Chapter 22

Hudson

My phone rang justbefore I started the engine. I checked the display, saw it was Karen, and quickly sent it to voicemail. She'd sent me a couple of text updates about scheduling problems with the Turner company CFO—all of them suggesting I should travel to Washington—but I still couldn't leave during the busy season.

I ignored the guilt prickling at me and turned to Fisher, who sat on the nearest end of the bench seating. "All set?"

"Yes, hurry!" He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. "We've got places to be and things to do."

My heart did a little nervous skip. It didn't matter how many times I took Fisher to bed, it always felt exciting and new. Like his first times were mine, too.

"Aye, aye, captain," I teased before starting the boat and easing out of dock. It was a five-minute cruise to the Swallow Cove Marina.

When we arrived, I gave Fisher the key to my office, and he hopped out to go fetch his bag while I secured the cruiser in its slip. We'd take my personal bowrider to my houseboat.

My phone rang again, the fourth call in five minutes. Damn it. Karen wasn't going to stop, was she? Better to take the call while Fisher was occupied than let her continue to interrupt us.

"Karen, hey—"

"What took you so long to answer? Jesus, Hudson. I shouldn't have to try this hard."

"Sorry, I was working."

"Of course you were."

I winced, knowing that the W word was a sensitive topic with my ex-wife. I swallowed the urge to apologize again—it wouldn't help—and instead asked, "What do you need?"

"Really?" She sounded incredulous. "I need the same thing I needed three weeks ago, Hudson. You've got to come back to Washington and deal with this."

Fisher exited my office, his duffel over one shoulder. He flashed me a smile before turning to relock the door.

"Karen, I can't. You know that. Send me something for a digital signature—"

"I can't! I've told you already that this is legal documentation that has to be signed in front of the CFO. We both need to be in the same room, Hud!"

Fisher jogged over to me, and my desperation to get off the phone intensified. "I'm sorry, but—"

"You're always so fucking sorry," she snapped, "but you never give me what I need. You're selfish, Hudson, and you always have been."

I swallowed hard, eyes on the beautiful young guy I was currently being selfish with. "I know."

"This can't wait. Book a flight."

"But—"

"I'm done arguing about it. You need to get out here next week. No more excuses."

She hung up, but it hardly mattered. I could tell that Fisher had overheard at least some of that.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "I could hear her shouting."

"Just my ex. It's fine." I tucked my phone into my pocket.

"It's not fine." Fisher sounded incredulous.

He was right. I'd told him things got ugly with my ex, but he shouldn't have to see it.

"I'm sorry," I said hoarsely.

His brows drew together. "You don't need to apologize."

"I hate for you to see how ugly my marriage got. This is why me and relationships don't mix. I just fuck everything up."

"Are you kidding me?" He sounded almost angry. "A lot of people have shitty relationships with their ex. You don't have to apologize for it. And it sure as hell doesn't mean you can never have a good relationship. Maybe she wasn't the right person for you."

"It's not that simple. I've had other failed relationships, too. I'm just…I'm a bad partner."

"I don't believe that."

His faith in me was like warm sunlight on a cloudy day. I was tempted to bask in it. But that wouldn't be fair to Fisher. He deserved to know the truth of who I was.

"It's true, Fish. I could have tried to be more understanding when Karen called just now. I brushed off her messages, and I wouldn't even have answered if she hadn't kept calling."

"And she talks to you so nicely," he said sarcastically. "I can't imagine why you'd dodge her calls."

"She's just stressed. She needed something from me and I didn't help her out."

"That doesn't give her the right to yell at you."

I shook my head. Fisher couldn't possibly understand what years of built-up resentment did to a relationship. Hopefully he would never understand that.

"Still, I could have met her in the middle."

"Did she offer to compromise with you?"

"No," I said hesitantly. Karen had looked into ways to get my signature remotely. She'd never offered to make the trip here, though.

"Exactly," Fisher said. "You don't have to be her punching bag, you know? You're not with her anymore. You're with me."

My stomach turned over. "It's not like that with us. It's not the same."

I couldn't bear for it to be the same because that would mean it could end the same way. And turning Fisher bitter and angry was my nightmare.

"Really?" Fisher challenged. "What about tonight?"

"What do you mean?"

"We played boyfriends all night on that boat, and it never felt fake. Not even a little."

I shook my head. "You just saw what relationships with me come to. I can't…" I swallowed hard. "I won't do that to you."

"I'm not her."

"It's not just her, it's—"

"I'm not any of your exes. Maybe those relationships failed for a reason, Hudson, I don't know. Maybe you were in the wrong place in your life, or maybe your personalities weren't compatible, or maybe it was meant to happen so that you could be with me."

My chest constricted. All this time, I'd thought we were on the same page. That Fisher was with me for great sex. We were friends who cared about each other, of course, but he was too young to settle down with someone.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," I rasped, throat tight with emotion. "You deserve a better man than me. I can't risk dragging you down to the same ugly end."

Fisher

How had everything gone so wrong?

One minute I was grabbing my duffel and slipping into the office bathroom to insert the Size Queen butt plug in anticipation of an amazing night with Hudson, and the next…all my secret hopes and dreams were crumbling before my eyes.

"I guess we were both lying to ourselves, huh?"

"Fish…"

I turned away, not wanting him to see how stupid I'd been. Or how fucking uncomfortable this huge-ass plug was now that my arousal had died a fast death.

I'd convinced myself that eventually Hudson would see how great we were together. I'd been willing to risk my heart if that never happened, but I didn't think my day of reckoning would arrive so soon.

Or while stuffed with a sex toy, for fuck's sake.

I couldn't keep pretending, though. Not after tonight. Not when I'd felt how right it was to be tucked under Hudson's arm, not in secret, but out in the open. When I'd felt the weight of his gaze across the boat, seen the little smile full of promise, and known that it was just for me.

"I knew you might never fall in love with me, and that was okay." I kept my eyes on the horizon, knowing I'd never get this out if I looked at him. "But this is so much worse. You're no better than my father."

"Wh-what?" he asked, taken aback.

"You do care about me, but you don't trust me to make my own decisions."

"That's not it."

I turned my gaze on him, frustration fueling me now. "Isn't it? You talk about what I deserve, how you can't risk dragging me into some terrible relationship. But what about what I want? I'm not a child. I deserve to be seen as an equal."

"I don't think of you as a child."

"But you aren't giving me an equal say in what happens with us either."

"I'm sorry. I just don't want to hurt you the way I've hurt everyone else. You're too important to me."

Hope tried to flutter to the surface, but I pushed it down. Now was not the time to fool myself with false optimism. Hudson had some sort of guilt complex that didn't allow him to see his previous relationships clearly. He assumed the burden of blame, and he couldn't see that he was already giving me everything I wanted from a relationship.

Everything but the label, that is.

He always took such good care of me when I was at his place. He gave me his full attention, was considerate, and sweet. He comforted me when I fought with my dad and celebrated with me when I got the consulting job. He didn't mind when I had to change our plans to accommodate my family, school, or job obligations.

Hudson was a fucking great partner.

And right now, I really wanted to fly to Washington State myself so I could look up that woman and give her a piece of my mind.

Right after taking out this fucking monster butt plug, that is.

But that wouldn't change the fact that Hudson didn't see it the same way—and he didn't trust me to make my own choices about whether he was worth it. Until he did, there really wasn't much else to say.

"I think I should go. We could both use some time to think…"

Hudson looked pained. At least there was that. He did care about me. "I'm—"

"No more apologies," I cut in. "You told me from the start that you didn't date. That's on me, okay? What really upsets me is that I know you want more. I can feel that you do."

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Cleared his throat, but in the end said nothing. Which was kind of an answer in itself. I nodded.

"Okay then, if you decide to let me make my own decisions, give me a call."

I turned and started walking. I liked to imagine it as a storming off, but with a big-ass butt plug in, it was more of a shuffle.

"Are you okay?" Hudson asked from behind me.

I waved a hand. "I'm fine! Great! Don't worry about me! I'm gone."

"Fisher…"

The purr of a boat coming into dock caught my attention. It was Sawyer, returning from his own Booze Cruise run. I veered toward his boat, knowing that walking all the way home in this condition wouldn't be fun.

"Thank god." I clambered into the boat before it'd even stopped. "Get me out of here."

Sawyer glanced at Hudson, and he nodded. His eyes were on me, his face set in a worried frown. But it wasn't his right to worry if he wasn't going to let me be a permanent part of his life.

I tapped Sawyer's shoulder. "Go!"

Sawyer eased back out of the dock and I retreated toward the back of the boat. "Don't turn around."

I eased my shorts down, bent over to brace one hand on the back of the seat, and started working the plug out.

"What?" Sawyer called. "Fi—oh, Jesus!"

"Don't look!" I shouted.

"Not looking," Sawyer called in a strained voice. He'd clearly copped an eyeful, but that was the least of my worries. I worked the butt plug out of me and hurled it to the side, where it landed in the lake with a splash.

I pulled up my shorts and threw myself into the seat with relief. Thank fuck that was done with. Of course, now that my physical discomfort was dealt with, my emotional pain rushed right back to the surface and my eyes burned.

Had I just made a huge mistake, walking away? Should I have kept playing along until Hudson decided for himself that we should be more? Maybe he never would have. But we'd have had more time. Maybe we could have kept pretending forever.

Sawyer cut the throttle. "Is it safe now?"

"Yeah."

He turned in his seat to eye me. "How fucking big was the thing in your ass? I thought you jumped overboard."

I flipped him off. "You weren't supposed to look."

He grimaced. "So, what happened? Why are you throwing…that overboard instead of using it with Hudson? And, dude, did you really need to throw it in?"

"It's not the weirdest thing in the lake," I muttered.

"Not the point."

"I'll volunteer some extra hours on lake cleanup," I promised, a little ashamed now. I'd thrown it out of reflex, because I couldn't stand the idea of looking at it, but we owed the ecosystem better treatment. The tourists did a number on the lake without us locals adding to it.

"Okay, good," Sawyer said. "How about you explain the rest now?"

I tried to summon the words, I really did. But they wouldn't come. The look on my face must have said it all.

"Shit." Sawyer abandoned the wheel to come sit next to me. He'd taken us to a quiet spot and the boat was drifting gently. "Fisher, I'm sorry."

"I thought…"

"I know," he said, putting his arms around me and letting me bury my face in his chest. "Me too. I was sure he was head over heels for you."

"It's worse than that," I mumbled into his T-shirt.

Sawyer pulled back. "What do you mean?"

"I think he… No, I know he loves me." It felt weird to say it, when I'd never heard it from Hudson. But it was there in his every interaction with me, wasn't it? I had been hopeful, but not delusional. "He's just so convinced that he can't be what I need that he won't give me what I need."

"Damn," Sawyer muttered. "Maybe he just needs time to get his head out of his ass?"

"Maybe."

That had been my hope when I confronted him. But the more time that elapsed, the more I wondered…had I just gambled my heart and lost?