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Chapter Fourteen
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Iwoke to an emptybed this morning but my heart couldn’t have felt fuller. With the scent of Hudson still lingering on the sheets, I took my time getting up, wanting to bask in the memory of yesterday for as long as possible.
Now here I am, sitting at the table set up on my parent’s outdoor patio, so far from the conversation flowing around me I couldn’t tell you what everyone has been talking about if I wanted to.
All I can think about is the last two days and the text message I woke to this morning.
Hudson:On the tour bus. Wishing you were here. Thinking that you should join me for a couple shows soon if you have time in your schedule. Until then I’ll be over here working on a new song. You’re proving to be quite the inspiration, Lennon Claire.
“Earth to Lennon.” I jump slightly when Starr leans in from the chair next to me, knocking her elbow against mine.
“What?” I glance at my sister to see her watching me funny.
“What’s with you?” she whispers, as to not disrupt my father and Mark talking about whatever business they seem to be discussing, or my mother’s clear attempt to pay attention even though she couldn’t look more bored.
Like my father, Mark has an office job. I couldn’t tell you what he actually does but I know he and my father’s jobs are similar, so I’m guessing it’s something in insurance. All I know for sure is that Mark is pretty high up in management and makes enough money to keep my very particular sister happy. I don’t know that I really need more information than that.
“What do you mean?” I whisper back.
She arches a brow and gives me a look that says she knows me better than I’m giving her credit for.
“You’ve been wearing this goofy grin since you got here and you’re clearly a million miles away,” she points out. “Is it Hudson?” she takes a wild guess, hitting the nail right on the head. “He contacted you?”
“You could say that.” I try to keep my smile from splitting my face in half.
“He was here?” she guesses right again.
I nod slowly, biting my bottom lip as her eyes go wide.
“When?”
“We’ll talk later,” I say, realizing our private conversation has drawn an audience.
“What are you two over there whispering about?” Nana interrupts, eyeballing us from across the table.
Nana is coming up on eighty and is as blunt and straight forward as they come. She’s a tiny thing too. Not even five feet tall or a hundred pounds soaking wet. She has short stark white hair that she has styled weekly at the salon and always wears button down cardigans, no matter the temperature.
Growing up I could always fool my parents but not Nana. Nana has always been able to see right through me.
“Nothing, Nana,” I grumble, shoving a bite of pasta salad into my mouth to keep from having to say more.
“Just tell them, Len,” Starr chimes in. The look she’s giving me is the same one she used to give me right before she’d tattle on me when we were kids.
I shake my head slowly, my eyes wide. “Don’t,” I mouth, lifting my glass of iced tea to my lips before taking a long drink.
“Lennon has a new man in her life,” Starr announces, causing me to suck the liquid down the wrong pipe. I start sputtering and coughing uncontrollably.
“You alright there, sis?” Starr knocks me on the back a couple times, laughter in her voice.
It takes me several moments to recover and once I do I feel every set of eyes at the table on me.
“A new man?” My mom is the first to speak, her gaze going back and forth between me and my sister.
“Well, he’s notnew, new. She met him a few years ago, but reconnected with him in Nashville over my bachelorette weekend,” Starr keeps talking, despite the fact that I’m stomping on her foot in attempt to shut her up. “And you’ll never guess who it is.” She bubbles excitedly.
“Starr,” I warn, considering dunking her face into her plate of food to shut her up.
