Page 37 of Out of Reach

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jude

“I’m positive,” Jude said emphatically. “I left my necklace face-up on the counter, and now it’s face-down.

Hawk looked dubious. “It would be easy to accidentally flip it over,” he said.

“But Ididn’tflip it over.”

“How can you be so sure? Or maybe I did it without realizing?” Hawk asked.

“Because I was the last one in the bathroom before we left, and I know the diamond was facing up. I always put it face up because I’m afraid of scratching the diamond. I also remember because I’d been considering wearing it and decided not to.”Because it had been a gift from Hawk, and he didn’t want Hawk to think he always wore it.“And I’m almost positive it’s not in the same place it was before, either. In fact,” he looked around the bathroom and pointed to a pile of towels on the floor under the towel rack. “Those have been moved. I remember tossing them by the shower.”

Hawk scratched his head. “Okay, let’s say that you’re right. Why would someone come in here, move your necklace, and not bother to steal it?”

Exasperated, Jude groaned. “I don’tknow. I just know that someone did. Go look around and see if anything else has been moved.”

He watched as Hawk walked into the bedroom and looked at his things that he hadn’t taken with him to the Hamptons.

“I don’t know about moved, but I am sure nothing is missing,” Hawk said. “We’ll just have to chalk it up to a glitch in the Matrix.”

“Very funny.”

“I’ve seen weirder stuff on TikTok.”

Jude smacked him on the arm, but at least the tension had run out of his shoulders and he was smiling.

“I need to call Slade,” Hawk said, taking his phone out of his pocket.

Jude wasn’t exactly trying to listen in, but Hawk disconnected, Jude heard him say, “I think sooner or later he’ll mess up.”

Jude knew he was talking about Sam. Slade Falcon would continue to have him watched.

When the text came through that Hawk had a flight out of LaGuardia the next day at 10 a.m., Hawk began packing.

Jude sat on the bed, watching him. Ricci had called, asking that he be at Utopia bright and early the following morning, which meant he wouldn’t be able to see Hawk off at the airport. Suddenly, it hit him that he would more than likely never see Hawk again. Funny that in a couple of weeks so much had changed. Jude no longer lived in that rat-infested apartment. He was modeling again. He and Sam were friendly. And Hawk had walked back into his life—only to be walking out again.

“What’s wrong?” Hawk asked.

“Huh?” Jude looked up to find Hawk watching him intently.

“You’re going to have a hard time getting that knot loose.” He nodded to Jude’s lap where Jude had unconsciously tied the edge of a sheet in a hard double knot while he’d been thinking.

Crawling over the bed, Hawk sat beside Jude, their knees touching.

“Are you nervous about your first day back at Utopia?”

“A little,” Jude said. He wasn’t going to admit the real reason he was troubled.

“You’ll do great,” Hawk said, patting his leg.

“Hawk,” Jude ventured before the other man could turn away.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think…we could be friends?”

Hawk didn’t say anything right away, and Jude seriously considered backpedaling. But before he could come up with something, Hawk nodded.