Chapter 28 #2
He sees my eyes bulge as I look back to my living room, peering behind the small wall that separates the entry from the main living space and blocking Hudson’s view of the government agent currently assessing my kitchen. (And I feel violated by it.)
I just shake my head ever so slightly at Hudson.
“Mrs. Saraceno,” I say quickly, dramatically.
“It’s so nice of you to stop by. I have someone here waiting to speak to Hudson, but he’s in the shower…
you know how he is, so particular about his hair.
I’ll have to see you later.” I go to slam the door but he stops it.
It feels as though he looks right through me.
I use my own foot to nudge his out of the way.
“You understand, don’t you? My husband is in the shower,” I say clearly again.
Hudson’s eyes narrow on mine and he nods once. Mouthing the scold ‘Don’t say anything’ without letting out a sound.
And I shut the door.
I take a seat in my painted cafe chair that is really an all-purpose chair for everything from ladder to dining.
And drag it across the hardwood, to sit directly across from him, as he returns to the sofa after looking around my apartment with indescribable skepticism.
(It’s an icky feeling. I wish I had a better word, but icky is all that comes to mind.)
“I’m curious, Mrs. Ellis, can I call you that?” he asks in a way that sounds like it’s a trick question.
“Uh, that’s fine.” (No one calls me that, but I’m not about to tell him that.)
“I only ask because I noticed you haven’t officially changed your name as part of the marriage filing,” he continues as he scribbles notes condemning my future on his spiral notebook. “Any reason?” And there it is, the beginning of questions meant to trip me up. With no one to defer to.
“Yeah, I uh, hadn’t decided yet,” I reply.
Which is a perfectly acceptable decision.
(For everyone but me apparently.) “I want to, I will,” I stress.
Not letting the idea of a last name be the thing that has this house of cards collapse.
“I mean, one third of our names are already the same, what’s another one?
” It (almost) makes me laugh. But nothing can kill a laugh I’m learning like the sound of Agent Dick Ricktor tapping his finger against the first page of what I know is my file.
“You’re living at the address on file?” His voice screeches down my spine, making me uneasy with every word.
“Mhmm.” The sound comes out of my mouth, confirmation. And I think about Hudson, and exactly how much of anything is too much to say.
“It seems I’ve made a mistake, Mrs. Ellis. This is 7B. It seems I’ve knocked on the wrong door.” He closes the folder and crosses his legs, hitting the voice memo on his phone as I watch the sound waves pick up his dramatic breathing. “Good thing you were here,” he emphasizes.
“Well, you see…” I start, but don’t know how to end that sentence. I should have just said that I was here recording, that Hudson was with Grams, I should have said anything but the lie that is going to single-handedly unravel this. And then what, will it have been worth it?
Anything even close to the truth would have been better, but I’m not a good liar.
I can act behind a curtain, faceless I can become someone else, but lying in a situation like this?
I am too much of a people pleaser to be able to come up with a good lie on the spot.
And was too frantic to realize I didn’t need to.
But people do thoughtless things when they are afraid.
And this man in his brown suit and power trip, he terrifies me.
The sounds of the shower coming from the bathroom behind me are louder now and they become a backdrop to his voice calling to me. “Sweetheart, can you grab me a towel?”
“Excuse me,” I toss quickly to the awkward, towering man, who stood as soon as he heard Hudson’s voice, like a sign of respect now that my husband showed up. (Asshole.)
I run to grab a towel from the side closet and I knock on the bathroom door.
A strong, wet hand reaches out and wraps around my wrist, yanking me inside.
He's dressed, which is the first thing I register, and soaked, which is the second, his shirt clinging to the shape of him cruelly by the wet fabric, and his hair is dark with water as his jaw is tense and set.
My eyes follow the trail of his muscles shaping the fabric, and as I get to his pants, they also are clinging to, well, the rest of him, like a second skin.
“Louisa,” he hisses my name in a whisper as water drips down his face. It’s only now I’m struck with the reality of what just happened. Behind him, the most inconvenient, voyeuristic window to ever exist is wide open.
“Did you… oh my god!!” I snap in a whisper-scream of my own. Realization washes over me. “You climbed in the window?!” I’m yelling as loud as I can in the sharpest whisper my body can expel. “YOU COULD HAVE DIED!!” (Okay, now it's a little less of a whisper and I don’t care.)
Dangerous beyond belief from someone I didn't think could be dangerous. (Except for maybe once.)
His wet hands grip my arms and back me into the wall. Pressing his body against mine, our faces so close, dripping with water and fury. The droplets cling to his eyelashes as I stare deep into the amber circles around his irises.
“What was I supposed to do,” he asks as he lowers himself, making himself eye level, so he can speak the question directly in my mouth, even though I don’t think he’s expecting an answer.
“I’m sorry, I panicked, I didn’t know what to do,” I say, and the panic in my voice is definitely still here, trembling.
“Jesus, I’m not mad you texted.” He stands back to his full height. “I’m mad you were in this situation alone, even for a minute. It’s reckless.” He turns and looks in the mirror, running his hands through dark, wet hair, but I tug his arm and force him to face me.