Chapter 16 MATTY
MATTY
Abox sat on the couch between Hudson and me. I had no idea what I was looking at. One second, he was saying the most clichéd thing ever that he wasn’t good enough for me, and the next, he’d left the room and returned with a box in his trembling hands.
Did I want to know what was in that box that was so powerful I’d doted on this man all summer, only for him to choose a woman he didn’t love? I wasn’t sure.
“What’s all this?”
Hudson bit his bottom lip, tightening his hand on the box for a second before he loosened his grip. “I didn’t plan on showing you, but I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I want this to be all out in the open.”
My heart thumped crazily. Was it that bad, then? “Maybe you don’t have to—”
“You wanted answers, Matt. I’m not doing things halfway anymore. You have to know the full truth before you…decide.”
But what was there to decide? I’d spent all evening with him and his daughter. Watched cartoons with her. Read her a bedtime story and sat with her until she fell asleep. The decision was already made, but he seemed to want to undo it with whatever the hell was inside that box.
Hudson removed the cover and took out a wad of papers rolled up and secured by a rubber band. He handed them to me.
I took a deep breath and unrolled the bundle, nerves sinking in more than I wanted to admit.
The first page was a court document. The State vs. Hudson Granger. Beneath the header, legal jargon blurred, as I scanned the piece of paper for what mattered.
Destruction of property.
My stomach twisted.
A police report followed, dated a couple of years before we met. The words jumped out at me. “Unauthorized use of a vehicle,” “reckless endangerment,” “intoxicated.”
I kept flipping.
Defendant identified as Hudson Granger drove a 1968 Mercedes-Benz into the family estate gate while under the influence. Estimated damages $60,000.
I blinked. “This… this was your family’s car?”
Hudson gave a stiff nod, gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “My dad’s. His favorite. I’d just fought with my parents because they didn’t like my fast lifestyle. Got drunk. Drove it straight into the stone gate and half the garden wall.”
“You could’ve killed yourself.”
The thought left me cold on the inside. To never have met Hudson. To Ivy never existing. It all felt wrong.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Didn’t care if I did then to be honest.”
But I cared.
God, I cared so damn much. Wasn’t that the reason I was here, trying to figure us out?
I sifted through the worst parts of his life laid bare in my lap, seeing pieces of him he’d never trusted me with. The wreckage he’d hidden behind his silence, flirtatious smiles, and his neediness in my bed. The damage he thought made him unworthy. And somehow, it made me love him more.
Another paper slid forward—civil suit documentation. Plaintiffs: James and Patricia Granger. My jaw went slack. “They sued you? Your own parents?”
“Full cost of damages. No financial help. Said I had to learn consequences.” He shrugged like it didn’t gut him to say it. “They said it was for my own good. To stop my reckless behavior and teach me to grow up. They weren’t necessarily wrong.”
Surely, they could have taught him consequences some other way? To sue their son, who couldn’t rub two pennies together, was reprehensible. What kind of childhood did Hudson have? We’d never talked about that either.
Shit.
Was he right? Had we only fucked that summer while learning nothing about each other?
I flipped more.
Six months served. Restitution agreement: 50% of wages to be garnished until balance is cleared.
“You’re still paying them?” My voice cracked.
Hudson nodded. “Every paycheck. Occasionally late, but I never missed one.”
My throat burned. But there was more. I could feel it.
The next stack was tabloid-thin, folded newspaper clippings.
Local Man Arrested in Undercover Sting Operation.
Adult Film Actor Among Those Caught Soliciting.
Photos. Mugshots. A headline that should’ve belonged to someone else. Anyone else. Not Hudson.
“You did porn?” I whispered. The disbelief in my voice made him wince.
He looked down. “Never went to college. Never paid attention in school either. My options were limited, and I needed to pay off my parents fast to cut ties with them. I started with a few clips online. Then…escorting. I didn’t know one of the guys was a cop posing as a client. That arrest stuck.”
“What kind of porn did you do?”
He chuckled, but the sound was tired. “Nothing great if you look it up online. No passion, they said. I was a lousy top, so I didn’t last long and went into escorting. When men are closeted and desperate, they don’t mind a lousy fuck.”
“Were you with a man at all before escorting?”
“In jail.” He rubbed his forehead as if it hurt. “I never had family who checked in on me, sent me money. One guy traded some essentials if he could blow me. That’s where I got the idea when I was out to, err, continue that line of business.”
“Hud—”
“I know it’s not pretty stuff. Didn’t even think of myself as gay or bi or whatever. I was in it for the money.” He looked up finally, eyes bloodshot. “Until I met you. You were cocky and so sure you would get me even after I told you I didn’t bottom.”
“Did you regret it? Bottoming for me?”
“Are you kidding me? I missed it. That day at the lake wasn’t enough.”
I set the papers down slowly, like they might catch fire in my hands.
“You were fresh out of prison when we met?” I asked quietly.
Hudson gave a dry, mirthless laugh. “Fresh out. Trying to start over. I was grateful when Gray took a chance on me. Thought I was doing okay. Then you came along. Gorgeous and cocky and way too good for a guy like me. I didn’t plan on falling for you.
Didn’t plan on anything. That’s why I was so fucking careless with your heart in the beginning.
But then you made me believe in things I’d already buried, and when I started dreaming again of a life with you, someone reminded me that I was trash and you were practically royalty here in Bristlecone Springs. ”
My gaze drifted to the rubber-banded wad of cash still in the box, and the breath in my lungs escaped. The money…
I frowned, my mind doing loops. “Hudson, that’s a lot of cash.” I swallowed and met his eyes. “Why couldn’t you pay for your groceries today? If you’ve got that much stashed away, what are you saving it for?”
“It’s not mine,” he said quietly. “I never asked for it, and I haven’t spent a dollar of it in four years.”
A flicker of heat rose in my chest. The kind that warned me something else was coming. I clenched the court documents in my lap like they might anchor me.
“These,” I said, voice low, “these look like somebody investigated you. Was it… my dad?”
The thought of my father doing something so despicable was hard to wrap my head around. It felt all wrong. Dad wasn’t that kind of man. He was the father who told you to be discreet while slipping you a pack of condoms to ensure you were being safe.
Hudson’s throat bobbed. He didn’t answer.
I sat up straighter, tension spreading through my shoulders. “Who was it, Hud?”
“Your mom.”
I blinked. “My—what?”
“She came to see me. Right after you left for college.” His voice wavered, and he reached over, placing a hand on my thigh.
“She was upset that you didn’t stay with her and Carter that summer like you used to.
I guess we weren’t as discreet as we thought because she knew exactly who I was and what I was doing with you. ”
I shook my head, trying to make it make sense. “She hired someone to dig up your past?”
“She came with receipts. My record, the mugshots, the porn. Threw it all in my face. She didn’t think I was good enough to lick your boots.” A short laugh escaped him. “She wasn’t wrong. She told me I was too old for you. That you were infatuated with me, and I would ruin your life.”
“She threatened you?”
“More like heavily suggested I leave you alone. Then she tossed that cash at me to seal the deal because she figured I was an opportunist and only got with you for the Magnuson wealth.”
I was speechless.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was already sick at the thought of you knowing everything about my past. And then… Heather told me she was pregnant. She was positive it was mine because before we had sex that night, she’d been reborn in the church and hadn’t been with anyone for a while.”
Now it all made sense—the way he’d caved in and not explained when I confronted him.
“I was drowning, Matt. Your mom’s visit, Heather’s news—I made the call. I thought… I thought it was the kindest thing I could do for you. Walk away. Spare you.”
My ears rang. My thoughts spun.
“My mom did this?” I asked, still stunned. “She made this decision for me? All of you did. You. Her. None of you bothered to check in with me to see what I wanted.”
“Matt, please don’t be mad at her.” Hudson’s voice cracked. “She was being a mother and trying to protect you.”
“From the man I loved?” I stood abruptly, the room spinning. “She didn’t give me a choice, and neither did you!”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. I took a few steps away, needing distance. So much had happened, and nobody had bothered to tell me.
Behind me, the shuffle of feet came near. Hudson wrapped his arms around my waist, slow and cautious as though giving me the chance to push him away. A kiss, featherlight and trembling, landed at the base of my neck.
“You were nineteen,” he whispered. “I was twenty-five. Some people would have said we didn’t belong together in the first place.
That I had no business being with someone that young.
You had your whole future ahead of you, Matt.
What right did I have to drag you down with me? With all this baggage?”
“You think you were the first older man I’d been with? You weren’t even the second!”
My eyes burned, but I didn’t move.
He held on.
And I hated how good it still felt.
“It doesn’t matter how many other men you had before me. You were nineteen, and it wasn’t right to saddle you with my mistakes.”
“Is this supposed to be the part where we have sex and make up?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He nipped the side of my neck with his teeth. “I want you. Always have, but I understand that you’ve had to process a lot. If you want to go—”
I turned in his arms, reversing our hold, and cupped his cheeks. “I’m not leaving you alone again.”
He grabbed the front of my shirt, eyes scanning my face. “Matty, you need to think about it.”
“I’ve had four years in which all I did was think about you, Hudson.”
“I don’t want you to regret. And Ivy’s already lost a mother. If you’re not sure—”
I shoved him up against the wall, and he gasped. I dipped my head, caught his bottom lip between my teeth, and bit down hard. He moaned, his body caving into me.
“Stop making decisions for me.” I licked his bruised lip.
“Years ago, someone else took that choice away from me, and I hated every moment of it. I lived every year of my life since ensuring that didn’t happen again, not knowing you would do exactly the same thing.
I’m capable of deciding what I want, Hudson, and I never stopped wanting you. ”
“So what are you saying?”
I kissed his nose, blocking out the clippings I’d just read, the money, the interference of my mom.
For now.
“I’m saying let’s do what we do best, Hud. Let’s fuck and make up for good.”