Page 131 of What About Us
“Tristen,” I say on a sharp inhale. She’s literally the last person I would expect to be on the other side of my door on a Sunday afternoon, especially because we haven’t heard shit from her since the night she canceled her trip.
Staring into her bright blue eyes, my stomach drops. She’s still beautiful as ever. Long legs, blond hair, high cheekbones, and perfectly arched eyebrows. Graceful. Elegant. And so damn thin. She smiles, but it doesn’t touch her eyes, which run over me from the top of my head to my feet and back up.
Her features are pinched as she stares down her nose at me. “Is my husband here?”
The words are like a bucket of ice water over my head, and my voice comes out at least an octave too high. “Your husband?” He’smyfucking husband, lady.
“Yes, Finnley. Hudson.” She sighs in exasperation with a dramatic eye roll. “Six two, dark hair, hazel eyes. The father of our daughter?”
What the hell is she doing here and why is she calling Hudson her husband? I scowl and blink at her, my cheeks flaming. “I know who Hudson is, Tristen.”
She scoffs. “Well? Is he here?” she asks with an impatient tilt to her head.
I shake my head. “No, he’s with Paige,” I manage to say.
“Where?” she snaps.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I straighten my spine. I will not let Ballerina Barbie intimidate me. “On an overnight hiking trip with her school.”
“Perfect.” She scoffs. “What kind of school goes on overnight hiking trips? She’s never going to learn anything traipsing all over this state, looking for bugs and wildflowers. She needs discipline and structure, not fairy-tales and farm animals.” She says it mostly to herself, but I’m defensive and can’t help but speak up.
“It’s a field school and it’s called expeditionary learning. She’ll get plenty of structure when they’re in the classroom,” I defend.
Hudson thought long and hard about where to enroll her, and when he’d asked me what I thought, I’d said it was a great idea. If Tristen was any kind of parent, she’d know why Hudson chose the school. But she doesn’t know Paige any more than she knows me, because she’s never tried at either.
She rolls her eyes. “When will he be back?”
I squint at her. “Um, soon?” I don’t know why I pose it as a question, but seeing her here in Timber Forge—looking for the man I’ve fallen forand calling himhers, when he’smine—has my head spinning. “He doesn’t have a signal where they’re camped, but he said they should be back around three.”
Pursing her lips, she checks her expensive diamond-face watch, which probably costs more than my car did brand-new. “I’ll wait.” She pushes past me into the entry.
“Ok, sure,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm and an eye roll she doesn’t see. “Come on in.”
I take in her delicate frame from just inside the door. Her tailored blouse is a light peach and her caramel-colored slacks don’t have a wrinkle on them. Next to her, I feel like a tiny bridge troll, dressed in a pair of Hudson’s sweats rolled at the waist and one of his shirts, the words ‘Timber Haus Pub’ emblazoned across my chest. My hair is in a crooked, messy bun, and I’m even wearing a pair of his socks. I slept in all of this last night, wanting to be as close to him as possible. I realize all at once that I haven’t even brushed my teeth today.
Fuck.
Tristen looks around, taking in the living area. The coffee table sits askew, slightly pushed out of its normal place, with indents visible in the rug. She sits demurely and I hold back a laugh when she occupies the exact spot where Hudson got down on his knees two nights ago and ate my pussy like it was an Olympic sport, before fucking me over the back of the couch until I came two more times.
Holding her taupe and white Birken tote perched on her knees in front of her like she might catch something if she sets it down, she takes in the rest of the room with that same pinched expression. She’d probably be clutching her pearls right now if she were wearing any.
One of Hudson’s hoodies is tossed over the back of the couch and Paige’s flip-flops sit carelessly kicked off by the fireplace. There are throw pillows on the floor and an empty beer bottle and half a mug of cold coffee on thetable. I haven’t done the dishes from last night yet, and if she were to look closely, she’d see I haven’t dusted in weeks.
Crossing the room to pick up the mug and bottle off the table, I take them into the kitchen. When I come back into the room, her eyes follow me.
“I can see my husband has made himself at home,” she snarks, running her eyes over me in his clothes. I don’t miss that she hasn’t once asked about Paige.
Her eyes on me make me feel dirty and small, like Hudson couldn’t possibly be here for any other reason than a place to crash.
“You keep calling him your husband, Tristen, and he’s not.” I say, snatching up his hoodie and draping it over my arm. I make my way to the stairs, eager to have a minute’s break without her eyes on me, but her words stop me.
“Maybe not right now, but he will be again,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.
Turning back to her, I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugs and studies her perfect nude manicure. “It took some soul-searching, but we belong together. I know it.” She levels her gaze on me. “And he knows it, too. We have a daughter. We’re a family.”
“You haven’t been a family since the day you walked out on him and Paige. The three of us are more of a family than you ever were.”
