Page 94 of All the Ugly Things
Her words were her weapons, her distance from me her armor. Hell, I understood her need and yet my own need was unraveling. I could help her in one single text message. Five seconds of thumbs on a screen. That’s all it’d take.
“I can handle this myself.” She squeezed my wrist before letting go.
It was her soft voice that did me in. Made that pain in my chest warm every time I saw her in photos or heard about her. She shouldn’t have to. She should have a brother who was alive and parents who gave a shit.
No amount of beating my head against a wall explaining that to her would help.
I slid my phone back into my pocket and nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” A brow arched as she covered a yawn with her hand again. “That was easy.”
“Why are you so exhausted?”
Purple moons rimmed her lower lids in stark contrast to her alabaster skin.
“I don’t sleep well. I’m used to it.”
“Why?”
“Why the third degree this morning?”
“It’s two in the afternoon.” I grinned. It always seemed to defuse the situation and her irritation with me even when she wouldn’t admit it.
With a shake of her head, she set down her coffee. “Why are you here?”
“Because I missed you.”
This time, they flew from my mouth before I could rein them in, but that was okay. I lied enough to her.
“Hudson.”
My name came out on a sigh. I took it as a happy one. Sure, her body posture said otherwise, maybe a bit overwhelmed, but I was a glass-half-full kind of guy.
“And because I wanted you to come to dinner with me tonight.”
At that, she smirked. “Another walk around the block?”
“More like a drive out to West Des Moines. Dad has dinner on Sundays. I’d like for you to come.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I didn’t let her. “He’d like for you to be there.”
“Why?”
“Because he likes you.”
No big deal, right? To her it was. Her face paled and her fingers trembled. What was so wrong inside her mind where she had such a hard time believing people liked her? I wanted to dig into all those crevices, fill them with hugs and laughter and prove she deserved so much more than she’d ever had. Sure, she’d had money. And Josh, from how she made it sound. But had she ever had true, unconditional love?
I doubted it, and I hated it for her.
Which was why I would bust my ass to give her everything she deserved from this point forward.
Except the truth.
* * *
Next to me,Lilly brushed her hands down her thighs. After convincing her to come to Dad’s with me, I left her to her afternoon so she could get ready and when I came back to get her, she’d yanked me inside the apartment so fast my head spun.
“What do I wear?”
She was still wearing her cut-off sweat shorts and a tie-dyed, oversized, hooded sweatshirt she had on earlier.
