Emilio licked his lips, then shrugged and picked at the edge of his jaw with his thumbnail. “Maybe—I didn’t see shit on my way here to grab you, and I didn’t see shit behind us when we left. But things are…” He trailed off and gazed into the distance like he could see straight through the trees. “We’ve reached a point where I can’t predict what’s coming next, and it’s unsettling.”
Jude leaned back, and the wood on the porch dug into his elbows, but he didn’t mind the discomfort. It was grounding in the way he needed it to be right then. “How are things normally?” When Emilio turned his head and gave him a dark look, Jude sighed. “I’m only trying to understand. I mean, I was minding my own morality crisis when my brother phones and tells me he’s nearly been shot and is in hiding with a biker in the middle of nowhere—and No, Yehuda,” he mimicked his brother’s posh professor voice, “I can’t tell you what happened or where I am. And, by the way, some strange man is going to pick you up and take you to some undisclosed location so you don’t die.”
Emilio made a choking sound like he was covering a laugh, and when he lifted his face again, a hint of a smirk rested in the corners of his mouth. “Is that how you say it? Yehuda?”
He butchered it, the way all Americans did, but it still made Jude smile, even as he waved off the man’s attempt. “Jude’s easier for you people to say, and I quite like it besides.”
“You people,” he parroted with a head shake. “You know I’m not deliberately trying to be a dick, right?”
Jude let out a sigh. “I know. You’re keeping distance between us, making sure I’m uninformed so if they catch us and try to torture information out of me…”
“Jesus Christ,” Emilio interrupted, dragging a hand down his face. “Look, I don’t actually know a lot about the fucker who decided to bring his club down here. Last year, our VP got tracked by some asshole from his old club that wanted to settle an old score. I thought that’s what was happening here, only one of my brothers has been in contact with a couple other club chapters in the area, and it looks like there’s some major shit about to go down. And I think the guy leading this—the one who almost shot your brother—is using this as an opportunity to come after my Prez.”
“I don’t understand half the things you just said,” Jude admitted.
“I know.” Emilio pressed against his thigh a little harder. “That’s my point. No one’s gonna torture you for information. The reason they’d be after either of us is to kill us. They don’t need info—there’s nothing we got that they give a shit about, and they sure as shit won’t expect you to know anything.”
Jude let heavy silence fall between them. “That sounds…exhausting.”
“Sometimes. This life ain’t exactly kind.” Emilio reached for one of the other beers Jude had left on the ground, and he cracked the top before he took a drink.
“I don’t suppose any life is,” Jude said, then accepted the bottle. It was warmer now and better that way, and he let the taste linger and eclipse what was left of Emilio on the back of his tongue. “It’s a series of moments and what we do with them determines our suffering.”
“Is that what you believe in?” Emilio asked.
Jude handed the bottle back, then picked at the edge of his nail. “I thought I did. I…I do,” he said, because that wasn’t a lie. His faith was never in question—it was his purpose that had him feeling so damn lost. “I feel like I’ve spent the last several years standing in my own way.” He licked his lips and stretched his legs out. A breeze picked up, and the scent of ocean was on it. “Before Eliah rang me, I was preparing to leave. Nothing was making sense anymore, and that’s usually a calling from HaShem to move on.”
“HaShem?”
“God,” Jude said with a faint smile. “Or maybe I was hungry and had low blood sugar—but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it.”
Emilio cocked his head to the side. “Do you do that a lot?”
Jude lifted a brow at him.
“Casually demean your faith to make other people comfortable.”
The words were like a physical jolt, and he shifted away before he realized he was doing it. “That’s not…” But maybe it was. Maybe he had been doing it outside of temple—outside of his work, and his colleagues, and his congregation. Maybe that’s why everything felt so wrong lately. “Bloody hell, I am such a shit rabbi.”
Emilio made a soft noise, and some part of Jude felt an almost visceral regret that the man didn’t reach for him. It would have been a nice moment—as stupid as it sounded, even to himself—for a hug.
“How do you get better at it?”
It wasn’t a question Jude was expecting, and he turned his head, his brows raised. “That’s a bloody good question, mate, but I think that’s between me and…”
“God?” Emilio offered.
Jude shrugged. “Him as well. And my heart.” He rubbed a hand over his sternum and thought about the little bag in the bike’s storage compartment. His clothes, his kippah, his tefillin. Everything else had been left behind—either in his bedroom he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again or thrown away in his case.
His flat was full of things that held some sentimental value—and they’d traveled with him across the ocean and to this new place he planned to call home. But it was only sitting there with Emilio watching the sun set behind the trees that he realized he’d never let anywhere actually feel like home. He’d worked, he’d studied, he’d socialized. He ate, he drank, he fucked. He was spiritual, and he was all-too human, and he was so, so bloody lost.
“Was I being a dick again?” Emilio asked in the silence.
Jude took a breath, then listened to a couple of bird calls in the distance. Crows, most likely, the chittering noise they used to call their mates. He heard it every morning when he tossed them peanuts and leftover dinner scraps, and he realized he’d miss them more than he’d miss anything else about his life there.
“It’s not your fault. It was a fair question. It’s a question I should have been asking myself years ago, but I wasn’t brave enough.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, then pushed to his feet and twisted at the waist to work out some of the kinks in his back from the ride. “I think I need a moment.”
“Take as many as you need,” Emilio said, his voice softer than before. He stretched his leg and dug into his pocket, pulling out his phone that lit up his face with a soft glow. “We’ll roll out in about six hours. The couch don’t look too bad now, if you wanna get some sleep.”
Jude nearly asked him to come with—because warm arms and a solid body behind him felt like the only thing that would allow him to let go, but he wasn’t going to cross that line. An orgasm was one thing, but cuddling after…it wasn’t the time to take the risk.
With a last glance at the brooding man, Jude headed up the stairs and inside the house. The door slammed behind him, and he allowed himself just one fleeting moment of fear, doubt, and grief before he pulled it all back and set one foot in front of the other.