Page 117 of All the Ugly Things
He laughed and placed his hand at my lower back, shoving me off the bed until I had no choice to stand. “Go. Shower. We’ll discussthatlook at a different, better time, too.”
He didn’t say the words, but he made it sound like a promise. Hudson was a man who would keep them.
And he gave that. To me. After everything I gave him last night—all my shame, all my ugly, dirty secrets, he still seemed to want me.
I had done a lot wrong in my life. Made a lot of selfish, childish choices and paid the consequences for them.
But I wasn’t sure what I’d done so right to deserve a guy like him.
Perhaps David had been right after all—what happened to me was tragic and I’d already paid the consequences of those choices. Perhaps I’d been punished enough.
Maybe now it really was time to move forward, to make something of myself and begin moving past them. If I could do that with men like the Valentines in my life, so much the better.
29
Hudson
“Good morning.”
At my dad’s greeting, I didn’t move from my stance at the windows. In the reflection, my dad held a coffee mug in one hand. He brought it to his mouth and took a drink.
“Is it?”
There was a whisper of the threat of snowfall later in the week, but today the sun was shining, the sky cloudless. I wish it were storming.
It’d fit my mood.
It’d been a week since Lilly fell asleep in my arms, sobbing to the memories that haunted her, giving them to me. I wanted her with me all the time. Giving herself to me in all the ways I could have her, and still, I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
We ate dinners together. She came to me when she was done studying for the night while we watched TV. I told her about playing baseball in college. We laughed about favorite toys we remembered getting for holidays. She told me more about Josh, about his alcohol and drug problems, how many times he’d been in trouble before. Cars he crashed.
A truck he once tried to park in the garage without raising the garage door first.
I gave her all I had, only holding back my body and not taking hers when we kissed. I couldn’t do that to her, not with this between us but even I could tell she was growing confused. Especially because I’d never brought up staying with her again.
And God—the sounds she made when we kissed or when I slid my hand beneath her shirt for a hint at skin-to-skin contact.
My self-control was hanging on by a thread, and it was the man in front of me who could help me.
“What’s going on?”
Dad stepped into my office and closed the door.
Once the click ensured we have privacy, I spun, putting my back to the joyful-looking view.
“You need to tell her.”
We both knew who I meant. Another family dinner. Another night filled with lies. Another night hiding pictures of some of the people we loved the most. All to what…?
Break Lilly’s heart and destroy her trust in all of us by the time she learned everything?
“I will.”
“I can’t keep doing this, Dad.”
He set his coffee mug on my conference table and drew his finger over the rim. “I need more time.”
Anger pulsed, hot and heavy through my blood, making my shirt feel too tight and strangling me at the collar.
