Hudson shrugs. “Part of the job.” His eyes travel over my body as his hand taps away on the fabric edge of my cubicle wall.
There’s at least a good two feet of distance between us, but I catch a quick sniff of the cologne he put on this morning. I smile, a little lost in the memories of watching him shave at my bathroom sink. The last person I watched hunched over a sink as they looked at themselves in the mirror while using a razor was one of my brothers, and that usually ended up with somebody bleeding.
“Why are you acting weird?” he asks still checking me out like my crime is written on my face. Probably making sure I haven’t sprouted a third arm.
I shake my head, relieving myself of the visions and put a hand on my hip. “Why are you here?” I remember being agitated because he knows where my desk is located in a sea of similar looking desks. That’s not right.
Hudson stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “We were on the phone and you thanked me for getting flowers. You’re distressed.”
Oh right, the flowers. “It was nothing. My mom sent them.”
“Your mom sent you two dozen roses?” he says sounding as though he doesn’t trust a bit of my story and is mentally calculating the cost of the flowers sitting on my workstation.
“Yeah, they felt bad for missing Christmas.”
“Roses?”
I tap my finger against my head trying my best to come up with something. I’ve found in stressful times when a lie is needed, it’s best to channel a little Marissa. You can always rely on her to come up with something cutting. “You got a problem with roses?”
“No, I just didn’t realize that was a thing?”
“Well, it is.”
“In your family you send flowers? Got it.” Hudson rests his index and middle finger to his forehead in a mock salute but the only person he’s mocking is me. “Did she send a card?”
The image of the card sitting on top of a stack of pens in the middle of my desk drawer flashes in my vision. “Nope.”
Hudson leans closer, most of his body over the side of my cubicle wall. “Then how do you know they were from her.” God, he smells good.
Dammit, Amanda.
“She emailed. I read it while we were on the phone.”
“She went to the trouble to send you two dozen roses but didn’t put a note in the card and emailed instead?”
“Mom likes email.” I cross my hands as a way to protect myself. I’m losing control of the situation quickly. Hell, let’s be honest, I never had control of the situation. “Why are you asking so many questions?”
“I’m trying to learn more about you.”
“It sounds like more than trying to get to know me. It sounds like you don’t trust me.”
One of Hudson’s eyebrows goes up at least a millimeter and a half. “Do I have a reason not to trust you?”
“No,” I manage to get the lie out, but I lose my confidence in the end.
If I were smart, I would tell Hudson. But I’m in too deep and now I’m not sure what I’d say. Oh, by the way I lied to the police, and my friends, and even you who came here from Maine. I’m also probably not in any actual danger because I lied about knowing one of the people too.
Yeah.
That will go over well.
Aspen will forgive me eventually, but everybody else, I’m not sure. And at this point, it’s not me I need to worry about. Coming clean would expose somebody else, and until I have more facts on what’s going on, it’s not a decision I can make on my own. At least not right now.
“Lunch then?” Hudson asks.
“Huh?”
“Do you want to go to lunch? That’s what it’s called right?” Hudson asks, his eyes still flirting between me and the large bouquet on my desk. I’m sure he knows I’m lying, but he doesn’t understand why and I need it to stay that way for as long as possible.
