Page 30 of Marry Me, Maybe?
I didn’t trust myself either.
Our last heavy rainfall brought a few trees down, leaving half the posts leaning and the barbed wire slack. Not enough to be an emergency, but enough to let a few curious cows go sightseeing if we didn’t fix it.
I eased the truck to a stop beside the leaning post. We sat there a second too long, neither of us moving. Then, without a word, we both climbed out. I slammed the door harder than necessary. Hudson shut it quieter, like always, because I had to come across as the asshole—the aggressor—while he played the victim.
Like he wasn’t the one who’d stabbed me clean through the fucking heart.
Why the fuck can’t I let it go?
I circled to the back of the truck, dropped the tailgate, and grabbed the bucket of tools. Hammers, nails, fresh lengths of wire. All the things we needed. None of the things I wanted.
The heat was already rising, the kind that stuck to your skin and made everything feel like too much. The kind that made a man crack if he wasn’t careful.
We worked in silence. The fence was in rough shape—warped posts, rusted nails, spots where cattle had leaned too hard. I took the north stretch. Hudson moved south.
We didn’t talk.
What was there to say? The tension filled all the cracks, thick as smoke.
“Matt,” Hudson called after a long stretch of quiet.
The name hit like a punch.
To everyone else, I was Matty.
ButMatt? That was him. That was late nights and shared cigarettes. That was the sound of his voice when he used to kiss my throat like he meant it. That was mine. That was ours. That was before he wrecked it all.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
The words exploded out of me on instinct. Sharp. Harsh.
Unforgiving.
Because I could never forgive him.
He stilled, one hand braced on a post, the other clenched around the hammer. His eyes burned into the side of my face, like he was seeing through everything I was trying to hold together.
“Jesus, Matty.” He exhaled hard. “Can we stop this?”
My jaw clenched. I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
“Stop what?” I yanked a length of wire like it had personally betrayed me.
“This.” He took a step toward me. “Whatever the hell this is between us now. The cheap shots. The silence. The aggressiveness. You’re being a dick. This is not like you. This is not who you are.”
I turned slowly, narrowing my eyes. “You think you know me? Four years is a long time.”
“Not long enough when it comes to us.” He stepped even closer. “I know you better than anyone.”
I dropped the damn wire. Let it fall to the dirt like it didn’t matter, because it didn’t. Not compared to the fury knotting itself inside my chest.
“You think you have anyrightto say that after what you did?” I growled, closing the distance between us in two strides.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t back down. “The Matty I know is the man who interacted with my daughter at the bakery. That was real. That wasyou. Not the cold asshole who ignored her this morning. If you must be mad at someone, be mad at me, but my little girl doesn’t deserve your anger. That’s just fucking low of you.”
My vision blurred with rage.
I grabbed the front of his tee and shoved him back a step. “Don’t you dare talk about my character like you have a right to judge. You’re the one who fucked someone else behind my back as soon as I wasn’t around. You’re the one who chose a whole fucking family over me!”
