49. Chapter 48
Chapter 48
Finnley
I’m on my knees with a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water, working out a stain from where Paige dropped a popsicle on the rug two days ago, when there’s an insistent knock on the door. Sitting back on my heels, I crane my neck to see out the window. A black sedan I don’t recognize backs down the driveway and pulls away, but from this vantage point, I can’t see much else.
I stand, cross to the door, and pull it open as I brush my hair from my eyes with the back of my wrist, scrub brush still in hand.
“Tristen,” I say on a sharp inhale. She’s literally the last person I would expect to be on the other side of my door on a Sunday afternoon, especially because we haven’t heard shit from her since the night she canceled her trip.
Staring into her bright blue eyes, my stomach drops. She’s still beautiful as ever. Long legs, blond hair, high cheekbones, and perfectly arched eyebrows. Graceful. Elegant. And so damn thin. She smiles, but it doesn’t touch her eyes, which run over me from the top of my head to my feet and back up .
Her features are pinched as she stares down her nose at me. “Is my husband here?”
The words are like a bucket of ice water over my head, and my voice comes out at least an octave too high. “Your husband?” He’s my fucking husband, lady.
“Yes, Finnley. Hudson.” She sighs in exasperation with a dramatic eye roll. “Six two, dark hair, hazel eyes. The father of our daughter?”
What the hell is she doing here and why is she calling Hudson her husband? I scowl and blink at her, my cheeks flaming. “I know who Hudson is, Tristen.”
She scoffs. “Well? Is he here?” she asks with an impatient tilt to her head.
I shake my head. “No, he’s with Paige,” I manage to say.
“Where?” she snaps.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I straighten my spine. I will not let Ballerina Barbie intimidate me. “On an overnight hiking trip with her school.”
“Perfect.” She scoffs. “What kind of school goes on overnight hiking trips? She’s never going to learn anything traipsing all over this state, looking for bugs and wildflowers. She needs discipline and structure, not fairy-tales and farm animals.” She says it mostly to herself, but I’m defensive and can’t help but speak up.
“It’s a field school and it’s called expeditionary learning. She’ll get plenty of structure when they’re in the classroom,” I defend.
Hudson thought long and hard about where to enroll her, and when he’d asked me what I thought, I’d said it was a great idea. If Tristen was any kind of parent, she’d know why Hudson chose the school. But she doesn’t know Paige any more than she knows me, because she’s never tried at either.
She rolls her eyes. “When will he be back?”
I squint at her. “Um, soon?” I don’t know why I pose it as a question, but seeing her here in Timber Forge—looking for the man I’ve fallen for and calling him hers , when he’s mine —has my head spinning. “He doesn’t have a signal where they’re camped, but he said they should be back around three.”
Pursing her lips, she checks her expensive diamond-face watch, which probably costs more than my car did brand-new. “I’ll wait.” She pushes past me into the entry.
“Ok, sure,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm and an eye roll she doesn’t see. “Come on in.”
I take in her delicate frame from just inside the door. Her tailored blouse is a light peach and her caramel-colored slacks don’t have a wrinkle on them. Next to her, I feel like a tiny bridge troll, dressed in a pair of Hudson’s sweats rolled at the waist and one of his shirts, the words ‘Timber Haus Pub’ emblazoned across my chest. My hair is in a crooked, messy bun, and I’m even wearing a pair of his socks. I slept in all of this last night, wanting to be as close to him as possible. I realize all at once that I haven’t even brushed my teeth today.
Fuck.
Tristen looks around, taking in the living area. The coffee table sits askew, slightly pushed out of its normal place, with indents visible in the rug. She sits demurely and I hold back a laugh when she occupies the exact spot where Hudson got down on his knees two nights ago and ate my pussy like it was an Olympic sport, before fucking me over the back of the couch until I came two more times.
Holding her taupe and white Birken tote perched on her knees in front of her like she might catch something if she sets it down, she takes in the rest of the room with that same pinched expression. She’d probably be clutching her pearls right now if she were wearing any.
One of Hudson’s hoodies is tossed over the back of the couch and Paige’s flip-flops sit carelessly kicked off by the fireplace. There are throw pillows on the floor and an empty beer bottle and half a mug of cold coffee on the table. I haven’t done the dishes from last night yet, and if she were to look closely, she’d see I haven’t dusted in weeks.
Crossing the room to pick up the mug and bottle off the table, I take them into the kitchen. When I come back into the room, her eyes follow me.
“I can see my husband has made himself at home,” she snarks, running her eyes over me in his clothes. I don’t miss that she hasn’t once asked about Paige.
Her eyes on me make me feel dirty and small, like Hudson couldn’t possibly be here for any other reason than a place to crash.
“You keep calling him your husband, Tristen, and he’s not.” I say, snatching up his hoodie and draping it over my arm. I make my way to the stairs, eager to have a minute’s break without her eyes on me, but her words stop me.
“Maybe not right now, but he will be again,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.
Turning back to her, I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugs and studies her perfect nude manicure. “It took some soul-searching, but we belong together. I know it.” She levels her gaze on me. “And he knows it, too. We have a daughter. We’re a family.”
“You haven’t been a family since the day you walked out on him and Paige. The three of us are more of a family than you ever were.”
Her eyes narrow, but she responds with an eye roll. “You’re the only one delusional enough to think he’s actually interested in anything other than sleeping with you.”
Her words punch me in the chest and my words fly out before I can stop them. “He told you about us?” No. Hudson wouldn’t do that. Would he? In the heat of the moment, maybe? No. I don’t want to believe that. Especially since we kept it from almost his entire family .
Her posture is stiff from her position on the couch. “Come on, Finnley. This is Hudson we’re talking about.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I bite out.
“Mutual friends talk, Finnley. Hudson has always been incapable of being alone. He’s undoubtedly been fucking his way through women since I left, trying to fill some void. What makes you think you’re anything special?”
My stomach lurches when I think back to our conversation about his other friends with benefits girls. He mentioned two. And then, there’s me. But those women are his past. I am his future. We’re married, for Christ’s sake. But Tristen doesn’t know that.
Anger burns in my stomach and tears prick my eyes, and I have to slide my gaze away as she goes on.
“Hudson’s always liked having a project. It makes him feel useful. That’s why he expanded the bar, and why he helped you with your little business .” She spits the word like it’s something dirty, something beneath her. “I think it comes from constantly disappointing those self-righteous parents of his. Boosts his ego to look out for people less fortunate than him. Just like when he paid for your mother’s cremation.”
My heart takes off at a gallop in my chest, and I suddenly feel like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. When my mama died, I was so distraught, I couldn’t function. I couldn’t eat, didn’t want to shower, or brush my teeth. It was days before I could scrape up the desire to even get out of her bed, and even then, it was Hudson coming home that finally got me back up.
I couldn’t handle talking to the mortuary or the insurance company; it was all too much. I’d been running on fumes for months when she finally died, and I was buried under a pile of medical debt. There hadn’t been any money for a burial, but then, Hudson said he found a small life insurance policy I didn’t know existed. He’d handled everything, and it had been just enough to cremate her with something like $500 left over. I used the rest to pay the gas bill that was three months behind. Was that all a lie? Did Hudson really pay for it and keep it from me?
His words from that day come floating back to me. It’s been over a decade, and I remember them like it was yesterday.
I’ll always come. Whatever you need, I’ve got you.
No. This is Hudson. He wouldn’t lie about that. And I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt until I hear something different from him.
“He didn’t pay for my mama’s cremation. Her life insurance did,” I say, but I loathe that my voice sounds so uncertain.
She huffs out a humorless laugh. “You really are clueless, aren’t you?”
I mash my molars together, imagining bashing in her uppity fucking face. “Fuck you, Tristen.”
“Aw,” she says in mock sympathy. “That’s so cute. You actually thought he wanted you? In a way, I guess he does. You’ve always been his little charity case.”
Twisting Hudson’s hoodie in my hands, I clench the material in my fists and will myself not to blink, praying a tear doesn’t spill over my bottom lash line.
“You know, I almost felt sorry for you when she died. But now that I know you’re screwing my husband, I can admit, I actually had a good laugh when yours left you.” She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. “Tell me, Finnley, did Jeffery finally realize he’d never have a real life with you when he found out you’ve secretly been in love with Hudson for years? Is that why he fucked someone else?”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t bother denying it. Anyone with two eyes can see that you’ve always wanted him. And why not? He certainly seems to keep you comfortable.” She straightens her shoulders, eyes roaming over me. “For now.”
“You’re such a bitch,” I seethe .
"Poor, Jameson, ” she mocks, using Hudson’s nickname for me with a sneer. “No parents and no husband. And now, I’m going to take your best friend, too. Family is important to my husband, and whether you like it or not, Hudson, Paige, and I were a family. We will be again.”
I stare at her. Heat rises up my chest and a lump forms in my throat. My pulse roars in my ears and a hysterical sound rips from my chest—half sob, half laugh. “That’s going to be pretty fucking hard to do, considering he’s already my husband.”
I relish the shocked expression on her face and bask in the horrible way her mouth gapes open like a sickly, skeletal fish. “ Your husband?”
“Yes, Tristen. Hudson and I are married. While you were off doing fuck all to maintain a relationship with your kid, I’ve been here, taking care of both of them. Warming your ex -husband’s bed and loving and caring for his daughter.”
“Daddy?” Paige’s voice sounds from behind me and my stomach bottoms out.