird thing is, I let him.
But the weirder thing was, even though I remember everything, I was still a tiny bit freaked out when I saw him lying in my bed the next morning. Well, not my bed, but on the same couch that I was lying on, the only thing covering his decency was a thin little blanket that was on the chair beside us.
That was the second night I had slept with Jude.
And the first night that I realized… that I might love him too.