Chapter 22: Not Nothing

That night the lodge went quiet early.

Winifred's door closed at nine.

Britt drove home at ten, with a cedar shaving still stuck in her hair from the cradle.

At eleven, Neil sat up against the pillows with the envelope in his lap, and Jude sat beside him with one arm around his shoulders.

The lamp was on.

Neil slid out the note.

The paper had gone soft at the folds, and the ink had faded to brown.

"You asleep and you look about twelve years old," Neil read aloud.

His voice broke on it, and he started again.

"I'm going to get real coffee and real eggs. Back by noon. Don't move, and don't you dare think this was a mistake."

Jude's arm tightened.

"I'm not sorry," Neil read. "I've never been less sorry in my life."

He stopped.

He pressed the paper to his chest and shut his eyes.

"All those weeks," he said. "I spent all those weeks thinking you'd walked out on me without a word."

"I know."

"I called that night a mistake, in a corridor, where you could hear it."

"You did."

"I'm sorry, Jude."

"I know." Jude kissed his temple. "If I'd known Ansel was in the house, I'd have left four notes."

Neil laughed, wetly.

He folded the paper, set it on the nightstand, and took Jude's face in his hands.

"Read it to me again," he said. "With your mouth."

Jude stared at him.

"Say it where I can feel it."

Jude kissed him.

It started slowly, the way it always did now, and it did not stay slow.

Neil pushed him back against the pillows and straddled his hips, and Jude's hands went to his thighs and gripped hard.

"Your belly's in the way," Jude said, amazed.

"It's your fault."

"I know. I'm very proud."

Neil snorted and kissed him again, and Jude dragged the shirt over his head.

His mouth found Neil's chest.

He licked a nipple, and sucked it, and Neil gasped and ground down against the hard heat of his cock.

"Fuck. Jude."

"Take your pants off."

"You take them off."

Jude shoved Neil's shorts to his knees, and Neil kicked free, naked and flushed above him in the lamplight.

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