AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hudson.
Hastily, I grabbed my phone, checking the time. Eleven-twenty a.m. “Shit, shit, shit, Hudson, your flight?—”
I rolled, the clang of my phone hitting the floor only elevating the stress, but as I reached out to touch him, I found only cold sheets and fluffed pillows.
I blinked away the sleep from my eyes as I stared at the empty space next to me. “Hudson?” I called, pushing myself up on one elbow, looking toward the ensuite in case he’d woken just before me.
No answer. Had he left when I’d fallen asleep? The ache in my chest spread at the idea of being abandoned after everything last night, but as I looked back at the spot he’d occupied, I noticed a little piece of paper sticking out from under his, my pillow.
Sophie,
I’m sorry for not waking you up. You look so peaceful when you’re sleeping, and I thought you deserved a little more rest after everything. I’m also sorry that you’ll wake up without me. If I hadn’t had to make my annoyingly early flight, I would have stayed. I mean that.
Please don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything. No matter how small or insignificant, I’ll answer.
I’ll see you soon.
Hudson
I stared at the words in my hand, reading them over and over until they sunk in. I would have stayed. I would have stayed. I would have stayed.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to satiate me for the time being. And after everything that had happened last night, the words he’d said, the way he touched me as if he would lose his mind if he ever had to let go… I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, the idea of him actually having feelings for me wasn’t so insane after all.
Chapter 33
Hudson
Monday
There was a reason I lived in Boston and not within the crowded, hectic streets of New York City, Manhattan, to be specific. My family had plenty of ties here, and a couple of my uncles lived amongst the high-rises overlooking Central Park. My parents had even suggested I move here after I’d finished up at Harvard.
But I fucking hated the big city life.
I loved the suburbs of Boston. It was calmer, close enough to still be connected to the hustle-and-bustle of the center but far enough away that I could pretend I wasn’t near the city when I wanted to. Manhattan didn’t really come with that option, and as I made my way through the crowds on Seventh Avenue, my shoulders bumping against strangers with cameras around their necks and maps in hand, that was never more obvious. I didn’t want to be here.
I wanted to be back in Boston. I wanted to be with her.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sophie since I left early this morning. I hadn’t known what to write to her; I’d tried to piece something together in my mind as I frantically searched her condo for a scrap of paper and pen, settling for a sharpie and a page from her sketchbook. I didn’t know how to write what was going through my mind, because none of it made sense. I knew I felt bad for having to leave. The idea of her waking up alone after last night had sat heavy in my gut as I stared at the empty page for too long in the dark of her kitchen. I wanted to tell her everything, wanted to have said it last night, but the words felt hollow every time I tried to write them down. It wouldn’t have been enough.
The short four hours I’d slept had been some of the best sleep I’d had in years, since well before Jamey was born, and I didn’t know exactly how to feel about that. I’d never felt that comfortable in someone else’s bed. Not even Becks.
It wasn’t just sex, either, and that became apparent when I was holding her face in my hands as I was buried inside of her, her wide eyes watching mine, a thousand words left unsaid between us hanging in the air. But it really sunk in as I was thirty-six-thousand feet above the ground, my phone no longer interesting enough to keep me distracted, my gaze fixed solely on the clouds stretching out of my first-class window. It definitely wasn’t just sex anymore. It went beyond that, beyond anything I’d ever had with anyone before. We’d made love, formed a connection that seemed unbreakable.
And all I wanted to do as I walked through the doors of the AMA Conference Center in Times Square was turn right the fuck around.
————
As I stood at a high-top cocktail table, a martini glass of pale shrimp and red sauce serving as the centerpiece, I watched Nathan’s mouth move a mile a minute but didn’t hear a single word he said. The sound of everyone else talking, the noise filtering in from a speech in the next room, the low music playing in the background… it was too much. I was never a fan of this shit. I only came because I was expected to, because networking was important, because being invited in the first place was seen as a success within my field.
“Are you even listening?” The words were louder, and they cut straight through the muffled sounds that filled my ears.
“Oh, uh,” I started, picking up a shrimp and dipping it into the sauce, “it’s kind of hard to hear in here.”
“It really isn’t.” Nathan glared at me, his deep brown eyes nearly boring a hole in my head. “What the fuck is going on with you, man?”
I bit off the body of the shrimp, dropping the tail in the receptacle behind me. “Nothing,” I said, the word garbled from the food in my mouth. “Everything is just fine.”
“We’ve been to, what, three speeches so far? And every single one of them, you’ve been staring at the back of the head of the person in front of you. You’re not with it.”
