Page 59 of Marry Me, Maybe?
Strangers.
The word hit me like a slap. It shouldn’t have mattered. Hell, it was true. But this was the life I’d wanted. The man I’d wanted to tie down. The child I’d hoped we would have together, but now we were three strangers.
Damn, knowing it was the truth didn’t sting any less.
“I got her this.” I offered him the slice of cake to cash out as well.
“Thanks, but Ivy doesn’t eat cake.”
“Really? She ate the sample and liked it. Didn’t you, Ivy?”
Ivy nodded. “Cake yummy, Daddee.”
“You got her to eat cake?” Hudson’s eyebrows shot up, and he huffed out something between a laugh and a sigh as he retrieved his wallet. The four-year-old wallet I’d given to him. “Remind me to bring you home with me so you can get her to eat her vegetables too.”
He said it so easily, as if it were nothing. As if we werestill us. As if he hadn’t married someone else, had a whole damn family.
And yet… he still had the same wallet. Still looked at me like I was the only thing in the room worth staring at. Still touched me like he knew my body better than his own.
None of it made sense.
It was before I realized what we’d become.
Like that made it better. Like it didn’t still gut me.
Was he telling the truth? Back then, he’d resisted me at first before we kissed and fooled around some. Our affair that summer had been hot and heavy and fast. And I always knew since the first time we met that he would be my something big. It gutted knowing he hadn’t felt the same.
It just took me a little longer than you to get there, and by then, it was too late.
A loud beep snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Sorry,” the cashier said, not looking up. “I ran it again like you said, but it’s still declined.”
I looked over to Hudson’s face pale. He was still holding the card she’d given back to him. His jaw tensed. Shoulders pulled tight. His eyes met mine, and I caught the panic in them.
This was the moment I should have felt glee that he was worse off than I had thought, but as I looked over the groceries in the bag and saw they were mostly Ivy’s, I only had a sick feeling in my gut.
“Do you have another card I can try?” the cashier asked.
“No, sorry. Just the one.”
A flush crept up his neck, and he shoved the card back into his wallet like it had personally offended him.
“I’ll get it,” I said quickly, shifting Ivy to my other hip and taking my wallet out.
Hudson stepped back like I’d slapped him. “No. I-I’ve got it. I just—I’ll transfer from my savings or?—”
I tapped the card on the machine, and the screen flashedtransaction approved.
“Relax. It’s groceries, not a prized bull.”
I tried to keep it light. But inside? It pinched like hell. I hadn’t really seen how close to the edge he might be living. Not until now. The way he’d gone quiet. The way his hand tightened on that battered old wallet, like he was trying to keep it from falling apart along with everything else.
“I’ll pay you back,” he muttered, not looking at me.
“Sure,” I said, just as quietly. Pretending it didn’t sting.
He grabbed the bags, shoulders stiff as he hefted them, then led the way toward the automatic doors. I kept Ivy in my arms, her little body resting easily against mine, one hand still clutching the edge of the napkin from the cake sample like it was a treasure.
