I lurched forward, something mean and loud on the tip of my tongue, when Jude pulled me back.

“I never said I did deserve that,” Jude said, meeting my mom’s eyes.

I could tell, from the blood vessels bursting in her eyes, that this was seriously pissing her off, that this person didn’t cave to her superiority and lower their gaze.

“And those guys never were and never will be my friends. If they ever find their way out of prison and I run across them, I will repay them every hurt they took out on Luce.”

“How refreshing. The felon suggesting we repay violence with violence.”

“Sometimes that’s the only answer,” Jude said, his fingers flexing in my hand.

Mom’s face shadowed. “And sometimes that gets the people you love most killed.”

A figure moved from behind mom. I hadn’t even noticed he was here, his presence was so absent. Shuffling around her and by us, Dad’s face was as shadowed as Mom’s. He tapped my shoulder in passing. “Goodnight all.”

It should have gotten old, mourning the person my dad once was and, at times, hating the shell of a human being he’d become, but it hadn’t. He’d checked out of every facet of life, letting craziness and compulsion rule his few cognizant moments.

Mom steepled her hands over her face. “Lucy, time to say goodnight.”

I grabbed Jude’s arm, steering him for the front door. I couldn’t get out of this crazy house fast enough. “Goodnight, Mom.”

“Lucille Roslyn Larson!” she shouted after us. “Get the hell upstairs right now. And you, Mr. Ryder, get the hell off my property before I call the cops.” Her voice was less angry and more desperate now.

“No, Mom!” I shouted, letting my temper loose. “I’m going to homecoming and I’m going with Jude, because I’m with him and he’s with me and if you can’t handle that, then say goodbye to your only child!”

I’d stabbed her in the soft spot, and it registered immediately on my face. “That boy almost got you killed, Lucy,” she said, her voice a whisper.

I was still every phase of pissed, so my voice was nowhere near a whisper. “This man also saved my life!” Throwing the door open, I practically lunged down the front steps with Jude’s hand in mine.

“Lucy,” she begged from the living room.

“I’ll be home by one,” I said over my shoulder, the anger dimming to a dull roar now that I was certain I’d won the battle. But I was sure I hadn’t won the war. There’d be hell to pay tomorrow morning, so I’d make sure tonight really counted. “Everything will be fine,” I emphasized before turning the corner to the driveway.

“When you say buckle up,” Jude said, pulling a set of keys from his pocket, “you mean suit up for the damn apocalypse.”

“Pretty much,” I said, curling my nose. “Sorry about that back there.”

Jude waved it off, but he couldn’t hide from me how much my mom’s words had cut him. Just liked she’d hoped they would.

“No, those were awful, awful things to say to another human being,” I said. “My parents, they’re complicated people,” I understated, not sure when or if I could ever explain the mess that was the Larson family.

“Luce,” Jude said, stopping me, “I get what a piece of shit I am, and it’s not awful or unfair or incorrect for people to call me out on what I am. But I’d like to think a person can change, and I swear to you I’m going to try to leave my piece of shitedness behind.” His eyes were so earnest, you would have thought he was about to get down on one knee.

“Shitedness?” I repeated, nudging him. “That must be one I missed in Webster’s.”

“Nope,” he said, “that’s one plucked right out of Jude Ryder’s urban dictionary.”

“Nice,” I laughed, tip toeing across the gravel so that the stones wouldn’t trip up my three inch heels.. “And in Lucy Larson’s book of shitedness, you’re nowhere on that list.”

“That may be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he said, tickling at my sides. “Something about a hot woman in a damn fine dress lying through her teeth about me not being a piece of shit is a real turn on.”

“Glad I’m so . . .” And then I noticed the car parked in the driveway, and I stopped in my tracks. “What is that?”

I didn’t speak boy, but I knew that gleaming silver coupe was fast, expensive, and would attract all cops within a mile radius.

“It’s a car,” Jude said, opening the door for me.

“Don’t treat me like one of your one night stand girls,” I said, looking up at him.

“My god, woman,” he said, leaning over the car door, “what does a man have to do to get a free pass from you?”

“I don’t believe in free passes,” I threw back. “I believe in honesty. I’m all old fashioned that way.”

“It’s a ’66 Chevelle,” he said, shutting the door before I could ask any more questions.

“Is it yours?” I asked as he crawled into the driver’s seat.

“Nope.” He turned the key over and the engine fired to life. “It belongs to a buddy of mine.”

“A buddy at the boys’ home?” I knew this line of questioning was making him tense, as his jaw could attest to, but I couldn’t understand why.

“Does it seem like any of us have any family who gives a damn, jobs that pay a damn, or an inheritance worth a damn that would allow guys like us to afford a ride like this?” Stretching his arm across my seat, he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the driveway.

Mom was staring at us through the living room window, for the first time ever looking as lost as my dad was. Something heavy dropped in my stomach, something that felt a lot like guilt.

“Defensive,” I mumbled, staring out the side window.

“Your parents pretty much called me gum on the bottom of their shoe. You failed to mention, or more likely chose not to mention, to them that I was your date tonight.” Once we were on Sunrise Drive, he gunned the Chevelle. “I am the bad boy preying on the good girl. So yeah, I’m a tad defensive right now.”

Not even a half hour into our first real date and we were already arguing. We were setting a wonderful precedent for whatever road our relationship was headed down.

Fighting back that knee jerk reaction to volley right back, I took in a slow breath, then turned in my seat. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell my parents about you. Really,” I added when he made a face. “I didn’t tell them because of who you are, but because of who they are.”

“Who they are?” he repeated. He didn’t sound like he was buying it, but that was the truth.

“Yes.”

“And just who exactly are they, Luce?” he asked, rolling to a stop at a red light.

“Sad, scared people who have lost a lot in life and are scared of losing more,” I said, fiddling with the handles of my purse.

Hanging his hand over the steering wheel, he looked over at me. “And what happened in their white picket fence life to make them so sad and scared?” He was mocking us, mocking them, but he just didn’t understand, and I was never in the mood to make someone understand what I didn’t understand myself.

“Life,” was the only explanation I had for him.

He huffed. “What a forthcoming, all-encompassing answer.”

I was really having to work hard to keep my temper meter cool. “I learned it from watching you,” I said, cursing the tears that were forming. I’d turned into a blubbering mess after meeting this guy.

The light turned green, but Jude kept staring at me. Lifting his thumb to the corner of my eye, he let the tear run down his hand. “Shit. I’m such a jerk,” he said as a car blasted its horn behind us. Raising his hand in the back window, Jude flipped off the car. “I’m sorry, Luce. I wanted tonight to be so great and I can’t seem to do or say anything right. I’m not mad at you, not even close. I’m mad at myself. I get why your parents don’t like me and I get why you didn’t tell them about me. I get all of that,” he said, hitting the dashboard. “I get that’s the reality, I just wish reality would take a vacation, you know?”

Another horn blast, this one not nearly as polite. Punching the dashboard again, Jude shoved the door open. “Excuse me for one second,” he said, looking back at me as he crawled out of his seat.

I turned in my seat, not quite sure that what I was seeing was happening. Jude lunged to the jacked-up truck behind us and began pounding on the tinted glass driver’s window.

“Hey, douchebag. Open the door and let’s settle this like men!” Reaching for the handle, Jude tried opening the door, but the driver was smart enough to have locked it. “What? You think you’re the shit because you can blast your horn at a guy trying to have a serious conversation with his girl?” He was hollering, and oncoming traffic was stopping to see what the hell was going on. I scrunched down in my seat, wondering for the umpteenth time what exactly had happened in Jude’s life to make him this way. So angry, so closed off.

“Next time you think about palming your horn, you better be ready to put your money where your mouth is and throw down like a man,” Jude yelled, throwing his arms in the air. “You got that, chicken shit?”

Spinning around, he loped back to the car. A handful of passengers were sticking their heads out of windows, watching the two of us like we were menaces to society. I slid down farther in my seat.

Slamming down in his seat, Jude pounded the door closed and, looking both ways first, ran the once again red light.

Taking a breath, he looked over at me, his face smooth. As if he hadn’t just gone all Hulk at an intersection. “You can ask me anything you want, Luce. I can’t promise I’ll answer every question to your liking, but you can always ask.”

My first thought was that he must be on some serious meds and forgot to take his daily dose, but then I recognized this little pretending-nothing-had-happened routine. I was so familiar with this coping mechanism I could have written the psych book.

“What the hell was that?”

Turning into the high school parking lot, he took the very last spot in the back corner. Staring through the window, he sighed. “That was me losing my shit. It happens a lot, Luce. I don’t mean it to, and I don’t even want it to, but ninety percent of the time, I can’t control it.”

There it was, that window of vulnerability, that so honest it was painful answer that reminded me why I was here, now, with Jude Ryder.

“I want to be a better man, but I don’t know if I can be,” he continued, tilting his head back on the seat. “You need to know this if we’re going to give this thing a go because—”

And then I did something, depending upon your views of the world, that was either very reckless and wrong or very situationally appropriate.

In one seamless move, thanks to my decade and a half of dancer’s grace, I found myself straddling him and, before I could think twice about my actions, I pressed my mouth against his.