𓆩 ♱ 𓆪 THE VESPERTINES

04. JUDE CALLOWAY — THE THORN

Blackthorne University · Est. 1847

「 Unfortunately, the one person he couldn't stand was also the only person capable of keeping up with him. 」

“Just because you're pretty doesn't mean you're clever. Although, unfortunately for me, you appear to be both.”

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Jude Calloway was an unpleasant bastard.

Not particularly charming. Not especially approachable. And certainly not someone anybody would describe as a people person.

He had the disposition of a perpetually irritated alley cat, a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, and the rather impressive ability to turn an otherwise harmless conversation into a verbal altercation within approximately thirty seconds.

He was sarcastic, foul-mouthed, stubborn and possessed an almost pathological aversion to being told what to do.

At his previous educational institution, his disciplinary record had been something of an administrative nightmare.

There had been arguments with teachers, several suspensions, an unfortunate incident involving a broken nose and a particularly memorable disagreement with a deputy headteacher that had ended with Jude informing the man exactly where he could shove his disciplinary notice.

Not his finest moment.

Although Jude maintained that the man had deserved it.

Naturally, this had led plenty of people to assume that Jude was unintelligent.

A delinquent.

A troublemaker.

Another tattooed little shit destined to achieve absolutely nothing.

And Jude, who had never particularly cared for the opinions of strangers, had responded by graduating with some of the highest marks his school had seen in years.

Because, for all his questionable behaviour, Jude Calloway was fucking brilliant.

Particularly when it came to mechanical engineering.

Numbers made sense to him.

Machines made sense.

The beautifully predictable relationship between force, motion, energy and material properties made considerably more sense than the exhausting complexities of human interaction.

A machine didn't pretend to like you.

An equation didn't betray your trust.

And a structural calculation certainly didn't give a shit about your family background.

If something went wrong, there was a reason.

A measurable, identifiable, mathematically explainable reason.

Jude liked that.

He liked knowing that if he studied hard enough, worked long enough and refused to accept a problem as unsolvable, there would eventually be an answer.

Human beings, unfortunately, were rather less cooperative.

By his second year at Blackthorne University, Jude had become one of the highest-performing students in Mechanical Engineering.

An achievement he was extremely proud of.

Not that he made a habit of announcing it.

He preferred letting his marks do the talking.

His lecturers, however, had somewhat conflicting opinions regarding his academic abilities.

On the one hand, Jude was exceptionally intelligent. His coursework was consistently outstanding, his calculations meticulous, and his ability to grasp complex mechanical principles frequently exceeded expectations.

On the other hand, he was an absolute nightmare to teach.

He questioned everything.

Teaching methods.

Assessment criteria.

The efficiency of demonstration models.

Occasionally, the lecturer's understanding of the very subject they were supposed to be teaching.

"With all due respect, sir, that explanation's a load of bollocks."

"Mr Calloway."

"What? The boundary conditions are wrong."

"We've already covered this."

"Clearly not properly, considering you've just contradicted the bloody equation on the board."

It was an ongoing battle.

And an especially unfortunate one, because Jude was frequently correct.

His academic record made it rather difficult to dismiss his objections as nothing more than arrogance.

He wasn't simply arguing for the sake of arguing.

Well.

Not always.

Sometimes he simply enjoyed watching an authority figure struggle to explain something that should have been straightforward.

A terrible habit, really.

But Jude had long since accepted that he wasn't particularly interested in becoming a better person for the convenience of others.

His scholarship depended upon his academic performance.

His future depended upon his scholarship.

And unlike many of the obnoxiously wealthy students wandering around Blackthorne in designer clothing worth more than his monthly living expenses, Jude didn't have a family fortune waiting to catch him if he failed.

In fact, he barely had a family at all.

His relationship with his parents was, to put it politely, nonexistent.

To put it less politely?

They could go themselves.

Jude had grown up in a household where affection was conditional, arguments were commonplace, and independence had become a necessity long before it should have been.

By eighteen, he had effectively severed contact with his family.

No emotional support.

No financial safety net.

No reassuring phone calls from his mother asking whether he'd eaten dinner.

Everything he possessed, he had either earned, borrowed or purchased himself.

His scholarship to Blackthorne had been his escape.

And Jude intended to make the most of it.

He worked part-time when his academic schedule permitted, carefully managed his expenses and regarded unnecessary spending as an offence against basic common sense.

Which was precisely why his association with the Vespertines remained one of the more baffling developments of his university experience.

The Vespertines.

Five young men who, on paper, had absolutely no business being friends.

There was Florian Beaumont, whose family possessed enough money to purchase a small European country and who occasionally behaved as though the invention of public transport was a personal attack.

Rafael De Luca, a walking fashion advertisement whose social-media following appeared larger than the population of several independent nations.

Oliver Sinclair, an affectionate, perpetually enthusiastic nightmare who seemed incapable of understanding the concept of personal space.

Elias Whitmore, a quiet scholarship student whose greatest offence was occasionally forgetting that other people required sleep.

And Jude.

A tattooed engineering student who considered most human interaction an unfortunate inconvenience.

How the hell he'd ended up among them was anybody's guess.

He had a suspicion that Oliver was responsible.

Oliver had a habit of collecting socially dysfunctional people and declaring them his friends before they had the opportunity to object.

Jude had objected.

Repeatedly.

Nobody had listened.

And now, somehow, he had four idiots who regularly invited him places, sent him ridiculous messages and insisted that his presence was necessary at events he had absolutely no intention of attending.

Utterly exhausting.

Although...

Well.

They weren't completely terrible.

Elias, at least, possessed a functioning brain.

The two shared relatively modest financial backgrounds, scholarship pressures and a mutual appreciation for quiet environments. They could sit together for hours, working on separate assignments without feeling obligated to fill every silence.

Their conversations occasionally ventured into academic debates, which Jude found considerably more tolerable than listening to Rafael discuss his latest romantic catastrophe.

And despite his constant complaints, Jude had developed a reluctant fondness for the others.

Florian was insufferable, certainly, but occasionally surprisingly considerate beneath the layers of inherited entitlement.

Rafael could make even Jude laugh when he wasn't being deliberately obnoxious.

Oliver was...

Well.

Oliver was Oliver.

An irritatingly affectionate golden retriever masquerading as a university student.

But Jude supposed he could tolerate him.

In small doses.

With adequate warning.

And preferably alcohol.

Which was how Jude Calloway found himself attending a party on a Friday evening instead of completing the thermodynamics assignment sitting unfinished on his laptop.