Love me // Judd Birch x Reader

8: Secret

After spending a very much active night with Mr Birch, I decided it was best if I headed back to Julian's house, seeing that I was going to be spending the week with him before heading back to New York. Judd dropped me off in his car, he basically speeded the whole way there for some reason and then said something about our relationship being best kept secret, I agreed with him because I could simply just imagine Julian's horrified face if I were to tell him about our new-and-improved relationship. It made sense because of all the nights Julian had to stay awake listening to me crying down the phone about Judd.

I hopped out of the car and started walking towards the house, but just as I was about to reach the door Judd's voice called out to me. "Hey (Y/n), you left something in the car!" The window to my side was rolled down and I ran back to the car and leaned my head in to check if he was saying the truth. Just as I did so I felt his lips peck my cheek affectionately. "Have a good day today, I'll drop by later." His voice was low and gruff and a flush of red coloured my cheeks, I remembered Judd being affectionate during our previous relationship, but he never behaved like this, and in a way I loved the way he was acting at the moment. It made me feel a strange warmth inside. I waved him off and stared at his car as it sped down the road and into the distance.

A sigh left my lips and I turned back to face the house, but the moment of peace was soon interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open and Julian rushing out to ask where I was. He pounced on me and started flooding me with questions, even though he knew I wasn't going to answer them all.
"Where have you been I was worried sick!"
"Calm down Julian she was with Judd." Iona popped up out of nowhere and exposed me like that. Julian slowly turned to face me again with a somewhat disgusted and betrayed look on his face.
"Ma'am, you did not...tell me you didn't..."
"Didn't what?" Iona asked, despite Julian talking to me.
"Iona the adults are talking right now fuck off." Julian waved his hand at her in a nonchalant sort of way as if to shoo her off. Her smile dropped and a pissed off expression replaced it.
"Ugh whatever." She replied in a fed up tone of voice. I smiled awkwardly at her as she walked back towards the house, leaving me and Julian alone to speak.

He asked for all the details obviously, but before we started talking we walked together into the house and poured ourselves a glass of juice. We then proceeded to sit on the sofa and talk about the things that had happened in the past 24 hours. Just as I was about to finish the story, I heard a pair of footsteps nearby and my head snapped in the direction they were coming from, because they seemed to be nearing.

Suddenly Dean rounded the corner and entered the living room, I waved at him and he waved just as enthusiastically back. "Bro where did you go? We were all worried you had wondered off drunk somewhere." He said with an affectionate ring to his voice. I chuckled and shook my head telling him I had gone to my old friends house, to which Julian coughed sarcastically.
"Yeah- sure-" He muttered in between coughs. I rolled my eyes and lightly shoved him. Dean in the meantime had made himself comfortable on the sofa.
"Well we're going to have a Mario Kart tournament and whoever wins gets to choose the takeaway, so prepare yourself to be the first to lose." Dean winked in my direction after explaining that to me. I forced the corner of my lip to tug up into an awkward smile, due to the fact that I wasn't sure if his behaviour could be considered flirty, or just straight up friendly.

"Where's Brenna?" I asked curiously, as I hadn't seen the lively girl around anywhere.
"She's up in her room working on a project for her universities next art exhibition, it's coming along quite well." Julian told me with a proud smile on his face.
"She's coming down for the tournament, and somehow she always wins as well...strange girl." Dean added, shuffling a bit closer to me. I wanted to shuffle away but I decided I wasn't going to make this awkward in case he was actually just trying to become my friend.

We ended up doing the tournament but then continued playing for a fair amount of time after that, slowly one by one everyone left because they got bored of playing, until it was just me and Dean. I had to admit I was having a lot of fun and the fact that Dean became so competitive while playing made it 10 times better because of his reactions when he lost- one time he even threw a chair to the side out of anger, I simply watched him and laughed.

I also hadn't realized how close we were now sitting until I literally felt his thigh press up against mine. I wanted to shuffle awkwardly away but felt bad so I continued to sit where I was. After a while though we got bored of playing on the wii so we sat on opposite ends of the sofa and started to get to know each other better.

Just when I thought we were becoming good friends I heard the doorbell ring and Dean instantly sprung off the sofa and scuttled to open the door. "Juddddd!! Where did you disappear last night?" I heard Dean say from the corridor, my attention to their conversation suddenly spiked and decided to eavesdrop on what they were saying.
"I went home, had to do my laundry." Judd's voice sounded sure of himself, he had become a good liar, and I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Nevertheless, I batted away my insecure thoughts and focused again on the two boys talking.
"Oh, well come on into the living room, me and (Y/n) just finished chatting."
"Oh I didn't know you and (Y/n) were so friendly." Judd's voice sounded sour all of a sudden, I winced and pulled out my phone as I heard footsteps approaching, playing it as cool as possible. Even though I wasn't even doing anything on my phone, I was just swiping and looking at the different apps.

The two entered the living room where I was perched on the couch and Judd stood awkwardly behind me, as if he wanted to hug me but knew he couldn't because we had promised to keep our relationship secret. This was going to be a challenge.

Dean without thinking anything of it, sat down in the space next to me and I swear I heard growling coming from Judd's mouth. I was slightly disappointed as well that he wasn't sitting next to me but there was nothing we could do about it now, it's not like I could ask Dean to move just so Judd could sit next to me.  So Judd sat on the other side of the sofa, sitting in a position so that he was staring at me the whole time. I felt my cheeks redden while his eyes were fixed on me.

"Dean could you go and get a couple of beers for us." Judd asked, flickering his gaze from me to our friend who was awkwardly sitting in between us.
"Yes! Good idea!" He said enthusiastically, springing up to his feet and dashing into the kitchen. As soon as Dean left the room Judd pulled out his phone, I felt a disappointment wash over me, was he just going to ignore me now?

Just as I was about to get up to join Dean in the kitchen I received a text, looking down at my phone I expected it to be Jessi or someone asking how I was doing, but instead it was the boy who was sitting opposite me, who was now smiling down at his phone.

Judd Birch: come and kiss me right now.

(Authors note: sorry for the wait guys! I've been going through a bit of a writers block and really was uninspired to write. I'm feeling a lot better and ready to update more frequently so be ready for new chapters!💕)