Secrets I have held in my heart
Are harder to hide than I thought
Anger is not something Jude is used to feeling, but it fits well in the hot-honey flash of his eyes as they cut from the floor to Koa's tight jaw. His own feels much the same, as does his skin. He wants to ask if Sohalia had talked to Koa at all, but suddenly he doesn't want to know. Not now, when his insides still feel raw, as if scrubbed by a steel scouring pad. Are harder to hide than I thought
That throbbing ache is eased by the heavy weight of Koa's arm over his shoulders, making his own poor attempt at humor and distraction feel more solid, his smile more real as the door swings shut behind them. And, against all odds and all reason, Jude's cheeks flush at the closeness. He blames it on being generally flustered by nearly any physical contact, but Jude isn't even good enough at lying to do it to himself.
"Oh!" It pops out of him in flustered surprise. "I've uh...I've never gotten drunk before actually," he confesses, which seems massively uncool when he's hanging out with the coolest person he knows. But like we just said, bad at lying. Or maybe he just used it all up in Koa's office. "But if you'll make sure I get somewhere okay, I'd like to try." It's not peer pressure when you're doing it to impress someone, even if you might end up facedown in your own puke in a random city gutter. Though Koa might reasonably back out when he finds out he'll have to partially play babysitter.
Kebabs are close enough however, and Jude insists on paying. Koa might have a real job, but Jude has wealthy parent benefits. The least he can do is give Koa a free wiener to make up for snot-crying all over the Dragoon's shoulder.
I'm standing at the edge of the world
Where do I go from here? Do I disappear?
Where do I go from here? Do I disappear?
Jude
