Hi everyone, this story is finally making some real progress and I hope you all enjoy the direction I'm taking it. Not sure if I'm going to do one big final chapter or two regular-length ones, but regardless, the end of the story will probably make it up here within the next few weeks. I would love your comments and critique as always. This chapter is pretty important and I always appreciate your thoughts. Thank you!

4. The Reconnection

He had even pulled her chair out, Jude thought to herself, as she gazed at him over the table. It was too perfect, so chivalrous, and so damn confusing.

It felt a lot like a date.

They were at a nice restaurant with lots of silverware and cloth napkins. Tommy ordered a steak (medium-rare) and Jude the pasta special. They shared a Caesar salad to start, the dish placed between them, both leaning in over the candlelit table, forks mingling.

It was a lot like a date, Jude admitted to herself as he talked and she laughed, but it was harder to place it in the context of their history. What were they? What were they doing? What did it all mean, anyway? And most of all, how could she justify the brutal way he'd broken her heart with the warm smile his presence instantaneously put on her face?

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She smiled. He was making such an effort, and she truly did appreciate it. She appreciated those small kindnesses, his small questions—how was work?—that few men she had dated ever seemed to ask. He asked about her new life in Los Angeles with a genuine curiosity she found, in all honesty, really nice. He was special, always had been, a rare breed, and he was even more thoughtful, more kind, than he had ever been when she'd known him the last time around.

"Just reminiscing," she smiled softly. "It's been a long time for us, Tommy Quincy."

"Sure has," he grinned. "When I first met you, you cut your own bangs in your bathroom and did math homework."

She laughed; he was right. "I was a kid."

"Not sure I would have changed anything, though," he revealed, looking at her pointedly.

She frowned in mock disbelief. "You're saying that you're glad I showed up in your life at 15 instead of 21?"

He nodded after a moment's thought. "For a long time, I wouldn't have said that. God, on your sixteenth birthday, when we kissed…I struggled so much knowing what I was doing felt so right and was, in so many other ways, so wrong."

"Age is a funny thing," Jude mused, fingering a blond lock with her fingers.

"It is," Tommy agreed. "If you had been older, there was no way I would have held off for so long. I wouldn't have been able to control myself."

"Would that have been so terrible?" She smirked coyly, lips curling up.

"I never would have gotten to know you, Jude," he said seriously. "We had years of friendship, of genuine friendship, that we probably would never have had if we'd been fucking around on the side."

She stayed quiet, wondering where he was going with this. She'd never heard him talk like this before. Their age difference had been crucial to the nature of their relationship in those years—as producer and musician, as friends, and as, well, more than friends—and she had never considered that it could have been different.

"I'm glad I know you the way I do," he said, clasping her hands in his across the table. "I'm glad we never got into anything heavy for a while, because it let us last this long."

"Tommy, we haven't lasted this long," Jude said awkwardly, shrugging, pulling away. "Our age difference meant that when I was ready to explore the world, you were ready to settle down. I haven't seen you in years, Tommy. I haven't known you in years. And I struggled for so long with the guilt, the shame, the lost dreams—"

"The guilt?" He asked, his eyes alive with feeling and with questioning.

"I wished that I didn't feel that inner need to go out and conquer," she explained, breathlessly. "I wished I could be content with Toronto and GMajor, with my life as it was. But I couldn't. London was just the first step, and I needed it so badly, wanted it so badly…" She sighed, closing her eyes.

"Go on," he urged, though he could tell these memories were painful for her, even more painful to recount to him. "I need to—I need to know."

She nodded, continuing. "God, I wanted so badly to tell myself that it didn't matter, my career, all those ambitions, but I couldn't do it, couldn't let go, and I hated myself for that for so long," she explained, her jaw set firmly. "If I had been 21 when I had won Instant Star, I would have been a much more mature musician, a more mature person…I would have been able to control those urges."

His eyes were on her when she looked up. He was staring at her with such visible love, such passion, that she almost had to look away.

"Jude," he breathed out, smiling broadly. "That ambition made you the musician you were—the best musician I ever worked with. I mean that, Jude. I wouldn't have taken that back, ever. I hate that I hurt you. I hate that I couldn't understand that you needed time, and experiences, and adventures—and that maybe I needed to let you go, just a little, so that those things could happen. But Jesus, Jude, you never did anything wrong."

"Tommy—"

"Back then, I loved you for your ambition, for all the dreams you had, for that inner drive," he began, clutching her hands tighter. Her eyes widened—Big Eyes, he used to call her. "I still love you for all those things, too."

"Tommy—"

"You need to know it, Jude. I need to know that you know it."

"I do know it, Tommy. I do." She looked at him for another moment before standing and grabbing his hands. "Come."

"Where are we going?" He asked as she pulled him through the restaurant, towards the handicapped restroom. "Jude?"

"Just go with it, Tommy Q," she said, breathlessly, leading them inside and locking the door as quickly as her shaky fingers could manage it.

She looked at him for another moment that seemed suspended in time before wrapping her delicate arms around his neck and kissing him deeply, pulling her body flush against his, kissing him with everything she had been saving for years and years.

"God, I love you," he whispered during a moment's breath, and she smiled into his mouth but didn't respond. He spun around, pressing her back against the wall, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist. They were so close, now, and though they'd certainly made out in a bathroom or two back in their heyday, this time it meant something, something real.

Jude's simple black dress was riding up, leaving close to nothing between their yearning bodies. As Tommy kissed down her jawbone to her neck, she fumbled successfully with the button of his dark-wash jeans, pulling the zipper down with fervor. Soon he was out of the jeans and his boxers entirely.

When she reached for her own panties, he stopped her with his hand.

"Jude, is this…is this what you want?" He asked, hesitant, always making sure.

Her eyes sparkled. "This is what I want, Tommy," she said, a promise. "This is what I've always wanted."

With that, he dove, curling a finger inside the waistband and letting the flimsy black underwear float to the floor, holding her up with his hands on her hips, her ass, her thighs. Skin on skin, her and him, like they were uninterrupted, like the years that had passed since she'd been eighteen didn't matter; like the kiss on the balcony on her sixteenth birthday had counted; like the stolen kisses in the next two years, hidden and furtive, counted too; like he hadn't cut her out of his life when she moved to London; like this was an extension of their history, of their complex past, of the pain and hurt of a million moons ago.

If all of that pain brought them to this one day, this night, this moment in time, Jude thought, as she climaxed and pleasure flooded her mind, then it was all okay. It would all be okay.

…...

Tommy was lifted from the lull of sleep by a set of guitar chords that made him smile just upon hearing them—they were just that good.

He stayed in bed for a while, letting the music wash over him, feeling a sense of inner peace and contentment he hadn't recognized in a long time. Last night had been magical—and he felt like such a girly wimp using that word—but he had finally, finally reconnected with Jude, and not just physically, either. Last night she had opened herself up to him again, musically and emotionally, and he knew that it meant a lot coming from her. Jude was guarded and tough and sensitive, and he knew he had broken her heart perhaps a dozen times before. There was no real reason for her to trust him again, to let him in again, but she did. That was the true beauty of Jude—her innate ability to give him second chances (and tenth chances) when he needed them the most.

He crept out of her bedroom and saw her sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the sofa leg. God, she was beautiful, even early in the morning, especially early in the morning. Her hair was wavy and mussed, her eyes big and blue and sleepy, heavy-lidded. She was wearing underwear and his shirt from the night before, unbuttoned, and nothing else. She was perfect in his eyes, down-to-earth and relaxed and real, just like he had remembered her.

"Two songs in one twenty-four hour period, huh?" He noted, smirking, when she took a pause between lines of an as-yet-unfinished song.

"Two times in my bed in a week, huh, Quincy?" She retorted, the early hour not preventing her from spitting a quick reply back at him.

"Touche."

Tommy sat down beside her, running his fingers over her guitar. "Where have you been keeping it?"

"Linen closet. Behind the towels," she admitted with a gleam in her eye. "Sometimes I've wanted to pick it up so, so badly, and it's almost magnetic and I have to fight off the urge…"

He smiled. "I wish you wouldn't. The world deserves to hear you, Jude."

"So you've said," she smiled shyly, slightly embarrassed. "It feels right, now, all of a sudden. My music, I mean."

"Maybe it was the great sex?" He laughed and she elbowed him, dissolving into giggles. They felt young and comfortable.

"My inspiration," she said quietly, suddenly serious, looking at him fixedly. "Always been you, huh?"

"And all this time I thought you were singing about Shay," Tommy said, smiling as he received another prompt, sharp jab. "But really, this song is…it's great. It's beautiful. Is it a new one?"

"About an hour old," she smiled. "I'm sorry if I woke you."

"Don't be, I woke up happy just hearing it. It's perfect."

"You only heard a few chords from the bedroom," she noted. "It's not even done yet."

"It doesn't matter. Let me produce it," he said.

"Are you kidding?"

"Not at all." He stood, reaching for her hands, pulling her up with him. "This song is going to be the return of Jude Harrison, Instant Star, Toronto native, book jacket maven, best musician I've ever worked with."

She blushed at his compliments. "Tommy—"

"Please don't argue," he said, looking at her so hopefully. "I don't think I could bear it if you don't say yes."

"You make this so hard," she said, her lips curled into a smile. "So I can't say no?"

"Nope."

"Do I have to come back to Toronto?"

"Yes. Preferably with me, on the flight I'm supposed to be on that leaves tomorrow afternoon."

"You make everything complicated, Tommy Q, anyone ever tell you that?"

He laughed, loudly. "Every day of my life."

"You're basically kidnapping me. Abduction! To another country."

"I'm returning you to your native land!"

"And I'm just supposed to quit my job? Just like that?"

"They must need book jackets in Canada, if you feel that inner, creative urge to write some historical fiction summaries."

"And my friends?"

"Do you have any? You haven't mentioned them—"

"Tommy!"

"Okay, okay. You can always visit, you know."

"You literally want me to abandon my life, my home, in L.A., and move back to Toronto, tomorrow."

"No, Jude," he said, grasping her hands in his, speaking emphatically and with such honesty that she couldn't help but smile as he said his piece. "You're not leaving home, you're coming home."

Nodding slowly, she walked towards the kitchen, and he heard the sounds of drawers opening and closing and silverware clattering and then a slow, steady drip.

"Jude!"

"What, Tommy?"

"So? So you'll come?" His voice was desperate and boyish and pleading. "God, Jude, I want you to come with me so badly. I need you to come, I just, I know this is going so fast, but I want—"

"Some coffee?" She peeked her head out of the kitchen. He was still and silent. "Do you want some coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Tom, if I'm going to quit my job and pack up this apartment all in two days, I'm certainly going to need a coffee. Probably two. And so I am asking you," she paused, sidling up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her lips getting dangerously close to his exuberant grin. "And so I am asking you, would you like some coffee?"