The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Nobody Falls

We sat on the bed with the tablet between us and made a plan in whispers.

Lowen had left the file, a note and her passcode on a sticky pad, and then locked herself in the bathroom down the hall.

"One camera," I said. "A live finale means a live feed. If Lowen can give us ten seconds on air, I can read him his own rundown."

"And if the network cuts the feed?"

"Then we make it loud enough that they can't."

Jude was looking at me with a strange expression.

"What?"

"I'm trying to decide if I'm terrified or in love."

My heart went off.

"Rule three," I said, too fast. "Nobody falls."

"I remember."

"I mean it. I can't do another four years of being sorry for wanting someone."

"Callie." He took the tablet out of my hands and put it on the nightstand, quite gently. "Rule three was mine too. I wrote it so I'd have something to break."

"You wrote it so we wouldn't."

"Tell me how well that's working."

I looked at his mouth.

I looked at the pillow wall, which sat in a heap at the foot of the bed, and at the dark lake in the window.

"It isn't," I said.

"Say it plainly."

"I want you, Jude."

His eyes softened.

"Nobody falls," he said, softly, against my lips, and I felt him smile. "Too late. I fell in a stairwell."

I laughed, and he kissed me in the middle of it.

This kiss wasn't furious and it wasn't polite.

It was slow, deep and certain, the kind you give when nothing is hiding behind your teeth anymore.

He undid my sweater one button at a time.

I tugged at his shirt, and he pulled it over his head with one hand.

I put my palm flat on the staff tattoo and followed the lines up his arm with my mouth.

"Callie."

"What?"

"If it's too much, tell me to slow down."

"If you slow down," I said, "I'll push you out of this bed."

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