Page 17 of When We Were Us
“You two done?” Hutch cuts in, glancing between the both of us.
“How’s business?” I direct the question to Hudson and tip back a swallow of beer. I grimace down at it. He really drinks this shit. For fun?
Hudson owns an upscale bar in New York and regularly rubs elbows with all sorts of celebrities and high-class schmucks. I never understood why he’d leave this place for the bullshit of the big city. However, he seems to not only love it there but is thriving. Paige has just been accepted into some prestigious private school for gifted students and starts after Labor Day.
“It’s great. Now that I’ve got a decent bar manager, Chris is pretty much the only reason I’m able to be gone for two months this summer. Paige is losing her mind over being back for this long.”
“That’s amazing, man. It’ll be good to have you home for a bit.”
“What’s new with you? How’re…things?” he asks.
“Good,” I answer with a shrug. “Things are good.”
Hudson nods with a smirk at our brother, and Hutch gives me a look, shaking his head.
“What?” I raise my brows and look back and forth between them.
“We just going to ignore the fact that Wren’s back in town?” Hutch asks.
Fuuuck.
“Got nothing to do with me,” I say, swallowing a great gulp of beer. I immediately regret it.
Hudson leans forward. “Oh, really?”
“None of my business, man.” I take off my hat and replace it. Another swig of piss-poor beer.
“Not what I heard.” Hudson barks out a laugh, slinging his arm across the back of his chair and crossing an ankle over his knee.
“Oh, yeah? And what did you hear, asshole? You haven't been in town twenty-four hours.” I love my brother but he—hell, most of my family—are a bunch of gossips and, like Hutch, I work pretty damn hard to keep to myself.
“Plenty. I talked to Finn.”
“Finn?” I glance at Hudson, my beer arrested halfway to my mouth. “What does Finn know?”
Finnley Jameson and my brother started hanging out during their junior year. He called her his best friend back then, but from where I always stood, she and Wren had been the tight ones. He was just a third wheel. At least, that was until Wren left. Hudson stepped in and they’d been best friends ever since.
“Apparently, you were your most charming self,” Hutch says, a cocky smirk in place.
Shit.
If Finn knew what had happened, it stood to reason the entire damn town knew. Nat, one of our sisters, runs Timber’s Treats, the local café, and because it’s the best place for coffee and pastries in Timber Forge, she usually has the scoop on things way before the rest of us. Finnley just so happens to work for her.
I scrub a hand down my face and shake my head. “I have no reason to be charming. To anyone. Least of all, her.”
“Ok, forget charming. But you thought accusing her of being a gold digger was the call?” Hutch asks as he sits back in his chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him with a deep chuckle.
“Fuck you, bro.” I shoot him a glare.
“See?” He points at me with the two fingers not wrapped around the neck of his beer bottle, before taking a swig around a smirk. “Grumpy motherfucker.”
Hudson’s chest shakes with quiet laughter.
I grunt and sit forward, resting my forearms on my knees. My own beer bottle dangles between my thighs, and I shake my head. “I didn’t call her a gold digger,” I say. “I may have implied it.”
“Dude, that’s the same fucking thing!” Hutch barks out a laugh, shaking his head at me.
“And why the fuck does everyone know about this, anyway? Can’t anyone mind their business in this town?” I say more to myself than to either of them.
