Teenage Fever // Jude Bellingham

42

The sound of keys rattling at the door made my head snap up. There was some shuffling, and an audible yawn before Jude's figure appeared from the end of the hallway.

His eyes squinted at the brightness of the room; we usually never turned on the big lights at night.

It took him another second before his eyes landed on me, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island.

Another second and his eyes shifted to the dress sprawled in front of me.

I didn't know if it was the expression on my face — which was probably a mixture of denial, hurt and confusion — or the dress that caused his own expression to pull into one of horror.

His reaction made this situation even worse; how was I supposed to interpret that? He obviously connected the dots; that I had found it here. But when he looked that terrified, I had to expect the worst possible history behind that dress.

Before he came here, I had thought about some of the possible owners instead of eating something like I had planned to do.

It could've been his mom's, but personally I thought it was a little too short... so my next guess was that it belonged to a friend, although I haven't met a single female friend of him. He was good with a few female staff members of the club, but they were mostly professional. The dress didn't look too professional.

It could've been one of Gio's stupid jokes, right? He put it there to make it seem like—

"Tia." Jude's eyes were scanning over my face, as if he made sure to capture every single emotion or reaction I showed right now.

I had been to deep in thought to notice how he had made his way over to me, which is why I was a little taken aback at his sudden presence directly in front of me. 

I just stared back at him, my head having to tilt back to be able to look up at him since he was towering over me from my position. I was trying to keep my expression as unreadable as possible to stop giving him an advantage at piercing everything together.

But he briefly glanced down at my hands; where my fingers were doing their usual fiddling. It was a habit of mine that showed whenever I was anxious; if you payed attention to it, at least.

The problem was that he always did. He always noticed. And he knew how I felt, now.

"Talk to me." He said softly, grabbing my hand to let his thumb graze over the back of it. Warmth spread through my body, and I had to break our eye contact to stop me from giving in.

I didn't know what I was supposed to give in to, but I couldn't be vulnerable right now. Not when he might've done something that would make me spiral back into my old self.

I pulled my hand from his grasp to reach for the dress, pulling it closer to us to signal him what this was about. Although I was positive that he already knew the second he laid eyes on me tonight.

"I, uh, came here to be with you." I started, "I felt bad that I had refused to go—"

"You didn't refuse, Tia. You didn't feel comfortable, and that's fine." Jude furrowed his brows at my words.

Rightfully so, what the fuck was I saying? I was making myself feel small again.

And why was I trying to explain why I was here? He clearly trusted me enough to let me come here when he wasn't home, otherwise i wouldn't have a spare key. That observation just made my discovery even more confusing.