I Slept With My Enemy, Now He Won't Let Me Go novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What He Said at Lunch

They did not sleep much that night.

They lay in Neil's bed with the lamp on, and neither of them reached for the other.

"Say it," Neil said at last. "Whatever you're holding."

Jude stared at the ceiling.

"After the board lunch," he said. "In the corridor. You were talking to someone, and you didn't know I was behind the door."

"I don't remember."

"You said, 'It was a mistake and I'll never repeat it.'"

Neil went cold.

"I said that to Ansel," he said.

"You said it to somebody. I only heard the voice."

"He asked me if something was wrong, and I said it was nothing, just a mistake I'd made, and that it would never happen again." Neil sat up. "I meant the drinking."

"I thought you meant me."

Jude turned his head on the pillow.

"I stopped writing after that," he said. "I'd already thrown out three more notes. I told myself the fight was easier."

"You're an idiot."

"So are you."

They looked at each other in the lamplight.

Something that had been tight for three months finally let go.

Neil put his head on Jude's chest.

Jude's hand came up, slow, and settled in his hair.

"We take him apart tomorrow," Neil said. "Ansel."

"Carefully."

"I'll do it alone. He won't lie to my face."

"He lies to everyone's face."

"I know him better than you do."

"You think you do," Jude said, and then stopped, because it was not the time to fight.

At breakfast Winifred watched them eat in silence, one at each end of the long table.

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