CHAPTER 28
“God, I forgot how bad skunk stinks,” Hudson said from behind his mold mask. He was lucky he had a few from a small mold job he’d tackled for the Garcias, who ran the boat launch. “Good thing he made it out of the kitchen and back out the doggy door, or this whole house would be saturated.”
He’d figured that the skunk had started down the hallway but then turned around and fled the way he came in. So they used heavy-duty clear plastic and taped off the dining area, kitchen, and hallway so the scent wouldn’t travel any farther into the living room or, hopefully, upstairs. Armed with vinegar solution, they started wiping down all the surfaces.
Jeremy had been strangely quiet for the first few minutes. It could’ve been because he didn’t want to open his mouth or breathe in any more of the skunk scent than necessary, but Hudson knew his son well enough to guess that wasn’t it. Sure enough, after a few minutes, Jeremy just dove in.
“So what’s the deal with you and this Willa?”
Hudson sighed. He was wondering that himself.
The sex had been fantastic, even if they’d had to be quiet. Maybe on some level because they had to be quiet, honestly. Not that they’d succeeded in that. Willa was incredibly responsive and enthusiastic. She seemed almost surprised by her own responses. Every emotion was clear across her face: if she liked something, he knew it.
He fucking loved that.
He’d like to explore that more, when they had more time, more privacy. When she could really let loose and be as loud as she wanted, and when it wasn’t three in the morning after a long day. Maybe sometime soon, he could have that chance.
“We’re still figuring things out,” Hudson hedged finally, when Jeremy stopped cleaning to stare at him.
“Are you dating?”
“We haven’t really talked about it.” He couldn’t tell what Jeremy’s expression was behind the mask. Was he upset? Encouraging? “Are you okay with that?”
“Does it matter if I am?”
That didn’t sound promising. “It’s not going to stop me, necessarily,” Hudson said. “But I’m not going to ignore it if you and Kimber hate somebody. You know that.”
“Yeah, but we’re not dating her, are we?” Jeremy said, more insistently.
“Do you not like her?” Frankly, he hadn’t seen that coming. Willa might be a little withdrawn and might come off as aloof or shy. But she was also sweet, and thoughtful, with a core of steel that most people probably didn’t know about. He couldn’t imagine anyone actively disliking her, much less one of his kids.
“I literally just met her a few hours ago,” Jeremy said, and at least he sounded amused this time. “I don’t know her well enough to say one way or another. But I could tell in under five minutes that you like her a hell of a lot. More than anybody I’ve seen in a long time.”
Hudson scrubbed the center counter with a little more force than it needed, while Jeremy squatted down, washing off the lower cabinet fronts. “Again: is this a problem?”
“It’s just weird,” Jeremy said, not looking at him. “Kimber mentioned it. You haven’t had a girlfriend that we know of since Sylvia or whatever, back when we were little.”
“You remember her?” That felt like a punch in the gut. He’d hoped they’d forgotten his poor decision.
He’d started dating Sylvia three years after the divorce, when the twins were barely six. She’d been awesome: fun, about his age, great with the kids. But she had an ex who was in the military, and when he came back from his tour of duty, they’d decided to give it another try. Hudson’d been disappointed, and hurt—but more important, one night Jeremy had crawled into his lap, asking why he hadn’t seen Sylvia.
“I don’t think Sylvia’s going to be around much anymore,” Hudson had told him, unsure of what to say. He was pretty sure she was moving somewhere back east, like North Carolina ... and even if she wasn’t, he got the sense that her ex-now-boyfriend wasn’t going to love her visiting the kids of the guy she’d been with while he was deployed. “I know you like her, and I’m sure she’ll miss you.”
Jeremy had stayed very still before his little body let out a very big sigh. “Why don’t they stay, Daddy?” he’d asked.
That hadn’t been a punch in the gut. That had been a stab right in his heart.
The funny thing was, as tough as Jeremy liked to act sometimes—the way he’d played sports in school, smack-talking with his college friends, all that—Kimber was the hard one, the more practical of the twins. Jeremy was the romantic. It was, Hudson suspected, part of the reason why Jeremy’d held on so long to his relationship with Wendy when it was so obvious, to the rest of the family anyway, that it wasn’t going to work.
In a lot of ways, Jeremy took after him, if his marriage was any example.
“So is it serious?” Jeremy prodded, shaking him out of his memory. “Or is it ... y’know, just sex?”
“I didn’t have her over for sex. I gave her a place to stay because she needed one,” Hudson started defensively, only to stop short when Jeremy’s arched eyebrow called bullshit.
“Come on, now. I was just getting to sleep when you got in,” Jeremy said, and Hudson could hear the grin in his voice. “Trust me, by the time I figured out what was going on, I had those noise-canceling headphones on and death metal blasting so damned fast.”
Hudson felt his cheeks and ears heat. “Shit,” he muttered, which made Jeremy laugh, at least. “We didn’t wake up Kimber, did we?”
“You know her. She’s slept through cannon fire.”
Thank God for that. Although with his luck, Kimber wouldn’t care, or worse, would somehow try to give him helpful tips. He shuddered.
“Still, sex hadn’t been the point,” Hudson continued. “I haven’t known her that long, but ... I don’t know. She’s special. There was something about her that just hit me from the minute I met her. And the more I got to know her, the more I liked her. I’ve only known her for a month or so, but we just click.”
“Sounds like Grandma and Grandpa,” Jeremy teased with a laugh, moving on to the next bank of cabinets.
Hudson scoffed, wiping down walls. “Let’s not go overboard. I just ... her husband died two years ago.”
Jeremy’s laughter stopped. “Shit. Sorry. That sucks.”
“Sounds like she’s had a tough time,” Hudson said. “Like, really hard. And she’s determined to be independent, doesn’t want to take anything from anybody.”
“Like Mom?” There was an edge to his words.
Hudson wasn’t going to open that can of worms. “No. More like she worries if she doesn’t do everything herself, she’s weak, somehow. So she pushes herself until she’s ready to snap. She hasn’t had anyone to lean on, really, so this is all she knows.”
Hudson finished one wall, and by the time he turned to the other, he noticed Jeremy staring at him thoughtfully. “You want to be that,” Jeremy said. “You want to be someone for her to lean on.”
That was it, exactly. He wanted to take care of her, or at least he wanted the opportunity for them to take care of each other. He sure as hell wanted to make sure that she wasn’t hurt, or stretched too thin, or burned out, or worried and anxious. He didn’t want her to feel exhausted and alone. Not ever again.
“Yeah.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if it’s only been a month, does it?” Jeremy said.
Hudson shook his head. “I’m definitely open to it,” he said. “I’ve put it out there. But she’s ... careful. I don’t want to crowd her, in case she decides to just bail because she doesn’t want to deal with it.”
“Run? From a relationship with you?” Jeremy sounded both amused and shocked. “I thought every woman over the age of twenty wanted to bag the island’s most eligible bachelor, even if you are old.”
“Like I said,” Hudson replied, refusing to take the bait, “Willa’s different.”
“She gonna stick around, at least?”
“God,” Hudson said, “I hope so. Because I really like this one.”