Jumping Jude: A Made Marian Novel Read online

The following day Jude’s driver escorted him to the airport and I met them at the drop-off. We had a VIP escort through the airport to the boarding door of the plane. Because it was just the two of us traveling to Nashville, we flew commercial. Jude wore his long hair tied back under a worn baseball cap, and he had on sunglasses in an effort to be inconspicuous. When we got on board the airplane and found our seats in first class, I had Jude take the window seat. He looked down at his phone to keep prying eyes from recognizing him. He was a nervous flyer, and takeoffs scared him the worst.

  He wore a plain white T-shirt and an old faded pair of blue jeans. I could smell the soap scent coming off him and fought the urge to lean a little closer to smell it.

  “You didn’t bring your guitar,” I said. “How are you going to give the lesson without it?”

  “Gibson is headquartered in Nashville so they’re donating some guitars. I’ll sign one for the winner of the lesson. Since I usually play on a vintage Fender, I didn’t want to step on Gibson’s toes by bringing it while they’re being so generous to the charity this week.”

  “I guess the winner will be thrilled to get a signed Gibson in addition to the lesson. What’s the charity?”

  “The auction is primarily benefitting a pediatric cancer organization, but Lawrence Hammond has pledged to match each donation for an equivalent one to the charity of the celebrity’s choice. So if my lesson goes for a thousand dollars, a thousand goes to the children’s cancer group and another thousand goes to my charity. It’s a great way to get celebrities on board for the auction.”

  “What charity did you choose?” I asked, expecting him to rattle off something expected, like a children’s hospital or the animal shelter he normally donated to in San Francisco.

  “Wounded Warriors,” Jude said before looking back down at his phone.

  I looked at him in surprise. “Really? Why them?”

  Jude’s knee began bouncing up and down. I wanted to put a hand on it to stop the nervous gesture but didn’t. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

  “You,” he said.

  I sat there frozen for a minute in disbelief before finally speaking. “Me? What do you mean me?”

  “Don’t you volunteer for them?” Jude asked.

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t know you knew that,” I said, stunned.

  “You received the Bronze Star and were seriously injured on a mission. I assumed that’s why you supported them so actively.”

  “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “Wolfe, do you really think I’m going to have someone working this close to me every day without learning a little bit about them? I know about your time in Afghanistan.”

  I was temporarily speechless. We’d never spoken of my time in the military or what I’d been through before working for Joel as a bodyguard. I turned in my seat to make eye contact with him.

  “Thanks, Jude,” I said. “That means a lot to me. And you donating to the organization does too. There are so many men and women who need their help.”

  “I sent them a check already too, but I’d love for my guitar lesson to bring in some good visibility. We’ll see what happens. Maybe no one will want to buy a lesson with me, and it’ll all be for nothing.” He chuckled.

  “Want to place a bet on that?” I asked with a snicker.

  “Shut up. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” Jude reached down to his bag to pull out a hoodie. He was always cold, especially on airplanes, and had about a million hoodies.

  “What am I doing?” I asked.

  “You’re trying to distract me from getting freaked out about takeoff. You do it every time we fly.” Jude offered me a genuine smile. “It’s very nice of you, actually.”

  I laughed. “Well if you don’t need me to distract you then, I might as well go back to listening to my music.”

  “What are you listening to?” he asked.

  “Guns ‘n Roses,” I said.

  He let out a laugh as the plane began its acceleration down the runway. “I should have known,” he said, clutching the armrests on either side of him. I knew in a minute he’d squeeze his eyes closed and make whatever deal with whatever god he believed in to keep the plane safe in the air.

  Later that evening we made our way to the charity auction in downtown Nashville with Jude dressed in a tuxedo and me in a dark suit. I stood against the ballroom wall near wherever he happened to be mingling and kept a general eye on him. The crowd at an event like this one was usually well behaved and didn’t include crazy fans who would mob Jude for attention.

  In general, my job was to protect Jude from being mobbed, embarrassed, hassled, or otherwise impeded. I was always on my toes in public, constantly sweeping for threats. But at these smaller functions, I had more time to appreciate just how easily and confidently Jude interacted with people.

  He was heavily involved in charity work and had attended many of these highbrow fundraisers in the past. In several of the tour stop cities, there had been a charity event like this that would beg Jude’s participation. He was usually ready and willing with a tux and a large donation. Until our conversation on the plane, I’d always wondered if it was for show or if he really cared about the groups he was helping.

  As he worked the crowd, Jude seemed to shine. I overheard several conversations where he described both the research the pediatric cancer group was doing with their funding as well as the Combat Stress Recovery Program Wounded Warriors provided. Instead of the exhausted, burned-out singer who was at the end of a six-month tour, he appeared to be an enthusiastic evangelist for the evening’s charities. My respect for him grew as I overheard him speaking with conviction.

  The organizer for the auction came to give Jude a five-minute warning to head to the backstage area, and I saw him smile his thanks to her. As he began to excuse himself from the group of people he’d been speaking to, his eyes swept the crowd. Before his head came all the way around to where I stood, he must have seen something or someone he recognized because his entire body froze in a tense rigor.

  My senses went on high alert and I pushed myself off the wall to stride over to him.

  “Jude?” I asked quietly from over his shoulder. He jumped at the sound of my voice and he turned to me, white as a sheet.

  Lines creased his forehead and he looked almost… scared or nervous.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” I asked.

  “Wha—? Uh, nothing. It’s fine,” he said, looking around again.

  I put my hand on his elbow and began to lead him to the gathering area for the auction celebrities.

  “Bullshit,” I said into his ear. “What did you see that spooked you?”

  He didn’t answer me, his head swiveling behind us in search of whatever or whoever it was.

  “Dammit, Jude, talk to me. Do we need to leave? You look like you just saw an escaped python heading right toward you.”

  He finally looked at me as we arrived at the event organizer checking in celebrities with a clipboard.

  “No, it’s fine. I thought I saw someone I knew a long time ago when I lived here. It’s nothing. Just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

  Like hell that was all, but it wasn’t my place to argue with him. He checked in and waited for his turn on stage.

  Because Jude was one of the more famous celebrities at the event, his guitar lesson was close to the end of the auction. While we waited, Jude mingled with others waiting for their turn on stage. Jude knew almost everyone, and he seemed to relax after talking to them for a while. By the time he was called to the stage, he appeared to have forgotten the python in the ballroom.

  4

  Jude

  Ari fucking Crowe. I knew it was him. As I looked around the ballroom for Derek, my eyes landed on Ari and I felt like I’d been zapped with a stun gun. Seeing his face in that room was like feeling a sharp claw take a swipe at my heart. Six years of healing erased in the blink of an eye. There I was back again in the dingy road
house with peanut shells scattered on the floor, hearing the man I thought I’d be with forever tell me I wasn’t ever going to amount to anything and sure as shit wasn’t worth coming out of the closet for. He’d decided our two-year relationship had all been a big waste of his time.

  Within a couple of months he was engaged to his high school sweetheart, the daughter of one of the richest, most conservative politicians in Nashville. They’d been married in a big society wedding while I was recording the song I’d written after our breakup. “Bluebells” went on to debut at number one on the charts and stayed in that spot for months. The band catapulted overnight from a Nashville club favorite to the Grammy-award-winning group it was today.

  The six years since I last saw Ari had been quick and wildly successful for me. On the outside I’d looked like a man whose dreams and hard work had finally come to fruition, but on the inside I’d been shattered, feeling like I would never again feel the touch of loving hands on my body. I’d thrown everything I had into becoming the best at what I did, and I’d hoped like hell the stardom would somehow mitigate my broken inner confidence.

  While we were together, Ari and I had stayed in the closet for several reasons, mainly his family and my career. When he’d dumped me, he’d made it clear our relationship would forever stay locked away in that closet for both of our sakes. His Nashville high society could never know, and the world wasn’t going to fully accept a gay country music singer anyway. Our shared history seemed to evaporate, disappearing like a morning mist. One minute we were thinking about engagement rings and the next I was staring at a half-empty apartment.

  I heard Derek calling my name, but I couldn’t move or speak. Was I imagining Ari there in that ballroom? Had it been real? Why hadn’t it occurred to me he would be at a black-tie event in Nashville? How could I have been so stupid?

  Derek’s hand guided me somewhere and I blindly accompanied him, my brain clicking through years of memories, feelings, and ultimately, the same old questions. How could you up and leave someone like that? Why did he walk away from me?

  I rubbed my hands over my face and tried to focus on what I needed to do next. Luckily I was distracted with many familiar faces backstage and I did my best to fake it through some small talk.

  By the time my name was called, I’d had enough of a distraction to put on my game face. I wasn’t there as Jude Marian, starving artist mooning over Ari Crowe six years ago. I was there as Jude of Jude and the Saints, multimillionaire and Grammy-winning superstar. If there was one thing I’d perfected since I’d seen Ari last, it was performing for strangers—putting on a mask and becoming someone else on stage. I tucked my heart back into its familiar lockbox and strode confidently up onto the stage.

  “Next up we have a VIP private guitar lesson given by none other than Jude of Jude and the Saints.” The announcer introduced me and gave the rah-rah about my success and how I started playing guitar when I was a toddler. It was a bit of an exaggeration but true to some extent. Instruments had come easy to me from a very early age, and guitar was no exception.

  The crowd in the room was rapt with attention, and I gave them my best heart-stopping smile. I picked up one of the Gibson guitars displayed behind me and tuned it. Momentarily catching sight of Derek behind the stage, I found myself idly strumming the acoustic intro to “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses before realizing what I was doing and transitioning into the popular riff from our song “Startin’ From Scratch.” As people began bidding, I lightly plucked out little recognizable acoustic riffs and country licks from popular songs, trying to encourage people to keep bidding.

  I looked up from the strings to smile at the audience and saw Ari lift up his paddle to bid. My fingers tripped over the chords and quickly fell back on the most familiar muscle memory of all, “Bluebells.” Goddammit. Of all songs, that was the one I never wanted to play in his presence. But I was on autopilot. I knew my smile had faltered and I tried desperately to put my public mask back on.

  The bidding finally winnowed down to two bidders. Ari was bidding against a familiar looking man, maybe a fan or bigwig I’d met before. Every time the man raised his bid, Ari upped it. Finally the man gave up with a frustrated grumble, and Ari won with a final bid of $32,000. I was stunned, both at the value of my guitar lesson and at the fact Ari had just donated money for the opportunity to see me for two hours the following day. I was going to have to spend time with Ari Crowe.

  My stomach planned a revolt, and I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt like everyone in the ballroom knew my secret. Ari’s eyes were laser-focused on me from across the room. I tried to remain neutral, not giving away my recognition of him.

  After I exited the stage, Derek approached me to lead me to the table where I would meet with the winning bidder to arrange the details of our meeting the following day. I shook and thought I might vomit.

  “Wolfe, where’s the men’s room?” I asked quietly. He looked at me with concern.

  “You okay?” Derek asked, gesturing to the coordinator we’d be back in a minute. He led me out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

  “No,” I breathed. “Not okay.”

  He swept the bathroom quickly, and I entered behind him to splash some cold water over my face. Derek’s hand came down warm and strong on my back while he held some paper towels ready for me with his other hand.

  “You going to tell me what’s going on, Bluebell?” he asked.

  I thought about confiding in him but realized this wasn’t something he should have to deal with. If I was going to succumb to my own feelings of worthlessness, wouldn’t it be better to go it alone instead of having a witness?

  “Maybe I’m coming down with something,” I lied.

  5

  Derek

  No doubt about it, something had gotten to Jude.

  “I’ll be fine,” he mumbled as he straightened his tux jacket and combed his hair with his fingers.

  “Let’s just go make the arrangements and then head back to the hotel. Do you think it’s a good idea to go to Puckett’s?” I asked. He’d made plans with some of his old friends to meet up at the popular bar in Leiper’s Fork to play for a bit after the auction.

  He’d lost his sparkle again and looked exhausted. “No, probably not.”

  “Come on,” I said, opening the men’s room door and peering out into the hallway before waving him through ahead of me.

  When we arrived back at the coordinator’s table, the man who’d won the auction was waiting. The small hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I saw the way the man looked at Jude.

  “Jude,” the man said with a giant smile before stepping forward to hug Jude. Jude’s entire body went rigid, so I put a hand out to stop the man before he embraced Jude. The unofficial rule about hugging a celebrity was it was acceptable if the star wanted to hug someone but not the other way around. Usually people were polite and asked permission first. Jude almost always said yes.

  When the man looked up at me in surprise, I gave him my usual calm face and low voice. “Sorry, sir. Handshakes only.”

  “It’s okay. Jude and I are old friends. Right, Bubba?” he asked with a genuine smile.

  Jude said quietly to the man, “Ari, let’s make arrangements for tomorrow, then we can talk in the hallway.”

  I wondered who this guy was. Jude obviously knew him, but it seemed to be throwing him. The way he was reacting to the man made it obvious there was a history between them.

  As the man gave his contact information to the woman at the table, I committed it to memory so I could get a background check before morning. He was a local named Ari Crowe. I quickly shot off a text to my office, requesting as much information as they could dig up on him.

  After the coordinator told Ari when and where to meet with Jude the following day, the man acted like he was going to step forward and hug Jude again, and everything in my gut told me to stop him. I stepped forward again and the man stopped and put his hands up in a concil
iatory gesture. “Okay. I’ll meet you out in the hall.”

  “You going to tell me who this guy is, Jude?” I asked quietly after he walked away. Jude looked everywhere but at my face.

  “Just an old friend from when I lived in Nashville years ago. I’m going to find somewhere to have a private conversation with him. He’s fine, Wolfe.”

  “If he’s fine, then why are you acting strangely?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed as he finally made eye contact with me. The warm brown eyes I knew so well were glinty with steel. “None of your business, He-Man. I said I’m fine. You can leave me alone while I talk to an old friend, all right?”

  Without waiting for my response, he strode over to the guy and led him to the corridor where we’d entered. I followed at a distance, trying to balance respecting his privacy with keeping him safe. I certainly wasn’t going let him out of my sight.

  When they entered the hallway, I stayed by the ballroom doors to make sure no one interrupted them. They continued far enough down the hallway so they were out of earshot. Not that it mattered, because they were speaking at low volume to keep their conversation private even from me.

  As they spoke, I realized how well I had come to learn Jude’s body language since I’d been guarding him. He was wound up tight in addition to the exhaustion plaguing him. I could picture him finally reaching his limit and collapsing right there on the carpeted floor.

  Every time the man reached for him, Jude’s body tensed further until I wanted nothing more than to make up an urgent excuse and hustle him out of there. It was so obvious to me that he didn’t like this, and it was making me crazy just standing there doing nothing. I could feel my back teeth grinding against each other.

  Jude shook his head emphatically. The man leered at him like he was a slice of cake. The look was almost feral. Finally Jude threw up his hands at the guy in frustration and started to turn back toward me to return to the ballroom. The man grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug.

  Suddenly I was the one uncomfortable, and as I felt bile rise up my throat, I recognized it as jealousy. That was my Jude. As ridiculous as it sounded even to myself, I had been practically living with him all day every day for months. I was in charge of watching over his very body. Nobody got to touch him without my permission. Did that sound overly possessive and Neanderthal of me? Sure. But it was an actual logistical fact. Usually. Not today, apparently. I tried to respect Jude’s request for some space to talk to this old “friend.” But he sure didn’t look like just a friend anymore.