Chapter 41
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
HUDSON
I ’m not sure when my mind went numb, but I wish the rest of my body would follow its lead. There’s this deep ache in my chest like my heart is eating itself, and I’m not sure if it’s Wilde-related or because of my brothers, but at least if it’s cannibalized, it will stop fucking hurting.
Yesterday, it felt as though my life had found a track again. That constant anxiety of being lost was missing, and for once, when I looked forward, it wasn’t an exhausting fight ahead.
Now, I’m slumped on my couch, phone frozen in my hand with Sutton’s name taunting me from the screen. There is only so much I can take. I’m not a strong guy, and after everything that happened with Wilde, I’m not so sure I want to be.
It would be so easy to unblock Sutton. To call him and tell him I’m home so he can come over here and make me forget this deep ache for a while.
I’d have to deal with his snide comments and pointing out that my plans failed like he said they would, but it would be worth it. I need to not feel for a minute .
The one flicker of hope I have left acknowledges that even with this shitstorm I’ve stumbled into, I have no desire to visit Mom.
No interest in weaseling away a few pills or hunting down something stronger.
I’m struggling to remember why it felt so big and important before I left, and the only explanation I can come back with was that it felt easy.
An easy escape.
But now, the only escape I want is overgrown trails and green trees and the deep sweat that fills my pores after a day of hard work. The pelt of an afternoon storm. A rocky shoreline against my naked back.
I sigh and drop my phone, rubbing the dusty feeling from my eyes.
There’s nothing left for me back there. What I thought was starting with Wilde was all in my head, and any hopes I had for making things right with my brothers were misplaced.
We’re too dysfunctional. Too messed up by our pasts to move on to something better.
Did I really call Kenny a loser ? Am I five?
God, the way that memory prickles at my eyes almost has me lose it again. I thought I was the stable one, but turns out I’m the problem.
Maybe Kennedy and Hartwell will have a better time up there without me, and at least if I’m back running our business, then I’m still contributing. In my own small way.
My apartment is exactly the way I left it. Kennedy and Hart’s lease was up before we moved, but we agreed to keep paying for this place to have somewhere to stay when we came home.
Home.
I’ve lived here for years, but even as I look around at the hardwood floors, semi-modern kitchen, newish furniture, and every goddamn light in this place shining pointlessly against the morning sun, I don’t feel the connection that I should .
I want dirt under my nails, the smell of pine trees clogging my nose, a hot sun, and dust coating my skin.
I was right about Wilde’s End. Once we’re finished rebuilding the town, people will be eager to buy into it.
Maybe Kenny and Hart can even come up with an agreement with Wilde.
Fence off the land they’re using and allocate the rest toward our plans.
I think that’s what they call a compromise, and it could have worked so well for us.
When I’m ready to apologize to Kennedy, I’ll have to mention it to him.
For now, I’m too embarrassed, too drained, too goddamn beaten to deal with anyone.
I’ll give myself today to mope, then tomorrow, I’ll get back to work.
It won’t take long for this place to become familiar again, and once I’m working to the point of exhaustion, it won’t take long to forget Wilde’s End either.
Unfortunately, I think forgetting Wilde will take a bit longer.
Sutton can help with that .
I glance back over at my phone. A day of endless, degrading sex would work, but … the hurt in my chest intensifies. Apparently, this feeling has linked up with sex for the first time ever in my life, and a rebound fling feels exhausting.
Not only that, but it feels wrong .
I wish I’d never gone to Wilde’s End.
A sudden knock at my front door makes me freeze.
Does Sutton have the place bugged? It can’t be my brothers since I sort of abandoned them in the middle of nowhere, and they also have a key. Mom’s never visited, which means it has to be him, and even after deliberating over my phone all morning, the thought of seeing him makes me feel sick.
The knock is louder this time. Confident and more insistent. When I don’t immediately get up, it comes again, and then again, cluing me in to the fact that whoever it is doesn’t plan to give up .
Do I have enough luck in me for it to be an address mix-up?
I showered as soon as I got home last night because the water helped me pretend like I wasn’t crying, so at least I don’t smell like a dead animal, even if I feel it. As soon as I brush off whoever it is, I might as well go and face-plant on my bed and hope like hell I can sneak a nap in.
“Yes?” I snap as I tug open the front door, but whatever I’d been planning next dies in my throat.
Because the last person I’m expecting to see is Wilde.
He looks so strangely out of place in the clean, white hallway.
And he looks ready to kill.
Rage simmers from every coiled muscle, and somehow, through his gnashed teeth, he squeezes the words “Where the fuck is he?”
I’m still trying to process that his large form is filling my doorway, let alone the words he’s saying.
“If Sutton touched you?—”
“Wait, what ?”
“I said?—”
“I heard you, but why the hell do you think …” My brain kicks in. “You talked to Kennedy.”
He swallows hard, but I refuse to watch his throat move. “Yes.”
Did Kennedy go to him? Is that why he’s here? Question after question pops up in my mind as I meet the anger burning in his eyes.
“Sutton’s not here,” I finally say. “I only said that to piss off my brother.”
Second by second, Wilde’s tension eases, until all that’s left is him gripping the doorframe and the ache in my chest burrowing deeper.
The memory of kissing him has burned itself to my memories, and I can’t believe that for a brief moment, I was able to touch him in all the ways I wanted, simply because I wanted, and now the thought of reaching for him is impossible.
The shock of him showing up here is the only thing that’s keeping the pain at a manageable level, and no matter how much I try to ignore it, my feelings keep poking at me until I bruise.
He’s here, and I don’t know why he’s here, but I’m desperate to take it as a good sign. Because when it comes to Wilde, I’m not content to take the scraps I’ve accepted from everyone else.
So I steal the question he’s always asking me and hope like hell he’s braver than either of us has been in the past.
“Why are you here?”
His voice breaks with an emotion that echoes mine. “You know why, Hudson.”