Forever with You (Fixed)

by Paige, Laurelin

  “Thanks for being here, Hudson.” Sophia’s hand was shaking as she hugged her son, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was emotional about Mira or simply in need of a drink. Either way, she was with it enough to throw a glare in my direction. “You brought her?” Her tone accentuated her disgust.

  “Yes, and you’ll not say another word about it.” At least Hudson was still defending me to Sophia. That had to mean something.

  Jack gave me a warm smile, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “It’s good to see you, Laynie.”

  Neither Sophia’s insult nor Jack’s welcome registered very high on my interest level. I only cared about Mira—my friend.

  I peeked around Jack past the open door and found Mira lying in the bed surrounded by two nurses. They looked calm enough. Hopefully that was a sign that things weren’t dreadful.

  Hudson wasn’t the type to simply hope. “What’s her status?” he asked Adam.

  “She’s fine. Now.” Adam’s expression looked tired and concerned, but his words were only slightly strained. “When we came in she was having contractions every three minutes. But they got her hooked up on an IV, got lots of fluids in her, and everything settled down. She hasn’t had any contractions now for almost forty minutes. Her blood pressure is still a little high, though, so they want to keep her here a bit. Fortunately, they don’t think it’s pre-eclampsia, but they’ll watch her at her visits.”

  “We can go back in as soon as the nurses are done,” Jack said.

  Chandler nudged Hudson with his elbow. “Mira said Mom and Dad were making her too tense. She sent us here for a timeout.”

  The twinkle in Adam’s eye said he had found as much amusement in the statement as Chandler had. “She is a bit feisty at the moment.”

  The nurses came out then. One stopped to talk to us, or Adam, rather. “She’s doing better, Dr. Sitkin. I’m sure she’ll be out of here in the next couple of hours. When you go back in, try to keep things light and relaxed.”

  “Thanks.” Adam gestured toward the door. “After you, Laynie. I know she’ll be happy to see you here.”

  I nodded, surprised and touched that he thought I meant that much to his wife. I made my way inside. Hudson followed close behind me, but not so near that we were touching.

  “Mira.” I offered a warm smile.

  “Hey! You came!” She tried to reach toward me, but the cuff on her arm kept her trapped.

  “Of course we did. Don’t be silly.” I stepped aside for Hudson to slip in, eager for him to get a chance to connect with Mira as well. Hudson was family. I was only the girlfriend. And maybe I wasn’t even that.

  “Hudson.” Mira smiled up at her brother. “Thank you for being here.”

  He nodded and it struck me that he was too overcome with emotion to speak. I remembered then how hard it was for him to say how he felt—not just with me but with everyone. Mira had once told me Hudson never gave out I love yous. Even to her. But the look in his eyes said he felt it for her in spades.

  Was that the way he looked at me? I wanted to say yes, but it was hard to be objective.

  Hudson patted his sister’s hand then stepped away, turning his back to her momentarily. He was getting himself together. More than anything I wanted to go to him, to reassure him. But his body language so far had shown he didn’t necessarily want it.

  My eyes stung. Again and again he shut me out. Even with something as normal as sharing concern over his sister, he couldn’t let me in. Didn’t he know how much it killed me?

  This wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Forcing my smile in place, I stepped near Jack and gave my attention to Mira.

  “I have to tell you,” she said to no one in particular, “this whole incident has proven one thing—labor is going to be a bitch. Those contractions hurt like a mother and when they hooked me up to this thing—” She gestured to the monitor. “They barely registered.”

  Sophia sat in the armchair next to Mira. “Has this finally changed your mind about taking Lamaze?” Her condescension suggested this had been an ongoing battle.

  Mira rolled her eyes. “It’s changed my mind about wanting drugs. I’d like them as soon as I arrive, please.” She hooked eyes with Adam, who had slipped in on the other side of her. “Can you add that to the birthing plan, honey?”

  “Add them? I’m demanding them.” He brushed her hair from her forehead. “Sorry, but you’re not a nice person when you’re in pain.”

  Mira’s eyes flared. “You keep that up and I’ll exclude you from the birthing room.” Adam hadn’t been kidding when he’d said she was feisty.

  Chandler laughed. “I don’t think she’s joking.”

  “Do they know what caused this in the first place?” Hudson’s question drew the room’s attention back to him. Though he was engaging now in the conversation, he still wasn’t huddling close like the rest of us.

  Mira’s gaze flicked from me to Hudson. “A combination of dehydration and stress. Stress. Do you all hear that?” She narrowed her eyes and scanned the room. “So you two right there—” She gestured to Sophia and Jack. “You need to get your shit together because you are hurting me and my baby.”

  Sophia’s mouth tightened, but she refused to look at Jack who stared after her tenderly. Man, he really did love her.

  “And you two—” This time Mira pointed to me and then Hudson. “Don’t think I don’t notice how you’re standing apart. And you’re barely looking at each other. I don’t even want to know what the hell is going on with you right now. Go work it out.” The cuff on Mira’s arm began clicking as it tightened around her. She turned her attention to the numbers on the screen next to her.

  I froze, not sure if she was actually sending us away or if she meant for us to work things out later.

  Chandler seemed to get the sense that she meant now. “Are you kicking out Mom and Dad too?”

  “No. Their crap is too messed up to fix on demand. But those two—” She sent us both scathing looks. “You better not be that messed up.”

  “Might as well get comfy then.” Chandler settled on the couch and began playing on his phone.

  I exchanged glances with Hudson. Shit. He wanted to be with Mira—and she was wrong, our crap was too big to solve quickly.

  Hudson stepped toward his sister. “Mirabe—”

  “I’m not kidding, Hudson. Leave. I don’t want to see either of you until you’ve got that happy glow again.” The machine next to her flashed a readout. “See? My blood pressure is spiking. Jesus.”

  “Mira,” Adam said, “just take deep breaths. Settle down. Stop yelling at everyone.”

  “I’m not yelling at everyone. I’m yelling at them!”

  Adam turned to me and Hudson, his expression apologetic.

  “We’re going.” Hudson gestured for me to proceed in front of him. “But we’ll be back,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Happy and glowing,” Mira yelled after us.

  We walked in silence toward the waiting room at the end of the hall. With each step, my heart grew heavier. This was wrong. I shouldn’t be there at the hospital. Hudson should. As for working things out, it was going to take him opening up. And he was certainly not ready for that. His attitude to me since we’d arrived proved that.

  At the waiting room, Hudson held the door open for me to go in first. It was a small room, completely enclosed with several couches and a counter with coffee supplies. It was empty, thankfully. Babies might be born at all hours, but no one was expecting one at the moment. At least that gave us privacy.

  I turned to face Hudson as he shut the door behind him. “I know you want to be in there with your sister. I can leave. Or we can pretend things are all hunky-dory, if you’d rather. I’ll under—”

  Hudson cut me off. “Don’t leave.”

  His desperation stunned me. Did that mean he did want me there? The man was a bunch of mixed signals. This signal I liked. I’d cling to it, if he’d let me. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

  “For Mira.�
��

  My spirits plummeted. “For Mira. Of course.” Not for him. He didn’t want me to stay for him.

  All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure if I could do it anymore, if I could remain self-controlled around him. I turned away and made my way to a couch. With shaking knees, I took a seat.

  Sitting was better. It made me feel stronger than I was. I thought about the reason we were there—the perky romantic sitting in the room nearby. Her faith and encouragement had been instrumental in reuniting me with Hudson. Even if she couldn’t save us again, I owed her.

  I lifted my chin and met Hudson’s eyes. “Then we need to put everything else aside for right now and give Mira our happy face.”

  He held my gaze for only a second. “I agree.”

  There was plenty of room on the couch by me, but he took a seat in a chair instead. He couldn’t even sit by me. The rejection rippled through me with excruciating pain. Every move he made, everything he said, hurt.

  I wanted to do the same to him. Wanted to hurt him in all the ways he’d hurt me. My fists tightened into balls as I thought about ripping into him, telling him all the things that were barely under the surface of my composure.

  But again, I remembered why we were there. Mira would be upset if we didn’t walk back in her room together. The best thing I could do for her and myself was make a plan and get back to her. Back to the comfort of people who made me feel good rather than sad.

  Obviously this would require some acting. A lot of acting. “So any idea how to give Mira a happy face? Because she read right through us in there.”

  “She is very perceptive.” Hudson leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, his chin in his hands. “But I think if we wait here for a while, give us time to supposedly talk things out, then if we go back in there with smiles and…holding hands, she’ll believe it.” His pause said that even holding hands sounded uncomfortable for him. “She wants to believe it, so she will.”

  I made a gruff sound in the back of my throat. “Pretending we’re a couple. Just like old times.”

  His head spun toward me. He fastened me with a piercing stare. “We aren’t pretending we’re a couple. We are a couple. We’re pretending that we’re…that we’re not…” He moved his hand in the air as he tried to figure out how to finish his sentence.

  When he didn’t come up with an end, I pushed him. “That we’re not…what? Not fighting? Not completely confused and heartbroken? Not miserable and lied to?” My voice cracked, and I refused to cry. Biting my lip, I crossed one leg over the other and put all my energy into jostling my knee up and down. It helped to focus my pain.

  Hudson stared at the wall across from him, refusing to respond or look at me.

  I should have dropped it, but I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t understand how you can say we’re a couple when you’re living in one place and I’m in another. When you’re on dates with another woman.”

  “I told you what that was,” he said quietly.

  I ignored him. “When you won’t even let me touch you without acting like it burns.” I shook my head. I was getting too upset. “I said I wouldn’t do this here. I’m sorry.” Except I really wasn’t. “Sort of.”

  I wanted him to refute my words, wanted him to explain how things really were. But he didn’t. Sure, it wasn’t the time or place—I knew that in my head. My heart, on the other hand, didn’t care. I was in so much pain, how could he not be? And if he wasn’t, what did that mean?

  It means he can compartmentalize, I told myself. That’s all. God, what I’d give to believe that was all it was.

  We sat in silence, the only sound the clicking of the seconds ticking by on the wall clock. Finally, Hudson spoke, his voice low and sincere. “Touching you only burns because it reminds me how much I want to touch you more.”

  A wave of optimism burst through me, so tangible and fierce that my whole chest felt on fire. “Then touch me more, H. Come home.”

  He raised a brow and his expression carried the same air of hope that I felt. “And you’ll let the past lie?”

  With everything in me I wanted to say yes. Yes, I’ll live with it. Whatever it is. I’d find a way. I’d said that before, and I’d thought I meant it. But I’d been talking desperate. I couldn’t live with it. There was no possible way.

  Besides, I respected myself more than that. I respected our relationship more than that. Even if it meant losing him, I had to stand my ground on this. “No. I can’t let it lie. But you can tell me what it is you’re hiding.”

  With a shake of his head, he dismissed it.

  There we were again—at our impasse. “We might as well be broken up, Hudson, if you can’t believe that I’d love you beyond whatever this secret is.”

  And if we truly couldn’t get past this, why were we even taking time apart? Weren’t we just postponing the inevitable?

  It wasn’t something I could face. Not yet. Maybe the time apart was to help make that idea more bearable.

  Apparently, Hudson felt the same way. “Let’s not do this here.”

  “Let’s not.” Let’s not do this at all. Let’s go back to where we were three days ago, lost and alone in the mountains. Happy and glowing, as Mira put it.

  If there were anything I’d ever wished for more, I didn’t know what it was.

  But wishing wouldn’t get us through the next hour. I stood up and paced the room. “Okay. We’ll go in there. We’ll smile. We’ll hold hands. We’ll be happy and glowing. And Mira will never know the lie.”

  “Yes,” Hudson said. “Thank you.”

  “What if she asks what our problem was?”

  “She won’t.”

  I wasn’t so sure and the expression I shot him said exactly that.

  “If she does ask, let me handle it.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.” The venom I was trying to bite back slipped past my lips. “You are the master manipulator, after all.”

  He stared at me with sad eyes. I’d meant to hurt him, and it worked. But he didn’t argue, didn’t defend himself. He wouldn’t even fight with me. Wouldn’t fight for me.

  It’s not the place, I reminded myself. The reminder didn’t change the hollow ache in my chest. I knew his indifference extended beyond the walls of the hospital.

  Hudson stood. “Are you ready to go back?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously keeping them from my reach.

  Fucking asshole.

  I didn’t let him know how much his simple gesture felt like a knife in the gut. “You think she’ll believe this was long enough?”

  “Yes.” He moved to the door and held it open for me. “If we convince her that all is well, then she won’t focus on the timespan in the least. She’ll have no reason to question what we’re selling.” He was so clinical about it. So proficient about the steps of pulling off a scheme.

  And why wouldn’t he be? “Tips from the expert,” I said as I passed him.

  “You’re very good at lashing out, precious. It’s interesting that I’m just learning this now.” He was behind me, and he said it quietly, but I heard him all the same.

  I held on to his endearment—precious—like it was gold. Like it was the last drop of water in a desert. Like it was a beacon in a dark storm. He couldn’t still call me that and not feel something for me. Could he?

  We hurried back to Mira’s room, not speaking or looking at each other. Outside her door, Hudson paused. His hand hung at his side now. I placed mine in it automatically, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Because it was that natural. The way it fit so snugly, so perfectly in his. As if we’d been made to lace our fingers in just that way.

  He looked down at where we were joined, studying our hands for long seconds. There was sadness and yearning in his tone when he spoke. “Your hand fits so well in mine, doesn’t it? Like it belongs.”

  I had to turn my head in order to fight the tears. He was so in sync with me. Why, why, why were we apart?

  “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,�
�� he said. “I apologize. Can you still do this?”

  Forcing a smile on my face, I turned back to him. “Yep.”

  “Showtime, then.” Hudson led us in, entering with much more zeal than he had earlier. “We’re back.” He headed straight for his sister, placing a sweet kiss on her forehead. “And everything’s fine.”

  He was such an excellent liar. I’d known he had to be. I’d seen him pretend to his family about me before. Then I’d convinced myself that his acting was so good because he’d actually felt something for me. Seeing Hudson now, so easily falling into the charade—it stung. How much of the past had been a lie as well?

  Mira narrowed her eyes. “I want to hear it from Laynie. I don’t trust you.” She swatted him aside.

  Taking a deep breath, I pushed away my heartache and reminded myself this was for Mira. I gave her what I feared could only be taken as a fake grin and slid in closer to her. “Everything really is fine.” I looked back at Hudson, hoping for a sign to make the lie easier. I received none. “Maybe not perfect, but things are definitely fine.”

  Mira frowned dubiously.

  Damn. I needed to get my shit together.

  Before I could, Hudson stepped in to save the farce. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, a major show of public affection for Hudson. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Things are completely perfect.”

  He nuzzled his face against my hair and I shivered with an unwelcome tingle from head to toe. I sighed into him. How could I not? This was what I wanted—to be held by him, to be loved by him.

  But this was fake. It had to be or he’d tell me what I needed to know. Right?

  Either way, Mira bought it. She clapped her hands together. “Ah, see? The happy and glowing is back! Thank god.” She cast her eyes around the room, stopping first at her mother beside her, then Adam and Chandler and Jack on the sofa, then to me and Hudson in front of her. “This is the best. Now my whole family’s here.”

  I shifted, feeling a little uncomfortable at her declaration. I wasn’t family. And at the moment, I was sure I never would be. The farce was going too far. I opened my mouth to protest.