“Just great,” she says with a laugh. “Oh, this is my husband, Craig.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say with a smile, then gesture to Trey. “This is Trey, my b—”
“Best friend,” he blurts, causing me to frown.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” he says quickly, picking up his beer to take a sip.
“Oh, well, hello,” Terry says with a kind smile. “It was nice seeing you, Hudson. Enjoy your meal. Maybe I’ll get back to the office one of these days and I’ll see you around.”
“Night,” I say, biting back the embarrassment over what just happened.
We agreed we wouldn’t hide… yet, that’s exactly what he did.
I can’t even look at him, so I focus on my beer, watching the little bubbles crawl up the side of the glass and reach the top.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t—I panicked, and I just wasn’t ready—”
“Ready to admit you’re with me?” I ask, glancing up at him.
“It’s not like that,” he says. “This is just new for me.”
“It’s new for me too, Trey, but we said we wouldn’t hide. We agreed. You said it too.”
“I know that, but… I just panicked, okay? I’m sorry.”
My mind is blank. I have nothing to say to him. All I want to say is what I already said. Repeating it won’t make him get it through his head, so I say nothing. The food comes and we eat in awkward silence, though I’m hardly hungry anymore.
When we’re back at his house, I help him bring everything into his house, setting it all on the island in the kitchen.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
“You’re not staying?” he asks, disappointment on his face.
I shake my head. “No, I need to go home tonight. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Hudson, I’m sorry,” he says, taking a step forward.
“I know you are, Trey, but… I just need to think about this.”
“About us?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I leave, the need to get home and take a shower and get into bed, too difficult to ignore. I feel him staring at me as I leave, and swear he’s in the window watching me too. I don’t stop though. I need to breathe and think about what the hell just happened.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Trey
I stare at my phone on the coffee table, where it’s been sitting since I got home because I can’t seem to pick myself up off this couch. I take a swig of my beer—my second one, since I grabbed two knowing I wouldn’t want to get up again, and maybe out of habit, too, because it’s been how Hudson and I have spent almost every night since I got here.
On my couch, with a beer, watching movies or reading books.
After Hudson left, I told myself it was fine, he was upset and he should be, and I needed to respect his space. Realistically, Iknowthat, and if he were anyone else, I probably wouldn’t care as much. If he were a woman, I would know what to do, how to handle an argument. I would have no problemsending flowers or some extravagant gift basket to apologize, or compartmentalizing and moving on and doing whatever it is I need to do, because I’d be sure the problem wasn’tme, but…
Hudson’s not a woman.
He’s not anyone else.
