22. Alana
Everythingabout the whole ordeal just reminded Alana how little she knew about art, and how out of her league Hudson was. Sure, maybe she was just projecting. But she didn’t even have the vocabulary to discuss Hudson’s art other than talking about how beautifully thoughtful she thought it was.
What kind of lousy fake wife couldn’t even have a conversation about art with someone? Alana reminded herself that Hudson would not be able to have a conversation if she was presenting at a cybersecurity conference either, except to be honest, he probably could, and she really wished things hadn’t gotten so awkward so she could have talked to him before all of this.
“EN update,” Jamie said, sidling up to her. “Pretty sure they’re leaving.”
“Are they?”
“She definitely wants to. There is definitive toe tapping and significant glances at the door. He’s still talking to one of the Patreon folks.”
“The thought of accidentally on purpose pulling the fire alarm is rapidly escalating,” Alana replied. “As is my panic.”
“Why are you panicking?” Jamie glanced around the room and lowered her voice. “You don’t have to act married here. Things can just be regular. We’ve distracted them sufficiently. Everything will be fine.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? What was regular for Alana and Hudson anymore? They’d taken normal and burned it to the ground the first time they had sex in the apartment, and things hadn’t gone back to whatever they had been before then.
“I know,” Alana said. “I just…” she trailed off and shrugged. “Whatever. I’m just overthinking things for no reason.”
“Is this still about whatever argument you and Hudson had?”
“No. Definitely not. Just…regular overthinking kind of things. Feels like this whole place is judging me for having gone to a CUNY.”
Jamie raised her eyebrows. “Girl. We both know you don’t give a shit about people judging where you went to college, and if they said anything to you, you would let them know about your full scholarship and your lack of student loans. So. Again. Is this about the argument with Hudson you mentioned before in the girls chat?”
“How about you go harass your husband?” Alana offered.
“Well, my husband is not hiding deep, dark secrets from me about the relationship that he’s in,” Jamie said, “and you absolutely are.”
“Do you really think that if I was hiding a deep dark secret, which I’m not,” Alana said, “that I would, I don’t know, tell it to you at an art show where my–” she lowered her voice, “not real husband is putting on an art show? Think this would be the place where I would suddenly spill nonexistent secrets? Which, let me remind you, I do not have any.”
“You know, for someone who claims to not have any secrets,” Jamie said, “You’re doing a really bad job of convincing me.”
Alana laughed a little hysterically. “Why do people keep on saying that I am lying to them and that I’m not good at it?”
“Perhaps,” Jamie said, “because you are lying to them, and you are not good at it.”
“I don’t know,” Alana said. “I think if I was lying to people, which once again, I am not, I actually am very good at it. Like, I’ve lied to you about a lot of other things that I’ve never admitted to, and you don’t know about them.”
“I know that this is your attempt to try to get me to stop asking you questions about Hudson,” Jamie said, “and if you just want me to not talk about it right now, we could do that and you could come over one night and I’ll kick the husband out of the apartment and we can have ourselves a night that you tell me what happened because obviously something did.”
“Obviously nothing did.”
“Honey, it’s okay if something happened.”
“Well, of course it’s okay if something happened,” Alana said. “But nothing did. So, I’m fine.”
Jamie looked thoroughly unconvinced, which did not help Alana’s stress levels, which were multiplying as she headed back to Hudson, like he was a shitty lightbulb and she was a fly with a death wish.
“Everything’s fine,” Hudson said as he reached for her hand to pull her into the conversation he was having with JP and Ben.
Fuck this. What was it? You fall in love and all of a sudden, the person you love has the ability to read all your emotions? It was either that or falling in love had made Alana lose the ability to keep her face polite in public. Either way, it was a conversation for Lane and not for today.
“Oh, there you are.” George smiled. “The man of the hour. We were just talking about you.”
This was how Alana died. Forget the surgery. The ground was going to open and swallow her whole, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about any sort of hysterectomy at all.
“Hudson, this is Peter Stevens,” George said. “He’s a local collector, who works with commercial real estate firms to source artwork for their buildings. And this is his wife, Jennifer.”
“Peter Stevens,” he said, reaching out a hand to shake Hudson’s. “Pleasure meeting you. I’ve heard some wonderful things about your work from the Peterson Group.”
(Why did Alana think he was going to say his wife? It was still a HIPAA violation.)
Hudson smiled tightly. “That’s gratifying to hear.”
The Peterson Group…Alana scraped through her memories. Ohhh. That was the nightmare job he’d had a few months before the wedding.
Oh, no.
“I have noticed that your work has gotten more,” Peter paused. “Expansive? Since the work you’d done for them?”
Hudson nodded. “I’ve recently had some more time open in my schedule, which has given me more opportunity to test my creative limits.”
“And what do you do, Mrs. Miller?” Peter asked.
Alana was going to melt into the floor and die. She glanced over at George, who was busy making eyes at the photographer across the room. “Oh, I’m a cybersecurity analyst,” she said, “Which is always sexy and full of art.”
Peter laughed. “Well, every job has an art to it. I suppose some were just more obvious than others.” He turned to Hudson. “I know you have lots of people you have to talk to tonight, and we’re on a bit of a time crunch to make sure we can get back home so we can relieve the nanny, but I would love to chat with you further to see if your art would be something that would fit with the current project schedule.”
“That would be great,” Hudson replied. “And thank you for spending your time away from your children here. I deeply appreciate it.”
“Of course.” Peter smiled at the two of them.
“Have a good night,” Nurse Jennifer said, smiling politely.
Alana and Hudson both nodded and smiled as the couple walked away.
“I feel like I just ran a marathon,” Alana said quietly. “Also, maybe Nurse Jennifer sucks at facial recognition, but I don’t think she knew who I was?”
“We can only hope.”
“I won’t breathe easy til they’re gone.”
“But they’re leaving,” Hudson whispered. “They’re leaving. We can breathe easy in three, two…”
“Go, go, go, go,” Alana chanted quietly. “You can do it!”
The door closed quietly behind them, and Alana nearly collapsed in relief. “Hallelujah,” she breathed out. “We did it.”
“Now we just have to survive the rest of the night,” Hudson said.
Alana laughed, giddy with relief. “The rest of the night is going to be a joke in retrospect.”
Auntie Ev sidled back over. “There are stickers on almost all of your pieces.” She handed Hudson a champagne flute. “Sold stickers. And George was telling me that there were at least three different people who’ve already asked for your contact info about commissions.”
“See!” Alana grinned. “Not to be that person, but I told you so.”
“Oh, honey,” Auntie Ev scoffed. “Always be that person.”
“Is this the part where we have the conversation we’re supposed to be having?” Hudson asked Alana as she followed him into the little room in the back of the gallery that cosplayed as a greenroom after the show finally ended.
“You mean the part that I almost had a heart attack and died because the worst nurse in the history of nurses showed up?”
“We can talk about why you were so freaked out about that,” Hudson said, his voice tight. “Or we can talk about how things have been weird the past couple of days.”
“Oh, now you want to talk about how things were weird?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? When did I not want to talk about things? You’re the one who keeps on leaving.”
“I’m the one who keeps on leaving?” Alana shot back. “What are you talking about? You keep leaving!”
“Because you told me to. I tried to have a conversation with you about shit that’s going to be happening in a few months, because that’s what we agreed to, and I thought it would make sense to have that conversation now, because we had promised a year, and shit like divorcing takes time. I wasn’t the one who blew up, refused to explain myself, and then acted weird.”
“No, you were the person who tried to play the martyr, and when I told you I didn’t need a martyr, you got butt hurt.”
“It’s not being butt hurt if only one of us are being rational about things, Alana.”
“Are you accusing me of being irrational now?” Ohhh, she was ready to fistfight him, successful gallery show be damned. “Why the fuck am I surprised? That’s like, misogyny one oh one.”
Hudson took an audible breath in, and let it out slowly. “This was a terrible idea.”
“What was, getting married?” Alana folded her arms over her chest. “Seems like it to me.”
“Well, I meant trying to have this conversation while both of us are still riled up about everything that just happened,” Hudson said, “But if we want to open that fucking can of worms, sure. We can do that, too.”
“I love how you think we’re opening that can when the can has been open already,” Alana said.
“The worms are crawling everywhere. Can’t shove them all back into the can and repressurize it shut. Which, not that it matters or anything, I don’t think you can actually do. So you’d have to get a new can to put all your worms into it, and then pressure can that can.”
“You know these are metaphorical worms.”
“Of course I know they’re metaphorical worms, asshole.” Alana reached out, to grab him or push him, she didn’t know. Hudson trapped her hands in his.
“Then does it really make a difference how you can get them back in the can?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just does.” Alana sagged forward, dropping her head on his shoulder. “See, this is why we shouldn’t have conversations about anything.”
“Ever?”
“Well, definitely not after whatever just happened.”
“Then when are we supposed to?” Hudson asked, stroking her hair.
Alana mumbled something.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, but you obviously said something.”
“And maybe I didn’t want you to hear it because I shouldn’t have actually said it out loud.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I have poor impulse control sometimes. A thing you know nothing about.”
It had been too long, and too much stress, and honestly, in retrospect, maybe this was what Alana really wanted. For Hudson to let go of the iron grip he had on his control, and to let it all burn.
“Oh, yes, my famed impulse control,” Hudson said, backing Alana up slowly until she hit the wall. “The only thing that stopped me from ripping your clothing off and fucking some sense into you every night for the past two weeks.”
“And who exactly asked you to not do that?” Alana asked, looking up at him. Wishing. Hoping. “Because, this, once again, sounds to me like you making decisions for me without asking for my fucking input.”
“Fine.” Hudson took Alana’s hands, and lifted them over her head, pinning them against the wall.
“Unless you disagree, I am going to shove this dress up over your hips and fuck you so hard you’re going to forget about this round robin argument.”
“Finally,” Alana said, all but a moan. “I am very much not disagreeing.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” Hudson replied. “Keep your hands where I put them.”
Alana nodded; her eyes blown wide. Hudson yanked Alana’s dress up and dropped to his knees. “Legs apart.” Alana shifted, spreading her legs enough for Hudson to have better access. “Spanx,” he said. “I love it when you make it hard for me to get to you. More work means a better reward.”
“What kind of sicko finds Spanx hot?” Alana panted as Hudson tugged hers down, taking everything else with it.
“The kind of sicko who enjoys edging,” Hudson replied, placing kiss after kiss on her exposed skin. “Possibly some weird latent chastity belt bullshit, which,” he looked up. “Has nothing to do with medieval things. So don’t even start.”
“You started,” Alana argued.
“The fact that you’re still coherent enough to argue with me,” Hudson said, nuzzling her, “is a problem.”
“Well,” Alana said, “Have at it. Fix the problem you made, Hudson.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
God, she missed him. And sure, he had been right there, but not emotionally, and not physically, not the same way he had been. She missed the unbridled joy he got from going down on her, the glint in his eye when she begged him to let her cum, the register of his voice dipping lower and lower the more desperate she became.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Alana gasped as Hudson began to finger fuck her in earnest. “But when you said you were going to fuck me until I forget about the argument, I thought this was the full P-in-V sort of fucking.”
“Not yet.”
“I shouldn’t have teased you about edging, should I.”
Hudson smiled, one step away from feral. “Probably not your best idea.”
“Fuck,” Alana hissed as Hudson added another finger. “Can I come yet?”
“Too coherent.” Hudson stood back up; one hand still buried between Alana’s legs. “Let’s see what we can do about that.” Reaching up to pin her in place again, Hudson angled his body so that Alana was surrounded, pinned to the wall, something he knew would send her over the edge faster than almost anything else. “This is my party,” he gritted, dropping kisses on her forehead, cheeks, neck, anywhere but her mouth. “My fucking party, Alana Rose Bruckner.”
“And you can cry...if you want to?” Alana panted.
“No,” Hudson said, twisting his fingers so he could find the spot that would make Alana have to muffle her screams. “And I can make you cry if I want to.”
“Good,” Alana gasped, as Hudson bent to swallow her screams as she came.
The ride back to their apartment was a blur. Alana had stepped out of her Spanx, and tucked them into her clutch, and the two of them were riding a very nearly empty subway back, which was a good thing, considering Alana was straddling Hudson as if they weren’t this close to getting arrested for public indecency. “When we get home,” Alana said, unbuttoning his shirt so she could plaster herself to his body, “we are going to fuck this issue out of our system.”
“And not until then,” Hudson said, thankful that they had accidentally landed up in the subway car where the central air had broken, so nobody else was in there with him. “Because as much as I want to finish what I started, we are not going to test God by fucking on a subway car. Or worse, at a public bathroom in the station.”
“I don’t think the bathrooms in the station are even open,” Alana replied, wiggling on Hudson’s lap, trying to get more comfortable.
Hudson held her down. “Unless you want me doing a cum-stain walk of shame from the station to the apartment, I would suggest not doing that anymore.”
“What happened to your famed self-control?”
“Left the building when I finger-fucked you in the greenroom,” Hudson replied, twining a hand through her hair and tugging just a little. “I don’t foresee it returning anytime soon.”
“Oh, no,” Alana replied. “Sounds terrible.”
“This is...a;lkdsja;lsdkfj,” the train announced, as they pulled into the next station.
“Fuck,” Alana hissed, and slid onto the seat next to Hudson before the doors opened. “Does it look like we were just having sex in a subway car?”
“Probably,” Hudson said, brushing a lock of hair from Alana’s face.
“No lipstick marks,” Alana said, inspecting Hudson’s face.
“We should be good.” Hudson made quick work of buttoning back up his shirt.
“Why didn’t we take an Uber home?” Alana asked as the doors to the train shut and the car began to rattle again, this time with a handful of people who hadn’t acted quickly enough to go to the next car where the air conditioning was probably working.
“Because then one of us would have accidentally flashed the Uber driver, and having sex in the back of an Uber would fuck up your passenger rating.”
“Have you done that before that you know for certain?”
“No, but I don’t have to have done it to know. And what kind of awkward ass conversation would that have been to whatever poor unfortunate soul who was driving us home? ‘Hi, do you consent to us fucking like a pair of weasels in the backseat of your car? We’ll roll out a tarp first.’”
“A tarp?” Alana laughed.
“Gotta make sure we don’t leave any evidence behind.”
Alana was curled into him, half on his lap and half on the seat. “It’s sex, Hudson, not a murder scene.”
“Well, the French would say it’s a little of both.”
Alana eyed him balefully. “And for that terrible joke, I will be singing the entirety of the Les Mis soundtrack while I fuck you later.”
“Oh, you’re the one who’s going to be fucking me now?” Hudson asked, glancing at the flashing names of the upcoming stops. This had got to be the slowest subway ride of his life.
“I think it’s only fair,” Alana replied.
“Oh?”
“I decided it’s a good way to work out my aggression on the fact that your favorite clothing item is a hair shirt,” Alana replied. “And anyway, you were the one who had a whole ass art gallery showing tonight and that deserves some pampering, don’t you think?”
“I can also be pampered by fucking you into your mattress,” Hudson said. “Just saying.”
“I suppose.”
Hudson paused. “Are you feeling okay, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“For me to potentially fuck you into the mattress.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“And you’d tell me if you weren’t.”
“Seriously, Hudson? Again?”
“For as much as you accuse me of being a martyr, Alana, we both know that only one of us has a long history of ignoring their physical pain because it makes other people’s lives easier, and it’s not me.”
“Are you really starting this argument now? In front of all those people?”
“You mean the six people sitting on the other side of the car, all of whom have headphones in and can’t hear us?”
“Yes. Them.”
“Was I starting an argument, Alana, or was I just pointing out another inconvenient truth about you that you don’t want to face?”
Alana looked up at him. “You know what we don’t have to be doing now?” she demanded. “Talking about inconvenient truths people don’t want to face. Not mine, and sure as hell not yours.”
“Or,” Hudson said. “We can discuss the fact that you changed out your piercings to a new set.”
“Are you deliberately trying to change the subject?”
“Yes.”
Alana laughed. “At least you’re honest about that.”
As opposed to other things, she didn’t say. The train rumbled to a stop at their station, and Hudson tugged Alana off the train.
“Are you going to be able to walk home in those shoes?”
“What’s the alternative?” Alana asked, jogging to catch up.
“I carry you.”
“In the middle of the night? You’re going to trip over a rat and we’ll both be done for.”
“You have such faith in me.”
“More like I have a lot of faith in the rats.”
“Cockblockers, every single one.”
Alana laughed. Maybe things were going to be okay.