Chapter 11
LEAH
In the warm room adjacent to the rink, I unlace my skates and slide them into a bag Mami embroidered with my name years ago.
As if his hips are aching, Hudson drops heavily onto a nearby bench. “So that was interesting.”
I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic and referring to the lesson together or my big family butting in. Both? And now I feel like I have something to apologize for—my mixed nut assortment of a family—so I should play nice.
“Your sister Valentina is a cookie-cutter version of your mother, only a few inches taller.”
That answers my question. “I swear, Chuck is turning into my father. They even have the same mannerisms.”
“Where does that leave you?”
“Lone wolf.”
“You’re more of a cat. Independent, finicky, furry.”
“What?”
“I’m joking. I meant that you’re also graceful, mysterious, mischievous.”
Thinking about my failed attempt at breaking and entering, and then having to return with the gnome, I say, “Hardly.”
He chuckles. “Don’t you have another sibling?”
It’s not surprising that he remembers this given the fact that he lived on the other side of the wall in our duplex, but for some reason, my stomach bounces as if I’ve been on a trampoline, trying to set the world record, because out of the twins next door, I only ever had Hunter’s attention.
“My oldest sister, Danielle—Dani. I guess you could say she encapsulates the entirety of the Smith family. Already has four kids.”
Hudson leans back in shock. “Seriously?”
“She’s the oldest and has been married for twelve years—high school sweetheart.”
“So that makes you an aunt.”
I smile inside, thinking of my nieces and nephews. I may come across as an independent black cat, at least as far as the Roboveitchek brothers are concerned, but family means everything to me.
He wears a time flies expression. “Jack mentioned Chuck is getting married. That just leaves you and Valentina.”
I arch an eyebrow, not sure what he’s suggesting. “She is married. Her husband is in the military. Gets out this spring.”
Hudson points over his shoulder toward the rink. “But she was—”
“She cannot help but flirt, but Grant is her world, so don’t get any funny ideas.”
He holds up his hands. “Wouldn’t dare.” Though that explains the faraway look in her eyes.
“Also, they’re expecting a baby in May, but he doesn’t know that yet.” I have no idea why I told Hudson. Maybe because it’s something I would’ve mentioned to Hunter.
His answer would’ve been something like, Good luck with that. Instead, Hudson smiles. “That’s exciting. Are they going to film the announcement like those videos when a soldier comes home from deployment and his family surprises them? Those get me every time.”
Me too.
I sense that he’s teasing me, but he couldn’t possibly know that during my sleep rebellion social media scrolls, I often get choked up when I come across videos like that.
I’m well past the phase in my life when I would literally die when in public with my parents.
My mother is just a big bundle of love in all its forms. She’ll hug you, tell you that you’re handsome, and then try to match you with one of her daughters.
Unfortunately, I’m now her target, but she knows the pressure riles me up so she’s backed off recently.
Either that or she’s given up on me ever being in a lasting relationship.
Now, Abuela had to go and have one of “Chosen One” dreams—these are legendary in our family and supposedly, each one of the females in our family is destined to experience one for someone in their life: could be a relative, friend, or stranger.
But the stories I’ve heard never resulted in an arranged marriage.
More like a confirmation that the woman in question was with the right guy.
Hudson has his boots on and peels off his outer layer. As he tugs his shirt over his head, the hem lifts, revealing his abs.
A little burst of warmth rises through my belly and reaches my face.
I have a thing for hockey players, but not this one. Anyone but him. Even though I haven’t seen Hunter in years and could tell the twins apart at a hundred yards, it’s weird to feel a little spark inside when they’re nothing alike personality-wise. Well, they weren’t.
More than a few times, I’ve questioned whether I really knew Hunter at all.
Hudson’s eyes flick to mine. I quickly look away. Distracted, he caught me staring. My cheeks have showcased every shade of red this evening and now is no different.
As I get to my feet, his gaze grazes me from top to bottom. Warm from the lesson, I’m no longer wearing my vest. I shoot him a couple of eye daggers to emphasize that I don’t want him to get any funny or flirty ideas with the lone-wolf, single Smith sibling.
Instead of going to the locker room, like a puppy dog, Hudson follows me toward the Ice Palace’s main concourse, flanked by concession stands, the merch and pro shops, and swanky lounge areas similar to those in a conference center.
I’m keenly aware of him matching my pace and the relative silence that permeates the usually noisy building. My ping-ponging thoughts more than make up for it.
When we reach the lobby and the big glass doors, I pause and say, “You don’t have to go.”
“I’ve already been here all day, so—”
“I mean to the anniversary party.”
“Wouldn’t want to be rude?”
“Seriously, it’s chaos. You never came over for our family events when we were neighbors.”
He tilts his head sharply to the side but not in question, more like there’s something I should know. “Because I was uninvited. My brother told me not to come.”
“But my mom always said you could join our barbecues, birthdays …”
“It was a standing un-invitation.”
“I don’t understand.”
Using those long arms of his with big pecs and corded muscles below the elbow, he holds the door open for me, making it so I have to get close to him again to pass through.
“I can operate the door on my own, thank you.”
“Would you rather I slam it in your face?”
My tone is all snark when I say, “I’m saying you don’t have to hold it open.”
“I’m being a polite human, and am well aware you’re capable of opening a door. When I hold a door open for you or anyone else, my intention isn’t to undermine you, but to put you before myself.”
I feel strangely breathless all of a sudden. Hudson is intense but not angry. Like he really means it … wants me to understand.
Alrighty then. I brush past him, welcoming the fresh night air on my face.
As if picking up on the previous thread of our conversation and family gatherings, he mutters, “Maybe you didn’t know Hunter as well as you thought you did.”
This gives me pause, but I keep up with him as the very last of the evening summer warmth relents to the chill of autumn. Nebraska is in that place of overlap and unlike my Colombian-born mother, who loves the heat, I’m ready to say good riddance to the summer and welcome fall.
“When is the party?” Hudson asks.
“You really don’t have to.”
Pausing in front of a truck with knobby tires that looks like it was built for off-roading, he says, “Maybe I want to see what I was missing all these years.”
“Bedlam. You were missing mayhem.”
He shuffles his foot on the ground. “Bedlam and mayhem always smelled so good, though.”
I stifle a laugh and rearrange the hard expression reserved for encounters with this man. “I find it hard to believe that Hunter would’ve told you to stay away.”
Hudson’s dark brown eyes lift to mine. I glimpse sadness before little wrinkles form as he smiles. “Since my brother can’t make it to celebrate your parents, I should represent the Roboveitcheks.”
“It almost sounds like you want to go.”
“Your mom makes great cookies. Pulverizers?”
It cannot be helped. I burst into laughter. “Do you mean polvorosas?”
His shrug is slightly bashful. “The ones dusted with powdered sugar on top.”
“Yeah, they’re butter sugar.” I’m surprised he remembers.
“You’d always bring a platter of them to our house at Christmas. Hunter never ate them, which meant more for me.”
By the peek I got of his abs earlier, it doesn’t look like he indulges much, but I thought Hunter always gobbled them up. Walking back in my memory, he’d put them on the counter, but I never saw him eat them. Huh.
Hudson leans against the truck. “Let’s see. Your mom was a seamstress and your dad played guitar, right?”
“Are you preparing for a quiz?”
“Will there be one?”
I want to swat him on the arm, but for some reason, that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Not because I’m afraid he’ll hit me back, but the few times we accidentally touched during the lesson, it burned so good like hot water on my skin after being in the rink too long.
I’m not sure I approve of how that makes me feel.
“I’m just checking my facts.”
“You really don’t need to come to the party.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing the old duplex.”
“We moved. They moved. I live in Omaha now.”
“Yeah, the city is better. It’s a shame they moved the arena here.”
“I’d rather be in Cobbiton, but—” He doesn’t need to know that the only apartment I could afford is in a derelict building in a part of town Grant won’t let Valentina go to unless she’s armed.
Of course, I could’ve lived with my parents in perpetuity—Mami would prefer it that way—but there’s something to be said about being on my own.
“Any new restaurants in Omaha? Hot spots you recommend? It’s been a while since I’ve visited.”
I give a vague shake of my head because if it doesn’t come out of a box ready to eat, I have all my meals at my parents’ house on Stowells Street.
Mostly because the shared kitchen at my apartment wouldn’t pass health inspections.
Also, Julius Cheeser has a big appetite and I try to avoid leaving crumbs.
“Well?” Hudson asks when I don’t answer.
“Yeah, there’s the usual. I don’t spend much time there.”
“Ah, so you’re still a country mouse.” He says as if that’s a bad thing.
I’d kept my claws sheathed until now. “I thought you said I was a cat. Pick one.”
He chuckles. “I’ll go with feline. You’re kind of feral.”
I slant my gaze at him. “I can see why Hunter didn’t want you coming to my family gatherings. You need to work on your charm.”
He chuckles. “In that case, I won’t be taking any pages from my brother’s book.”
An important question at the ready, I open my mouth, but words don’t come out.
He asks, “What do I need to know about your parents’ love story? Where’d they meet? Your mom is from a place that speaks Spanish. There are a lot of those. South America? Central? Spain?”
“She’s from Colombia. Dad was a classical guitarist. She was a dancer. It was hate at first sight.”
His lips part, but I’m not staring at them. “No way. But they’re the sweetest couple.”
“They despised each other. She said he was too cocky. He said she was so feisty and headstrong, she was going to get herself into trouble.”
The corner of Hudson’s mouth now lifts with a lazy half-smile I still sometimes see in my sleep, but it’s the other half—Hunter’s. “The ‘trouble’ being years of wedded bliss, I take it.”
“You’re just trying to infuriate me, aren’t you?”
He frowns, but his tone is teasing, almost flirty. “That’s not out of the question.”
“I’m not that much different from my mother,” I say, meaning the feisty part and belatedly realizing it might also sound flirty given the way she gushed over how handsome he was.
I mean, Hudson is objectively good-looking.
When Valentina meets someone new, she asks them which is the hottest Chris: Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Chris Evans, or Chris Hemsworth.
There’s no wrong answer. Hers is Pratt because he and Grant look strikingly alike.
It’s also a way to gauge what kind of person they are, I guess.
You might say Hudson is a combination of all four. I tell myself that makes him hideous, but that’s a big lie because my bucket list boyfriend is, er, was his twin.
But Hudson’s angular jaw is freshly shaved unlike how Hunter’s was riddled with bristly stubble as if he’d come in last place at a beard-growing contest.
This twin has effortlessly tousled hair that a gal could run her fingers through, while Hunter meticulously spiked his with gel and had a hands-off policy, even though I had an urgent curiosity to touch it like when confronted with a sleeping porcupine.
Hudson’s eyes are bright with interest, whereas Hunter worked hard on his apathetic middle-distance stare.
Gazing at me, he says, “You’re quieter than I expected.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I’ve just been more in my head than usual tonight. First, Hudson is back in town, which makes me think about Hunter. Also, I’m teaching him figure skating lessons. Then, there’s the issue of the email.
Something he can never know but is determined to find out.
Lifting his first two fingers toward his temple, he gives me a little wave salute. “Thanks for the lessons. Later, Skater.”
A Polaroid-like memory appears, developing slowly into an old photo. I used to hate having to share the rink with the high school hockey team at Clarkson High, especially after what I overheard Hudson say to his brother.
Yet, he acted as if it was nothing, always nodding at me and saying those very words when I’d exit to the warm room. I always thought I heard derision in his voice as if he hated me, but he just spoke in the same tone as the carbon copy in my mind.
On second thought, it doesn’t sound like he was teasing me at all.
Quite the opposite, actually.