There it is.
“You’re way too dismissive of our help. If things are a mess,” she continued, the implication clearly being that I’d caused another mess that my parents thought me incapable of cleaning up on my own, “then you’ll need us.”
Which, to be fair, was how I’d always thought of myself. A mistake made up of mistakes. That was why I worked so hard atBuzzCorp, why I had such a hard time letting go. I didn’twantto fail. Didn’twantto feel like I couldn’t do anything right except math and science experiments.
But…maybe that was changing. Maybe I was proving to myself that I wasn’t as broken as I’d always believed.
“That was…so thoughtful. Thank you so much for looking out for me. I’m fine, though. I’m working through it. Hudson’s been a great help.” I looked up at him, surprised at how true the words were. But then, so they didn’t think that I was suddenly cured by his magical dick, I added, “And so have my friends at work. Everyone’s been so supportive.”
Mom cast a cursory glance at Hudson. “Hm. You’ll do dinner with us tonight, yes? Mazziano’s? The usual time?”
“Yes.”
We always had dinner at Mazziano’s when they were in town. I hated the place, but I was always outvoted. Or I would have been if they’d let me vote.
What was different, however, was the guest list.
“Both of you,” she added firmly.
No. No, no, no.There was no way I was forcing him to endure dinner with my parents. “I can go, for sure, but I don’t know if Hudson—”
“I’d love to go,” he interjected. Then, with an ease and speed I’d only seen in the best hotel managers, he pulled off a feat I’d never been able to accomplish: He got them the hell out of my house without them getting angry. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You two take care now. Don’t have too much fun sightseeing. I’m sure you both have so much you want to do while you’re here. Wouldn’t want you to miss a second. Mm-hmm! Good to see you. Can’t wait for dinner. Yep, see you then!”
My parents disappeared on the other side of my closed front door. It was a miracle, the silence that followed. No raised voices, no condescending tones, noare you going to talk to us that ways.Just Hudson, blinking across the room at me, the most worn-out I’d ever seen him.
“They’re…” His eyes turned to calculators, running scenarios about what would hurt me the least. “A lot, aren’t they?”
Understatement of the century. But I was more preoccupied with him. He’d gotten my parents off my back. “So are you,boyfriend.”
“Sorry. I just thought it sounded better than friends with sexual benefits.”
Long strides brought him across the room. He tipped his forehead down against mine. I held him tight. “You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “You didn’t have to agree to dinner just because she demanded it. Or because you thought it would make me feel better.”
“I know you think I’m just some weak-willed guy who will do whatever a pretty girl says,” he teased, dancing around my harsher assessment that he faked it for everyone, not just me. “But that’s not true. Sometimes it’s about you and wanting to do things for you, specifically.”
“Just seems like a lot of work,” I muttered. “For a fuckbuddy.”
His shoulders shifted, arms tensing around me slightly. “Fuckbuddy or not, just so we’re clear, it’s not a burden to care about you.”
I dug my face into his shoulder. “You’d be the first personeverto think so.”
26
Eating Out
“So, you saw tech’s massive postpandemic layoffs and decided that the best use of your talent was to sell off your company?”
Don’t look at me like that. Itriedto get Hudson to back out of dinner. I told him he’d regret the decision to waste an entire evening with my parents.
He didn’t listen.
Which was as touching as it was phenomenally stupid. And though I tried to take hisI want to be there for youspeech at face value, it was also concerning, given his propensity toward sidelining his own emotions and needs for other people.
“To be transparent with you, Mrs. Porter, the sale of my company put me in a position where work isn’t necessary for me. It’s why I am a contractor. It gives me more control over what I do and what I make.”
Mazziano’s was an old-school Italian restaurant deep in a downtown Dallas basement. The decor was somewhere betweenGoodfellasand an old-school Pizza Hut, with red-glass chandeliers, plastic-leather booths, and wineglasses that were always still slightly stained by the last user’s lipstick. A jukebox in thecorner played a rotation of Frank Sinatra’s six worst songs on a constant loop, giving the entire place an annoyingIt’s a Small World–style soundtrack.
I alsoonlycame here with my parents, dolled up for their inspection and their judgment, which meant that it could have been the greatest restaurant in the world, with Italian food that even the pope would love. But to me, it would always be cursed.
