Jude
in his ears as he walked down the unoccupied sidewalk, enjoying the serenade from the guitar riff accompanying him. Heat radiated through the paper bag with his breakfast and the cup of coffee in his hands.
The sun might be out, but clouds and November winds promised the final tides of autumn. . . or the closest example of autumn in Los Angeles.
His walk brought him to the end of the isolated road winding through his college's sprawling campus, opening toward the plaza between the lecture halls. People milled about the student commons, in clusters of friends or paired off as couples.
Jude stopped short of the plaza's threshold behind the thin line dug into the paved concrete, tilting his head. For a brief, shining moment, he studied the quiet flow of foot traffic and the faces of the people who passed. People watching, an old habit of his since high school, emerged with full force from its hibernation.
And the time-honored tradition of coupling up during the colder months continued in stride.
As he observed, people walked around him without recognition or reaction to his standstill in an otherwise moving world. But Jude didn't mind. No, his thoughts landed somewhere between Giselle and the way her mouth molded to his when he kissed her at Dakota's Halloween bash.
He hadn't stopped thinking about it or how her eyes ogled him after he pulled back. The kiss served its purpose, yet the memory lingered along with Giselle's presence in his head.
Jude should take her to West Bridge, giving her a proper campus tour since the idiot before neglected to do so. He could picture Giselle bounding down the sidewalk next to him, wearing a sundress, and soaking in the campus' gorgeous architecture.
Speaking of Giselle, Jude checked for any messages, finding nothing from her or anyone. Nothing yet.
Resuming his walk with renewed urgency, Jude beelined through the busy plaza for the Asher Kelly College of Liberal Arts. All his classes happened in the Kelly building; however, he always started his mornings across campus at The Coffee Castle, the school's aptly named café.
Jude raced up the stairs, each step accentuated with the billowy flourish of his trench coat around his legs. Dressier than the average college student, he adhered to the unspoken rules within the domain of one Dr. Leandra Miranda-Silva.
Everyone in the political science department knew about LMS. She held the unofficial title of the most demanding professor in West Bridge, maybe second to Dr. Reid Sinclair in the history department.
Like any rational person, Jude feared her and wanted her approval. With an opinion that moved mountains within the department and beyond, Dr. Miranda-Silva sat as his first-choice option for his senior thesis. A good advisor made all the difference in the world, and his future depended on careful planning.
Entering the hall behind the double doors of polished oak wood and the Romanesque frame of the Kelly building, Jude left behind the lively bustle of the student body for the quiet of closed doors and whispering students. Down the hall and to the right, the open door to the first-floor seminar room sat behind a makeshift doorstop made from a tall stool.
As he popped his earbuds out, Jude caught the first scraps of conversation, and he ducked inside. That semester, he and a dozen other poor souls registered for Dr. Miranda-Silva's Policy and Political Bargaining seminar.
Beyond one tiny exception, Jude enjoyed most of them and found their insights intelligent.
Jude's coat flared as he approached, taking his seat in the second row from the front. But the immediate chorus of, "Hey Jude!" greeted him before he could open his coffee or bagel.
"Morning, everyone." Jude tipped his head in greeting and turned around, sitting backward on the cramped desk. He stretched his legs out to give them more space, finding five classmates staring at him. "How's everyone's week been?"
"Stressful. Javi and I threw a housewarming party for our new apartment, and my mom invited half a dozen extra people without telling me. With all the rush, I forgot to finish critiques and rushed through them at six in the morning." Levi Hershfield groaned between hard swigs of his coffee. Dark, tired eyes peered at Jude from behind, tortoise-shell glasses perched low on Levi's nose, and his dark, closely cropped curls gleamed with flecks of leftover product hastily raked in.
"They wouldn't be so stressful if you did them beforehand, Levi. We have the whole week to get started." Beside him, Grace Hou interjected as she rapidly fired off a text on her phone to a twinkling chime. She brushed her dark, blunt bangs out of her face, letting the light glow on her tawny, beige complexion. Her features popped with the startlingly purple eyeliner she chose for that morning, likely done by one of her sorority sisters. "One of these days, LMS is going to chew your ass out in feedback."
"Oh, come on! I've survived the semester thus far, and my grades haven't been that bad for last-minute accidents!"
"Grace has a point. Imagine you forget entirely, and we have another lecture from the good doctor because everyone else suffers when one of us forgets." The deep, rumbling bass of Shakir Osman Ayad's voice accentuated the teasing smirk on his face. He rubbed his shaved head, and most of his lean, tall frame hid behind his favorite blazer. Shakir was on a semester abroad at West Bridge and loving the Los Angeles experience, per his words.
"Not you, too!" Levi groaned and shrank back in his desk, almost knocking over his coffee with the haphazard slump of his limbs.
Jude's mouth curved while the three descended into a squabble of overlapping voices. He grabbed his coffee, careful to check its temperature before drinking.
He rummaged into the paper sleeve for his bagel, hungrier than some coffee could satisfy. His eyes remained on Levi, Grace, and Shakir and their animated debate about if or when Levi's consistent procrastination would bite him in the ass.
Quietly, Jude demolished half of his bagel before one of the other silent observers, Billie, waved to him and smiled.
"I liked your midterm discussion on capital punishment, Jude. I found your research thorough and your arguments compelling." Billie's perpetually flushed yet pale face emerged from the high neckline of her navy turtleneck sweater. At the same time, her ring-adorned fingers smoothed over her cropped brunette bob.
Jude covered his mouth, full of a half-chewed bagel, "Thanks, Billie. Your paper on food insecurity in schools and free-lunch initiatives had a great structure. Have you considered using it for the final project?"
"Yes. As long as LMS doesn't hate it, I'll put in my application for it."
"Good luck. LMS is notoriously hard, but I'm sure she wants us to succeed by the end of the course."
"Definitely."
Jude swiped another bite of his bagel and hummed, "Oh, and congrats on the housewarming, Levi. Pass my congratulations to Javier?"
He smiled when Levi's head snapped over and interrupted the side tangent he, Grace, and Shakir tumbled down. Levi beamed, flashing Jude a thumbs-up.
"Sure thing, man. Appreciate that," said Levi.
Jude reached for his coffee behind him. The lingering remnants of sleep hung around his head and buzzed with its fuzziness, needing his chosen pick-me-up for a quick rescue before class.
However, the unmistakable presence of someone standing behind him and their heated gaze dragged down his spine. Jude's hands barely curled around the base of his to-go cup before something roughly slammed down on his desk.
Jude noticed flinching from Shakir and Billie at the sudden, booming sound, but he stayed calm, righting the coffee cup when it slanted into his hand. He gazed over his shoulder, finding a hand on his desk that didn't belong to him. His eyes wandered up until he met the seething glower of James.
Ah, there was that one exception to his pleasant relationship with his seminar classmates.
"You prick." Two words, yet they dripped with enough contempt to kill an elephant. Jude's brows shot up, and he stared at James, expecting a little more huffing and puffing from him. Bloodshot eyes and bags underneath them darkened his face, and the few days' stubble across his jaw painted him in an unkempt light.
"James. Is there something I can help you with?" Jude wiped his hand across his mouth, checking for any leftover cream cheese.
"Don't play dumb."
"I'm not sure I understand what's got you so riled. But we can talk about it if you like?”
James' nose flared. Knowing how far he should push the line, Jude reined in the urge to smirk. Sure, he was being an ass by prodding, but he deserved to hear James admit what had him in such a sour mood. Oh, how the tables turned since their Del Mesa days.
He didn't like it when someone snatched up something he considered his, did he?
Jude crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair, waiting for James to cave. Whether his pride or his anger broke him first hardly mattered. The confrontation would've happened sooner since he and Giselle played their new couple act over a week ago, but the professor canceled last week's class. Since Jude didn't share another class with James, he spent the next week waiting for their inevitable clash.
He wouldn't need to wait long before James leaned in and scowled hard enough to bare his teeth. Jude spun around to face his rival.
"You and Giselle. Everyone at Dakota's party couldn't stop talking about the little stunt the two of you pulled by showing up together. I always knew you were a rat, Beauregard."
"Ah, that's right. I forgot you were there. See, I was there to support my girlfriend. She worried about running into old friends and school acquaintances."
"You piece of shit!" James yelled, and Jude swept his eyes around the room, soaking in the reactions from the others. Their wide eyes clashed with the immediate rush to pretend to be busy. "You couldn't leave our past behind, could you? You're still stuck in high school because you came second to me in everything. So, you decided to get back at me by stealing my girlfriend?"
Jude never came second to Jameson Calloway in anything. . .
Except for one time.
Jude rolled his eyes. "For someone to steal something, it must belong to you. Luckily, Giselle doesn't belong to anyone, and you broke up with her over a month ago. So, she's your ex-girlfriend."
"You think you're so smart, playing semantics and skating by on technicalities, don't you?"
"I don't know. You're the wannabe lawyer here."
"Fuck you."
"Yeah, yeah. . . If that's your response, I won't need to remind you that you seemed more than content to romp around the Ridge and chase anything in a skirt. How many girls have you jumped on since your split? Five? Ten? Twenty?"
"You almost sound jealous," James scoffed, but his attempt echoed its hollow venom with a bitter edge.
"Keep telling yourself that," Jude remarked after a pause, witnessing the flash of pure rage. Implications worked better than lies; people heard whatever they wanted, and their eager imaginations filled in the blanks with their assumptions. "Did you seriously assume Giselle wouldn't find someone else who wanted her, let alone someone who wanted her twice as much as you ever did?"
James' hands grabbed Jude by the collar of his coat and yanked him forward, nearly causing Jude's coffee to spill. Jude stood up and towered over James, forcing James' grip on his expensive coat to slide right off.
"Whatever. You two losers deserve one another. Have fun with my sloppy seconds." James held his hands up and stepped back from Jude's desk, acting like he hadn't started the altercation.
Coward.
"Aren't you technically the sloppy seconds since you're passing yourself around the Ridge like the communal blunt at a party?" Jude replied, plucking his coffee off the desk to sip and watch James seethe in his rumpled blazer.
Before he could get a last word in, Dr. Miranda-Silva strode into the room with her black leather ankle boots and polished blazer, primed and ready for class. The entire room scrambled to their chosen seats.
"Good morning, everyone. We have much to make up for since our last class, but we will start with oral arguments." Dr. Miranda-Silva dropped her folders onto the desk at the front of the room, not wasting a breath.
Part of the seminar class included public speaking and oral arguments, fulfilling one of the final graduation requirements within the department. In high school, Jude would've thrown up at the thought of speaking in front of his classmates, but he learned how to manage.
Dr. Miranda-Silva grabbed one of the podiums from the corner of the room, but Shakir bounded from his chair to help with the other one. She and he exchanged a quiet conversation before she leaned on one of the podiums.
"Today's first oralist will be. . . James. Please step forward and select your opponent from your classmates."
Dr. Miranda-Silva approached the whiteboard and scrawled James' name with one of the dry-erase markers, choosing a sickly green color for him. How appropriate, seeing as his presence made Jude want to hurl.
James sat up at his desk, side-eyeing Jude from across the room. "You know, Professor. . . I'd like to challenge Jude."
On cue, several groans erupted from behind Jude, causing his mouth to twitch in a knee-jerk reaction. To the shock of no one, James always chose him for debates. Consequently, he rarely won them either.
Dr. Miranda-Silva spun around, and her face sat in the perfectly stoic expression she wore during lectures. However, her narrowed eyes and the harsher pull of her lips screamed annoyance, much in line with the rest of the class.
"Mr. Calloway, would you consider straying from your comfort zone and picking someone else for a change? Robbing the rest of your classmates from the chance of an educational debate because of your… grievances with Mr. Beauregard is unacceptable in my classroom," she asked.
Jude raised his hand and waved. "Professor, I'm alright to handle today's debate. I studied the reading and all the bills assigned for the last two weeks."
"Very well. It seems Mr. Beauregard is offering you a favor, Mr. Calloway. Now, both of you go out into the hallway while the rest of your peers and I discuss the topic for today."
Jude climbed out of his desk and headed for the hallway, coffee in hand. Behind him, James' footsteps followed until he emerged into Jude's vision as the two took opposite walls in wait.
Sipping his coffee, Jude leaned against the wall and shrugged off his coat before he got too hot underneath Dr. Miranda-Silva's questioning. She never went easy on her students.
But he was temporarily exiled to the hallway with James, who couldn't stop himself from a fight even if it saved his life.
"Nervous? If you need someone to hold your flashcards for you while you speak, I'm sure one of the girls will take pity on you up there," James drawled, sarcastic and sharp in tone.
"Laugh all you want. . . I'm sure everyone finds it funny how I still beat you on the merits nine times out of ten," said Jude.
James' little smirk dropped, replaced by a scowl. Jude huffed and rolled his eyes, averting them to face down the hall. However, the buzz inside Jude's trench coat pocket reeled him back in.
Jude pulled out his phone, checking the screen to find none other than a text from Giselle.
At the unofficial code word, Jude snapped to attention. He fought against a devious smile as his lock screen lit up with a call from Giselle, her picture overtaking his screen. Like a dutiful boyfriend, Jude answered, "Hello, my darling dove. Is everything alright?"
"Jude, you didn't have to buy me flowers!" Giselle exclaimed before a hello came, framing her voice so effortlessly bright. Her joy filled the hallway with warmth without her even being there, banishing the autumnal cold through the opened double doors. "They're so beautiful, though!"
"Oh, I'm glad you liked them. I passed a flower stand on my commute to school this morning and saw the tulips in the window. I read up on the language of flowers and figured those were perfect to send to you."
"Yellow is one of my favorite colors, but what do yellow tulips mean? I know red roses are romantic, and white roses represent purity, but I'm a little rusty on my floriography."
"Yellow tulips are like saying 'you have sunshine in your smile.' The Victorians sent them to the people they cared about to say that they thought about them, and your beautiful smile could rival the sun," Jude remarked but didn't lower his voice for James' benefit.
Despite all the jaw-clenching he was doing, James could learn a thing or two about how Giselle deserved to be treated.
Giselle cooed, "Oh, Jude. That's so—you're spoiling me!"
"Nonsense," Jude chuckled and met James' eyes, taking in how they narrowed hard before he clenched his jaw. "I have class now, but I love hearing your voice. How about I pick us up some dinner after class, and I'll swing by your place?"
"You'd do that? I'd love to have you over!" Giselle had no idea how they jabbed another insult at James like a pile of salt poured into the wound.
"Of course. Nothing will make me happier after a long, boring day of theory and policy debates than hearing about your garden and Carrot."
"Okay! I'll see you then. Thank you for the flowers. I really appreciated the gesture."
"You deserve nothing less. See you later, Giselle. I'm counting the minutes already."
Jude ended the call and cracked his neck, satisfied with how James appeared seconds away from lunging across the hallway and throttling him into the nearest ditch. Oh, what a horrible way to see what he lost.
So, even before they stepped up to the podium to debate, Jude had already defeated him.