No One Else

Chapter 1

Oh, hello! And welcome to No One Else, the third book of the Someone Else series. I never thought this would happen, but here I am, unable to let Elle&Jude go. If you're coming here after having read the first two books, please disregard the epilogue I wrote for Somewhere Else for now; I've never been good at writing to a prescribed ending. This book picks up right after chapter 35 of that one. If you're here, it means you love Elle and Jude as much as I do, and I couldn't be more grateful that they've worked their ways into your heart as they have mine. -L

1

Elle

"If you let me, I'll wake up with you every day for the rest of our lives."

I squeezed my arms tightly around him, trying to convince the voice in my head that was working her way back in that I was making the right decision. I could feel the rapidity of his heart in his chest, something I'd missed immensely over the previous six weeks. But my heart wasn't beating nearly as fast; I wanted it to, I hoped it would one day beat like that again, but the same cocktail of emotions I'd felt upon first meeting Jude was stirring in me once again. It was a strange mixture of love and longing, of fear and mistrust.

Asking him to come back to my apartment wasn't something I'd planned, but in the moment I felt such a need to be near him that I couldn't stop the words.

He pulled his lips from my forehead and brushed a few rogue strands of hair from my cheeks. "I've got to run up to grab something to sleep in."

"Okay." I slid off his lap, noticing our untouched drinks on the table; the wine was cheap, but the whiskey I poured him wasn't. "Want me to pour that back in the bottle? You're running low."

The smallest wince ran over his face. "Er, yeah, sure. I'll be down quickly."

As he trudged up the stairs, I brought our glasses into the kitchen. Before dumping mine down the drain, I gulped nearly half of it; something needed to quiet that voice.

When I opened Jude's liquor cabinet and pulled out the whiskey, I noticed a half empty bottle of cinnamon whiskey behind it. Jude hated that stuff, always huffed about how it wasn't real whiskey (even though it was one of the only shots I could actually get down), and that was when one of those icy waves washed over me, and doubt filled my mind once again.

I don't know how I knew; I just did. Jude would have never bought it himself. It was leftover from the party he threw after the preview of his play. That party was why his liquor cabinet was nearly empty. That party was the night he forgot I existed. Who abandoned who?

I left the glasses on the counter and walked straight to the door, needing fresh air more than ever, but instead I found myself smacking right into him, the fabric of his sweater blocking my airways.

He gripped my shoulders, voice soft. "Alright, love?"

"Can, can I have your keys so I can wait in the car while you blow out all the candles?"

His eyebrows furrowed for only a moment before something like realization took hold of his features. He placed the keys in my hand and brushed past me.

Outside of his house I let the nighttime spring air and the scent of the flowers blooming in his neighbor's garden overwhelm me, hoping beyond hope that they would cast out any darkness trying to brew within my mind, that they would overtake the garden of weeds that had grown in their absence.

The London I lived in without Jude for the preceding six weeks was a drab, colorless London, and I wanted nothing more than my technicolor world to be restored.