Page 26 of All the Ugly Things
He didn’t. There was no way he could.
But the way he looked at me. The intensity in those dark eyes along with the firm cut of his jaw. My gaze narrowed. There was another twitch in his cheek. Something icy bubbled in my stomach.
Unknown and heady, it stole my breath, and I couldn’t look away until he continued. “Dad has lots of connections. He knows where you’ve been. But he has a gift, and he’s never been wrong. He sees something in you he likes.”
He knows where you’ve been.
He didn’t mean school or the diner.
Theyknew.
I jumped from the bench. Conversation over. They’d looked into me? How fucking dare they.
“What’s he like so much? My prison tats?” It was a flippant joke said with all the venom of an inmate who’d had years to hone my self-protective skills.
Hudson, undeterred, spoke slowly. “No. He sees your heart. Who you could have been and should have been. He wants to help give that to you.” He stood then, swiped his hands down the front of his black dress pants. “Be stubborn. Be a fool and throw away the first pure hand that’s reached out to hold you in maybe forever, but that’d make you an idiot. And Dad didn’t think you were that, either.”
If he’d slapped me, it couldn’t have stung worse than the insult. “And he’s never wrong?”
“Not about this.” He shrugged, slipped his hand into his back pocket and held out their card. Their stupid freaking business card I already threw away twice.
This time, something propelled me. I blamed Angie.It’s Hudson.Said with all the awe of a little girl getting a pony for Christmas. I took the card gingerly from his fingers, careful not to touch him.
I felt something strange around him I wasn’t interested in exploring and it wasn’t fully hatred or doubt.
No. Somehow, I didn’t think they were out to screw me over. But it didn’t mean they didn’t have their own motives.
Nobody was one hundred percent good. People didn’t do something for nothing, even if that something was their own internal desire to feel good about themselves.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You’d make Dad real happy if you did more than that.”
I’d never made a dad happy and had no idea what it felt like, but a breeze brushed by and the hair on my arms raised.
“And you?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“I think you’re going to shake up shit that’s currently settled and it’s going to become the biggest mess I’ve ever cleaned up.”
“Well, again, your answers to my questions are about as clear as mud. But, thanks for your honesty?”
He grinned, shook his head. “At least talk to him about options. He’s had other people work part-time while being in school. Probably better pay than the diner, too.”
* * *
Options.
Hudson flung the word out like I was a woman who was used to having them.
I headed to the bus after Hudson had walked away, hell-bent on studying but knew it’d be futile.
Between their obvious wealth and Angie’s reaction… was he really the wealthiest guy in thestate?…There was a shiny white card with midnight blue ink burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to know. I needed to know. Since I’d been so used to David coming in, I’d made several assumptions about him. I was definitely right about him having money. His wife’s death explained the sad eyes I saw in both him and Hudson. But I hadn’t expected Hudson to practically bare his soul to me about how his family was raised, about his parents’ desires to take in kids who needed love and help.
Did it change my assumptions of them?
Yeah… admittedly, I was swayed to take them up on their offer for help knowing how good they truly seemed.
Yet now I had a new reason to resist.
