“Do I look professional?” I pursed my lips at him.
“Very much so.”
“Do I look like I won’t take any excuses for not paying your water bill?”
“Honey, you look like you won’t take shit from anyone,” he said, coming back to stand behind me.
“Good, because I won’t,” I said, as he spun my chair around to face him.
The tired dogs had settled down, side-by-side, on the carpet by the vault. The only sound was the gentle click of the time clock and the hum of the radiator.
“Start up your computer, baby,” Hudson said.
“I can’t go on porn sites,” I laughed. “Joe checks my Google history. I swear, he does.”
“Joe barely knows how to open the vault. But it’s not porn I’m after. It’s you I want.”
Hudson found a jazz Pandora station and turned it on softly. Smiling, he reached down and gathered up my hair, tousling it first, then pulling it up and off my face.
“Lovely.”
“Not really!”
“Shhhhh,” he said, pulling me up into his arms and kissing me with a fierceness that no longer surprised me. It was just his way.
“The police station is just across the street, you know.”
“I know. I’m not planning on committing any crimes. Not crimes against society, anyway.”
He pulled my hoodie gently away from my waist, running his hands around the edge of my jeans. Without a word, I held up my arms for him to take the hoodie off me. Before he could ask, I slid out of my jeans, standing in only my undies by my desk chair. I did a quick spin to show him all of me. My modesty had long before gone out the window.
“You little tease,” he said, stroking my legs, using the tips of his fingers to find me already wet and ready.
“Um,” I said, already unable to form words. Having Hudson at the office at night was an incredible turn-on. How many times had I fantasized about having sex with him at work? Too many to count.
“Do you want it, honey?”
“I do,” I breathed, swaying into him slightly.
“How do you want it?” There were too many choices, all of them delicious. “Take me in your mouth, sweetie,” he said. “Please.”
I got on my knees in front of him, praying his zipper would open easily, because my hands were shaky. I slid him into my mouth, licking the head the way he said he liked it best, then using my hand to stroke while I sucked.
“Stop, stop,” he said, moving slightly away. “I want to come inside you.”
I wiped drool from my chin. “How do you want me?”
Without a word, Hudson pulled me to my feet and turned me toward my desk, holding his penis so he would stay hard. He pressed slowly on my shoulders until I was leaning over, then pushed into me in one smooth motion.
Our noises woke the dogs, but we didn’t care. I bent over my desk, crumpling papers with my damp elbows, thrashing my hips back toward him, slamming really, opening my legs wider so he could press harder.
“My juicy little puss,” he breathed into my back, licking the salt off my neck. “You’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
Groaning and shuddering, Hudson came, heaving, falling out of me as our juices dribbled down my thighs. I grabbed a handful of Kleenex from the box on my desk.
“I’m so sorry,” he panted. “I didn’t mean to make a mess.”
“Completely worth it,” I said, wiping myself. “Now I have something to think about at work.”
Chloe was raring to go, but Pen was sleeping, so I cuddled her in my arms and carried her home. It was late by the time we walked back to my house.
Hudson turned to me after he settled Chloe in the Jeep. “I’m loving everything about you.”
And that meant—what?!?
I was definitely on the happy train, doing a little dance in the kitchen. Penny tipped her head sideways, as if she were trying to figure me out.
65
“Something’s wrong,” I texted Eddie two weeks later.
“Trouble in Erection Land?”
“No, jerk, and stop calling it Erection Land. But it is about Hudson. He doesn’t call me honey or sweetie anymore, and he isn’t putting xxxooo at the end of his texts.”
“That’s a real first-world problem.”
“I’m serious! And when he texted me good morning, he said, ‘Have a nice day.’”
“What the hell’s wrong with that?”
“He usually texts all the time, all day. Why would he say have a nice day?”
“Jess, you’re letting yourself get too far ahead. He’s probably busy at the shop.”
“I don’t know.”
“So, he didn’t call you sweetheart—what did he call you?”
“Jessica.”
“News flash. That’s your name.”
“I feel like I’m in grade school when people call me by my full name.”
“What do you call him?”
“OK. Hudson. Or sometimes Huddy.”
“Well I’m sure he isn’t insulted by you using his name.”
Damn Eddie for being so logical. Still, I couldn’t ignore the nagging worry that gave me a stress headache that only got worse as the day wore on.
That night, Hudson called around 5:00, which was unusual because he didn’t ever close the shop before 8:30. He must still have been at work.
“Did you have a crazy day?”
“Yeah, some custom balusters weren’t up to spec,” he said, sounding tired.
“So they won’t pass inspection?”
“Nope. So I took over the job myself.”
“Why don’t you have one of the other guys do the job?” I asked, looking inside the fridge for something easy to make for dinner and wishing I hadn’t eaten the last quinoa burger.
“I don’t trust anyone else.”
This was true. Hudson had a team of designers and builders, but often said he had to oversee them to make sure they were doing things the right way. It was his company, and everything had to be done to perfection.
“I’m sorry.” I pulled out leftover pasta, hoping Ian hadn’t eaten the last meatball. “Well, I had quite a day. This old lady called to complain about someone throwing garbage over her side of the fence, but it turned out no one lived there! So, she has some kids tossing garbage, which is really too bad. Dumb Wes thought maybe she was littering her own backyard. Who would do that?”
I was still laughing at the incident.
“Uh-huh,” Hudson’s voice sounded far away.
“So, what are you doing later?” I opened some Tupperware and prodded the spaghetti with a fork, looking for meatballs. “Do you want to take the dogs for a walk? Or we could —”
“Listen, we have to talk,” he interrupted.
I was startled by the serious tone of his voice.
“I should probably do this in person, but—”
“Do what? I’m not following you.”
“Here’s the thing,” he started, stopped, then started again. “I just don’t think we’re a match. I don’t see us together in the future.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, dropping the container of dinner food into the sink.
The phone went quiet.
“Are you still there?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“I am,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “There’s a little voice in my head that keeps saying it’s not right, and I’ve got to listen to it.”
I felt the sickness in my stomach rising to my throat.
“What’s not right? I don’t understand.”
“You and me. We aren’t meant for each other.”
“I don’t understand,” I said again.
“All right. When I look into the future, say five years down the line, I don’t see myself with you.”
“But no one can predict the future; there’s no crystal ball,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my sleeve. “And who would want one? We just need to take it as it comes. See what h
appens.”
“I can’t do that, Jessica. You’re not the one for me. There really isn’t anything else to say.”
I slid down to my knees on my kitchen floor.
There was dead silence on the phone. From out the open window, I could hear cars going by and kids laughing and even Penny scratching at the front door to come in. I couldn’t move.
“You still have a hoodie at my house. I’ll leave it on your porch.”
“Don’t come here,” I said, pressing my forehead against the wall.
I didn’t get up off the floor until Eddie got there twenty minutes later.
“He couldn’t get it up anyway,” Eddie said later, apparently trying to be helpful.
“That only happened a couple of times,” I yelled at him, furious at myself for having shared that with Eddie. I still felt protective of Hudson.
“And he was obsessive about his perfect house. Didn’t he, like, vacuum up every last dog hair?”
Thinking of Chloe made me cry even harder.
Nothing Eddie said helped. Neither did the sobbing I did into his shoulder.
“Shush,” he said, rocking me like a child.
“This one could break me,” I said, leaning on his shoulder.
“Never,” Eddie said, pulling me closer into his arms. “Not in this lifetime, Jess.”
66
Monday, I wanted so badly to call in sick, but judging by the way I felt when I took to my bed after Bryan left, it would be even worse to stay home. I hadn’t slept more than thirty minutes at a time. I cried so hard my pillowcase was damp. Penny, my little life-saver, stayed awake with me all night while I wailed, kicked my feet, and punched at the blankets, finally throwing them all on the floor.
I pictured Hudson in his king’s bed, sleeping like a baby now that he’d tossed me to the curb.
What the fuck had happened?
He didn’t see me in his future? We’d never even talked about the future! I hadn’t asked him for anything! Had I pictured myself in his beautiful house, writing at the dining room table while Pen and Chloe had puppy play time and Hudson made dinner? Sure, I had. Absolutely. But I had never told him this fantasy. Not a single word.
He had called me juicy! Kissed the small of my back. Said he was loving every part of me.
Things made no more sense at dawn than they had at midnight. I pulled on the same clothes I’d worn to work the day before, as if doing that would take back the day and Hudson’s terrible words.
When I got there, Wes and Joe were already arguing. This morning’s inane subject: what type of clouds were gathering over Brew Coffee on the corner.
“Those fluffy ones, cornelius, they don’t mean rain,” Wes said, scratching his ear then looking at his finger.
“Cumulus, you idiot,” said Joe, who abandoned his desk and sat at the conference table with his friends. “It’s them voracious clouds you need to worry about.”
“I think you mean cirrus,” I said, immediately regretting it because it might have drawn me into the conversation, and I just wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up by their silliness.
The men switched topics entirely, launching into a detailed conversation about how many fire trucks were in last year’s Memorial Day parade.
I pulled out my cell. Madison had deleted all Hudson’s messages, even those I’d locked, and his cell number from my directory, but what she hadn’t thought of was deleting his incoming calls from my dial log. It made my stomach lurch to see how frequently he’d called me: first thing in the morning, during my lunch half-hour, at bedtime.
I worked on auto-pilot while the guys’ discussion branched out to historic facts, or rather, their lack of ability to distinguish fact from fiction. I skipped lunch and ate a handful of almonds for dinner, thinking maybe I could go on some sort of grief diet. I pictured myself running into Hudson at the grocery store weeks from now wearing leggings so loose they were hanging off me. My cart would be full of fresh produce and his with boxed mac and cheese because his garden had been consumed by worms.
It was agony not to text him.
I felt like if I could find the right words, I could make him understand I wasn’t wrong for him. That we were right for each other. Who looked ahead five years down the line? I went back and forth between disbelief and shock and a mind-numbing sense of loss all the long hours of the day.
I got immediately into pajamas when I got home. Already on the grief diet, I had Cheerios for supper. I had to text him, to appeal to him. Maybe he would say he’d given it some thought and regretted his words. He’d had a lousy day at the shop. He hadn’t been thinking clearly.
He must have realized by now that he loved me too.
I held out until 8 p.m. when I knew Hudson would be leaving the shop to go home.
“I miss you,” I texted.
Disgusted with myself, I picked Penny up and carried her to the tub, washing her with my hydrating shampoo and thinking about the bathroom at Hudson’s that he’d said was mine. Who does that?
I’d turned up the volume on my cell, and when it beeped with an incoming message, I let go of Pen to grab my phone. She immediately jumped from the tub and ran into my bedroom to dry herself on my comforter.
It was an email from Groupon for a night’s stay in Vermont, with a fruit basket and complimentary red wine.
“Do you miss me?” I hit send before I had the good sense to delete my text.
Hudson’s reply came back a few minutes later. “Most of what I’m feeling is relief.”
I was stunned, then I was furious. No, I was beyond furious. But this time, I wouldn’t let myself sink to the floor. At that moment, I knew we weren’t ever meant to be together, because he was a complete dick. A limp one, at that.
Penny came to my side and nudged my leg. She was a ball of static fluff, with shampoo suds still on her nose.
“Come on, let’s get you rinsed off,” I said. “And if you have any advice for getting over an asshole guy, please share it.”
67
“Maybe don’t fall in love so fast,” Maddy said. “That tends to freak guys out.”
“I was so happy,” I wailed. “Now I feel so foolish. I’m mad at myself. I’m mad at him. I’m just plain mad!”
“I know. It’s OK.”
She stood up and opened the pantry door. “What do you have to eat in here? What are these?” she asked, pulling out my package of Fig Newtons. “Something new?”
“I had a craving,” I said miserably. “In fact, hand them over.”
We ate in silence for a minute.
“It’s not OK! He was supposed to be The One! I thought he was The One! I thought I was his One!”
“You said you didn’t believe in The One,” Madd said calmly. “But it wasn’t him. I thought he was kind of fake.”
“You met him only once!” I wailed some more, leaning down to scoop up Penny for sympathy.
“Well, first impressions count.”
“I had to sit there at work, where we had sex at my desk, knowing he doesn’t care anymore, he just cut me off—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Madison held up her hand. “You had sex at work? When was this?”
“I don’t know, a few weeks ago,” I said, avoiding eye contact.
“Ohhh, bad idea right there. Isn’t the police station, like, right across the street?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care about anything but getting him back.”
“Why would you want him, anyway? He said he felt relieved it was over! Dickwad.”
I had to agree; he was a dick. But I remembered the weekend at his house, when everything had seemed so great. Perfect, even. Had I been seeing just what I wanted to see? Was he pretending to be someone he wasn’t? I had no answers. I did, however, have a headache.
“What’s your plan now? You always have a plan,” Maddy said.
“I have no plan,” I said, trying not to sound completely self-pitying.
“Amazon shopping spree?”
> “Maybe,” I said, my mood lightening for an instant.
“Going back on Fish?”
“Yeah, ’cause that’s worked well for me so far,” I said morosely.
I drank deeply from my glass of room-temp tap water, remembering how Hudson always gave me bottled water in a fancy glass, with a fresh slice of lemon. I’d taken my Fish profile down after the first date with Hudson, and he’d done the same. Most likely, his was already back up on Fish looking for The One.
“Well, good. Maybe it’s time to take a little break,” Madison said, looking very serious. “When’s the last time you were by yourself?”
“I’ve been alone!” I cried. “After Bryan left and before I dated that shithead Michael.”
“That was months, Mombo,” Madd said patiently. “That barely counts.”
Truth be told, I hadn’t been alone since I’d met Adam in college. I’d moved from my mother’s house straight into my first apartment with Adam, and when that marriage failed, I’d met Bryan very quickly afterward. Too soon? Maybe.
“Don’t tell me to read books on being my own best friend and draw smiley faces on Post-Its to stick all over the house,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so shrill.
Madison sighed. “It seems to me you’re afraid of being alone.”
“Well, I’m not. Not at all.”
“Just an observation,” Madd said, opening the fridge and pulling a peach from the fruit drawer.
Later, with Penny dozing on my feet in bed, after ordering peanut butter dog chews, chandelier earrings, and black-and-orange striped tights on Amazon, I heard the question over and over in my head. Was I afraid to be alone?
What was I afraid of?
It came to me hours later, when Pen was snoring but I was wide awake. I was afraid. I had many fears, but they all boiled down to this: I was afraid I had become unlovable. That no man would ever love me the way I loved him.
That, and spinsterhood.
When the kids were small, there was a farm up the road with a makeshift wooden produce stand where we could buy berries and corn and zucchini. We called the farmer Mr. Zucchini because he grew the most enormous squash we had ever seen—not just then, but even to this day. We couldn’t figure out when he stocked his farm stand. We never saw him outside, so we decided he only went out at night. He was a mystery man. All the neighborhood parents liked to tease the kids that on Halloween, Mr. Zucchini gave away dried squash chips and flattened blueberries, something that made them avoid the farmhouse altogether.
A Girl Like You Page 23