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Despite the strength of our relationship, Jude hadn’t been ued him In the first few months, he’d still needed his cars to help hiet lost in his head to the point that he began to doubt that e had was real Whenever that happened, I merely had to show him all the pictures that lined the walls of our little apartraphs of him and me with my family, others were pictures that Maks and Nattie had drawn for Jude or me or both of us We were literally surrounded by our family even when it was just the two of us and that hat Jude needed to see

As the year had progressed, Jude had suffered through fewer and fewer of those episodes and threeand dropped the bag into a toy donation bin at my parents’ church From that moment on, he hadn’t looked back

We’d hout the year as well One e would go to visit Clifton Hayes at his house in the Hah hopes for our first visit when Jude had extended Cliff’s invitation, but the o wasn’t the same man we’d met when my family had rolled up the driveway of Rose Manor for the first tiood hour showing my parents his prized roses while Jude and I had taken Maks and Nattie for a walk along the beach

The change in Jude over the past year had been soine Gone was theto overcome his limitations and in his place was soes He’d stopped thinking of hi and saw that he was enough just as he was

For my part, he remained what he’d been from the moment I’d met him

Perfect

“Okay, the recoil packs a punch, so account for that,” I said to the s the booth that was part of the firing range in the baseun in et at the other end of the roos out ofthe weapon just yet The men and women around an explaining the nuances of the particular gun I was introducing them to

As I deun was balanced, I heard the crackle of the PA syste to hunt down Mike so he could sign yet another contract fro in small measures When he’d made the decision to drop Premier after his security team had let Jude leave his property without protection on the day he’d come to the hospital to find me, Hayes had called Mike up that sa all of his business Mike had been taking on new contracts from Cliff as well as other companies ever since and our tea every day

“So rip,” I said as I aier “And this trigger is as close to a hair trigger as you’ll ever get”

“I’ht”

The sound of Jude’s voice coistered but it took a split second to process what he’d said When ed to replay the words, my entire body jerked

And er

The blast of the gun tore through the roo at Instead, it hit one of the huge LED la

Holy hell

There were about two seconds of stunned silence before the guys aroundtheir asses off

“Dude, it happened!” someone yelled from behind me

I ignored the raucous celebration that broke out because Jude was still talking over the loudspeaker

“I’ the fuck out, Dannie,” Jude admitted It was clear he had no clue he was on speaker

“Uin to say