Page 82 of All the Ugly Things
It was the pity I hated the most.
“I don’t do well with people. Loud places. Restaurants or crowds where there are eyes on me.”
“Come on,” he said, and placed his hand at my back. I jolted from his touch. Even through my sweater, it burned my skin, shocking me. Heat traveled from my back to my front and then lower. I fought the urge to shiver beneath him so I didn’t give away the effect his hand had on me. “Where we’re going, it will be okay and if you’re uncomfortable, you can leave at any moment. No harm no foul, okay?”
“All right.”
Sometimes the build-up to an uncomfortable situation was worse than the situation itself. At least, that’s what Nancy tried to teach me. I willed my heart to slow, blew in through my nose and out through my lips as we headed outside and turned left at the corner of our apartment building.
Outside, the sun was beginning to set in the distance, casting the lightest hues of orange and purple across the city’s sky. The air was crisp, the stray red and gold leaves peppered our path along the sidewalk.
“So where are we going to eat?”
“Somewhere quiet. Little company. To be honest, I noticed your discomfort when we were at Crème, so I took that into consideration for tonight.”
I thought I’d hidden my tenseness quite well that night. The fact he still noticed said a lot. A lot about him as a man, a friend…
“That’s sweet.” We turned another corner of the apartment building and I glanced back to where we’d come from and then up at Hudson. We’d effectively made a U-shape in our directions and I glanced up at him. “Did we go the wrong way?”
“Nope.” His hands were loose at his sides and a hint of amusement twinkled on his cheeks. “We’re right where we’re supposed to be.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
And for some stupid reason, I was starting to think I did. “Okay, but…”
We reached the corner, and Hudson turned another left, taking us right back to the entrance to our building and this time, I was more than curious.
“Did you forget something?”
“No.”
That amusement shone brighter as he walked us straight to the elevators. My heeled foot tapped on the tile, echoing the light sound in the elevator bank area. “But—”
“You said you’d trust me.”
“But—”
The doors opened and he escorted us inside. Had I not promised to trust him, had it not been for his mischievous smile reflecting against the mirrored doors, I would have thought he was already tired of me. That my baggage was too heavy for him to carry.
Instead, the doors opened and he swiped a black card in front of a scanner I’d never had to use and the letter “P” at the top lit up.
“The penthouse,” I said, things slowly clicking into place. “You live on the top floor.”
“I did say I lived here.”
As the elevator rose, the tension in my shoulders fell with matching degrees until I was a loose as a wet noodle. “You could have just told me to come up here.”
“I could have.” He shrugged, slid his hands into his pockets. “But if someone’s taking you on a date, you deserve to have them pick you up at your door, and when I saw how tense you were when I got here, I thought a walk outside and fresh air might help. But if you don’t…”
“I do.”
The doors opened again with only one door to the left. He headed that way, dropping his hand at my lower back to lead me in the direction of his apartment.
I waited until he opened the door and stepped in when he held it open for me.
My jaw almost hit the tip of my heeled shoes, it unhinged so quickly.
