“Girlfriend,” he filled in the blank, winding his arms around me.

“Their girlfriend they wouldn’t do anything to mess this up? Because going to jail for attempted manslaughter might be considered messing up to some people.”

“Woman,” he exhaled, resting his cheek against mine, “you are busting my balls. In every way.”

“What was that promise you were about to make me about not touching Morrison and his bunch of half breeds?” I said, paying the lunch lady who wasn’t even trying to mask the judgment in her eyes. Someone else had seen our photo.

“Fine,” he relented, steering me towards the courtyard. He’d either read my mind or felt the same way I did: tired of the looks and sick of dodging questions. “I won’t touch the Jerk-off Jockeys.” Grabbing the door handle, he swung it open for me. “But I can’t promise I won’t pay someone else to touch them,” he added as I passed by.

I jabbed him in the stomach.

“I found your earring,” he said, pulling my silver hoop from his pocket.

“Where was it?” I asked, taking it and sliding it back into place.

“Tucked inside my boxers.”

“How the hell did it wind up there?” I asked, going all soft thinking about his boxers.

“Don’t know,” he said as we walked about the mostly empty courtyard, “but let’s just say I was close to becoming pierced. Down there.”

I laughed, giving the missing earring a pat. She’d had a better morning than I had. No one glanced up at us as we walked across the grass and settled onto an empty table. It was a cool day, the kind where you wished you packed a sweater, but as Jude hung his arm around me, I found myself hoping I’d never have to pack a sweater another day in my life.

“Girlfriend, huh?” I said, setting the pizza in front of him.

“Girlfriend,” he stated. “No question mark.”

I smiled into my tray. “What number does that make me?”

He sighed. “One. And only. I told you before, Luce. You’re my first and, God willing I don’t screw this up, my last.”

It was a good thing I hadn’t just sunk my teeth into the apple in my hand because I would have choked on it. It should have freaked me out beyond repair, my boyfriend who’d been to jail three times as many times as we’d been on dates, tossing forever into normal conversation, but it didn’t. He wasn’t saying marriage tomorrow and a baby the day after; he was saying someday, maybe. And someday, maybe sounded appealing to me in ways a seventeen year old girl with dreams of a bright future shouldn’t.

“How many girls have you been with, Jude?” I said, asking the positively worst question a girl should ask a guy like Jude. I was hoping for a number less than fifty.

He lowered the slice of pizza before taking a bite. “Enough to know when something special comes along.”

“And if you were to quantify enough, that number would be . . .” I dropped my apple too. With this kind of conversation circling about, decreased appetites were an expected side-effect.

“Luce, I don’t want to talk about my past anymore. I don’t want to hash out over and over again how many times I’ve screwed things up,” he said, his hands clenching into fists. “I know you girls have some sick fascination with knowing the name, time, and how we screwed the girls before you, but I’m not giving that to you. It was a lot, probably even a lot more than the number you’ve got in your head,”—my stomach clenched-—“but I didn’t love a single one of them and not a single one of them loved me either.”

“Sounds romantic,” I muttered, shoving my tray away.

“You’re the one that wanted to know,” he said, straddling the bench to face me. “Listen, with a guy like me, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, Luce, because I’m going to do my damndest to be honest with you. Don’t delve into my past unless you want to come out on the other side wishing you hadn’t.”

I’d learned that a while ago, but how could you have a relationship with someone you didn’t know on a past, present, and future tense level? “So if you didn’t care for any of them and none of them cared for you, why did you . . .” every term bouncing to mind was just wrong, “do it?”

“You want to know this?” he asked, challenging me with his eyes. “You really want to know this kind of stuff?”

I nodded once because I was a stupid girl.

Jude’s nod echoed mine. “For me, it was an escape. A way to forget my life was an abyss of shit for a little while. And for the girls,” he said, lifting his shoulders, “they were looking to piss off their mayor and physician parents when they discovered their precious daughters were screwing the quintessential bad boy. That, or they just were really hot for me and wanted to know what I was like in the sack.” His smile curled up on one side which I put to a quick end as my elbow connected with his stomach.

“This isn’t funny,” I scolded, scowling at the picnic table because it was impossible to scowl into his face.

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed, rubbing my arms. “Sometimes the only way I can get through reminiscing about my shitty life is through humor,” he said, turning my face upward. “But the humorless, honest truth is that I didn’t care about them, and they didn’t care about me.” He stared hard into my eyes, and he couldn’t look at me the way he was now and not be honest.