Jolene walked into the hotel bar three blocks from the river with bleach still under her nails and her father's new keys in her pocket.
Her jaw had a scab on it and her apron was gone, and she did not feel like a woman who had spent two years crying.
She drank the whiskey slow, the way you drink something you paid too much for.
She was not here to cry over Dean. She was here because her body wanted something that belonged to her.
Dean: You think a new lock makes you a new woman? You're a dried-up bitch with a bakery that's sinking.
Dean: Nobody else is going to want you, Jo. Come home and take your punishment.
The words hit her the way his hand always did, fast and low, right under the ribs.
She deleted the message and turned the phone over like it was something dirty.
Then she heard someone laugh.
It came from the end of the bar, deep and easy, a laugh that had never once been careful.
His eyes came around the room and landed on her and stayed.
Jude: That's a face that has had a day.
Jolene: That's a face that has had a year.
Jude: I'm Jude. Just Jude. The rest costs extra.
Jolene: Jolene. Just Jolene. The rest is none of your business.
Jude: Fair. Then tell me the part that's not business. What did you do today that you're proud of?
He asked it like he actually wanted the answer, and something in her chest sat up.
Jolene: I changed every lock in my shop, and I fed a lawyer cake so he'd take my husband apart.
Jude: The husband. Is he coming here?
Jolene: No. He's the reason I came.
He nodded like she had told him the weather. He did not ask for the whole sad story.
Jude: Then tonight is yours, Jolene. What do you want to do with it?
She finished her whiskey, and the answer she gave was not the answer she had planned.
Jolene: I want to do something reckless with a man who has no last name.
Jude: I can do reckless. I'm very good at reckless.
He didn't grab her. He set his glass down and turned and waited, and she kissed him first.
His mouth was warm and slow, and then it wasn't slow at all.
His hand came up into her hair and his thumb pressed under her ear, and her whole scalp lit up.
He kissed her like the night was long and she was in no hurry, and her mouth opened on a sound she hadn't made in years.
In the elevator he had her against the rail and she had her hands under his coat.
Somebody got in on floor six and they straightened up and laughed so hard she had to hold his arm.
His room was at the end of the hall. The key beeped twice, and then her back was on the wall.
His mouth came down on her neck and his teeth dragged, and she tipped her head back and let him have it.
Jude: Tell me what you want.
Jolene: Touch me. Everywhere. That's what I want.
His hand went under her dress and found her through her underwear, already wet, and he made a low sound against her throat.
Jude: God. Look at you.
He pushed the cotton aside and his fingers slid through the slick, up and over her clit, slow circles that bent her knees.
She got her hands between them and unfastened his jeans and took his cock in her palm, hot and thick and heavy.
He breathed the word yes against her mouth, and then he did not talk for a while.
He lifted her, one hand under her thigh, and she locked her ankles behind his back.
He pushed into her slow, and she felt every inch of it, the stretch and the burn and how deep he got.
Then he fucked her against that wall, deep and steady, and the picture frame jumped with every push.
Jolene: Don't stop. Right there. Please.
Jude: I've got you.
She came like something breaking, her mouth open on his shoulder, her whole body squeezing down on him.
He followed with his face in her hair, and she felt him spill and shake and swear into her neck.
Later they sat on the floor with their backs against the bed and he told her bad jokes until she cried laughing.
Jude: Why did the baker quit doughnuts? She was tired of the hole business.
Jolene: That's terrible. Do another one.
Somewhere in the night he wrapped himself around her back, and she slept deeper than she had in two years.
When she woke, the other side of the bed was cold and the room was paid.
There was water in a glass on the table, and she had a first name and a laugh and nothing else.
The shame came in then, warm and stupid. She didn't know his last name. She couldn't look him up if she tried.
Jolene: Jude.
She said it out loud to the empty room, and it was not enough to find a man, but it was something to keep.
Dean's message was still sitting there, saying nobody would want her. She deleted it on the sidewalk in the sun.
A man had wanted her all night for nothing but her laugh, and that was a fact now. It could not be taken back.
She walked toward Vine Street and caught herself listening for that laugh in the crowd.