Page 79 of When We Were Us
She barrels up the steps and slams into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. She giggles when I rub my scruff against her cheek and ruffle her hair.
“Your hair isdrippingall over me!” She laughs and dances back, wiping the wetness from her cheek. “Why is your hair all sweaty?”
“It’s not sweat, you weirdo. It's from the shower.” I poke her in the ribs, and she rolls her eyes at me.
“Daddy doesn’t go outside with wet hair.” She crunches up her face and looks at me out of the corner of her eye.
I raise my eyebrows and frown with a tilt of my head. “That’s because your daddy is a pretty boy.”
She cuts a glance at her dad and then looks back at me, appraisingly. “That’s what Daddy calls Uncle Hutch.”
I raise a hand to my mouth and in a loud whisper, I say, “That’s just because your dad is jealous of Uncle Hutch’s hair.”
Hudson brings a hand to his chest in mock pain and smooths the other over his hair. He actually has a head full of thick dark hair, but he also has a bit of a widow’s peak. It's the reason he was chosen to play the lead in Dracula in seventh grade. Also, I just love giving him shit.
Paige pulls out a magnifying glass from her pocket and turns to Hudson with a grin. Lifting it to his hairline, she inspects it closely. He swats her hand away with a laugh. “All right, all right. I get it. Your Uncle Hank is hilarious.”
She dissolves into a fit of giggles, her wide smile revealing a missing right front tooth.
“Go torch some ants,” he says with a tip of his chin, and she throws both hands in the air.
“Yes!!” She takes off down the steps with a whoop and Tuck takes off after her.
“Stay where I can see you though!” he calls after her.
Pulling on my boots, I glance over at him. “What’s with the magnifying glass?”
He pulls a hand down his face with a chuckle. “Pop gave it to her. He was trying to read the other morning and she wouldn’t stop asking him questions. So, he told her to go find bugs. She hasn’t put that thing down since.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Want coffee?” I stand and head inside.
“Sure.” Hudson follows me inside but stands just inside the door so he can still keep an eye on Paige.
“She’s fine out there, man.”
He nods and pulls on the back of his neck before coming to stand next to me at the small kitchenette counter. We make coffee in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds are the birds outside, the soft clink of metal on ceramic, and Paige's laughter a few yards off.
“How’s she doing?” I turn and lean against the counter.
Hudson shrugs as he blows on his coffee and takes a sip. “She’s good. At least now that we’re here.”
Tristen, Paige’s mother, left them a year ago. She and Hudson met in college at NYU. Halfway through his four-year bachelor’s program at Stern, he met Tristen, who was finishing up her third and final year at Tisch.
According to Hudson, she had just come back from a summer abroad in Paris and he was completely obsessed with her. She was so different from anyone he had ever dated—sophisticated, elegant, cultured, and from a wealthy family. That last part never mattered much to Hudson, but coming from a small town like Timber Forge, someone like Tristen was bound to be appealing for a small-town kid. Or, at the very least, fascinating.
After graduation, Tristen started with the New York City Ballet while Hudson finished his degree. They dated on and off for the next seven years, and when Tristen found out she was pregnant, they’d moved in together.
According to Hudson, the pregnancy had been mentally and physically too much for Tristen. She struggled with muscle depletion and stamina, all perfectlynormal for a pregnant woman, but it wasn’t acceptable to Tristen.
Over the next three and a half years, she became more and more immersed in dance until she was rarely home and sometimes traveled six months out of the year. When Paige was two, they finally married. At that point, Hudson had already been working his ass off for two years to get his bar off the ground. He’d spent the previous six or so years managing bars throughout the city and making money for someone else.
According to Hudson, she had never been the most attentive mother when she was around. Since she never once came with when Hudson brought Paige back to visit Timber Forge, she hadn’t been the most attentive partner either. Only Nat, Hayley, and Hutch had met her on a trip to New York one year, and even then, it was only briefly.
So, it hadn’t come as much of a shock to anyone when she’d left for France last year and told Hudson she wasn't coming back.Paige understandably took it hard, and she's been seeing a child psychologist once a week for almost eight months. Tristen had made plans to come back to the states a few months ago for Paige’s fifth birthday, but she was a no-show.
Watching her through the window now, it’s nice to see her being a carefree kid again.
“She looks happy,” I say as we leave the cabin and take our seats back out on the porch. He watches her over the rim of his mug and then glances at me. I can tell there is something he isn’t telling me.
