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“That idea went out the door to still be mad at you when I found you these tight shorts while you swayed your ass back and forth.” He gives a slight shake of his head. “I told you that you could make me forget just about anything, Op.”
“Hudson, I?—”
“I don’t want you to regret what you did and how you thought you should have played it out. You had every right. You’re Rory’s mother, not me or anyone else. If you thought it should’ve been that way…” He lifts his wide shoulders and tears begin to brim my eyes.
Why didn’t he tell me this before? Is my leaving the cause or that he’s just over it?
“You’re tellin’ me that because I have tight shorts on, you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“What’s the point?” he retorts. “You’re leaving. I don’t want there to be bad blood between us.”
But there is, though.
And he’s an absolute moron for coming here. I would’ve been fine without this conversation. I could’ve lived with his dislike for the way I handled things and still justified them in my head.
But this whole forgiveness thing, now that I’m leaving. makes me feel as though he and I could’ve been saved. That I would’ve still been in a relationship with him where I was beginning to feel safe.
Now I’m going off to a new state with my daughter and best friend so that I can get out of the clutches of my mother because Hudson wasn’t there to ground me.
I couldn’t do it anymore now that he had shown me how it felt to be strong and brave.
Yet, I guess it was only because he was fueling me to be that way.
Then the gasoline was gone.
“I appreciate you coming by,” I vouch, wanting to go home because staying in this town any longer is harder than it was five minutes ago. “You take care of yourself, Hudson.”
I step out of his hold and he allows me, not fighting for a thing, as I slip away.
“You too, baby,” he mutters before I pivot for the door and permit my first tear to fall.
When I told Mia I would be fine about everything that went down with Hudson, I thought his animosity toward me would keep it so that I wouldn’t think he’d feel anything toward me.
But on this side, the way he almost appeared regretful and sad, it’s worse than before. Because now I’m leaving him behind with nothing standing in our way that could’ve been my happily ever after.
thirty-six
. . .
HUDSON
“You mean tattoos take longer than an hour?”
I literally want to slam my head against the nearest and hardest surface over and over again until I black out.
After Liv left, Miles took care of the receptionist interviews for me. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. How he could mess this so royally up that I’m seconds away from losing my shit on this girl and making her piss her pants while crying on the way out my door.
“Didn’t Devon teach you how to block off the appropriate slots?” I ask, watching the latest edition to Rapture Ink chew obnoxiously on pink bubble gum and swirl her long brown hair around her index finger.
“I don’t remember.”
Fuck me.
Pivoting, I’m not doing this.
There’s no way our appointments and phone calls are going to get all jacked while the prissy little princess up front doesn’t pay the hell attention to anything that isn’t TikTok on her phone.
“Miles,” I grit out, entering his tattoo room and finding him leaned over a table while drawing out a sketch. “Get rid of her.”
