Page 16 of Waiting for Forever
Hudson hesitated. “Seems like you might want to take advantage of my expertise as a contractor.”
“Not on this job. On this job, you’re my handyman. So we do thingsmyway,” she stressed, aware she was just being contrary. She couldn’t help it. One pleasant conversation with this man was never going to wipe out years of bullying.
For a moment, she thought he was going to reject her offer. Which would make sense. The guy was a contractor and, from the sounds of it, he was a hell of a lot more qualified than she was in this realm.
“As you wish, Princess,” Hudson replied, with a cocky grin that should have annoyed her. And it did, but not for the right reasons. Because this grin had her insides doing a flip-flop that had nothing to do with disdain and everything to do with desire.
Fuck. She was attracted to her high school bully.
This wasn’t good.
Chapter Four
Paige slumped against the wall in the living room, sliding down until she hit her ass. “Are we done yet?”
Hudson stood over her, shaking his head. “I swear to God, whoever wallpapered this room put it up with fucking superglue.”
They’d stripped the wallpaper from several rooms already, and while it was slow, tedious work, it had at least come off fairly easily. The living room was proving to be a challenge. Enough of one that she’d come very close to saying to hell with it and suggesting they just wallpaper over the old. Not that Hudson would go for that. He hated wallpaper as much as she did.
Before they’d started the room, Paige had been hopeful that perhaps there wouldn’t be any wallpaper under the wood paneling covering the lower half of the wall, but no such luck. Every inch of the room had been papered, and Hudson was right, the old adhesive was making it a bitch to strip.
Hudson tilted his head to the left, then to the right, stretching his neck then rubbing it wearily. He was wearing loose-fitting jeans that looked like they were one more wash away from completely disintegrating and a faded black T-shirt that wascovered in little bits of the sticky remains of the wallpaper. Regardless, the man seriously looked like sex on a stick.
Though, it didn’t matter what he wore. Paige had spent the past two weeks sneaking covert glances, wondering how a face she’d literally despised for years now set her insides aflutter.
That face was now more rugged, less boyish, and his hazel eyes twinkled with mirth all the time, which was a welcome change from the hate-filled scowl she used to know. Hudson’s light brown hair was shorter than it had been in school; back then, it was a shaggy, greasy mess, but nowadays he kept it styled and clean and?—
Stop drooling, Paige.
When he bent over to pick a piece of damp wallpaper off his boot, she realized it wasn’t just his face pushing all her hot buttons. She could bounce quarters off Hudson’s ass.
Her toys had been getting a workout the past few nights, and it looked like tonight would be no different.
“Shit gets everywhere,” he grumbled, flicking the sticky strip of old wallpaper to one of the countless little piles around the room.
She’d only started helping a few hours ago. Hudson had been here since early this morning, plugging away in this room, while she put in her eight hours at the restaurant. He had taken down the wood paneling and hauled it to the dump, and he was cussing a blue streak when she’d gotten home, pissed off by the slow wallpaper-stripping progress.
She’d quickly changed into her paint-splattered jeans and an old T-shirt, thinking it would go faster with the two of them tackling it.
Ha-fucking-ha.
“I’ll give you a million dollars to go to the kitchen and grab us a couple of beers,” Paige said, closing her eyes.
Hudson chuckled. “I’ll do it for free.”
She sighed, listening as he walked to the kitchen, grabbed a couple cold Coronas from the refrigerator, and popped the caps. This wasn’t the first time they’d shared a beer at the end of a long workday. In fact, it was starting to become part of their routine.
Despite Hudson also running the crews on two different projects for Ryan Construction, and bidding on every job he could find, he’d somehow found a few hours nearly every single day to help her. She’d tried to tell him she hadn’t meant for him to spend so many hours here, but he was determined to give her a good head start before other jobs began rolling in and he wouldn’t have the time.
She peered over at the archway as Hudson returned with the beer, plopping down next to her on the floor. He handed her one of the bottles and they tapped them together in an unspoken cheers and took long sips.
Paige took in their lack of progress and groaned. So far, they were less than halfway through, and her patience was gone.
“I vote we just strike a match to it and be done. I have home insurance.”
Hudson wiggled his eyebrows. “Don’t tempt me. You know I have some experience with arson, Princess.”
Paige barked out a laugh. Clearly exhaustion was taking over. Since the first day they’d reunited, neither she nor Hudson had referred to his checkered past, or the bullying he’d subjected her to in high school, or how much that nickname annoyed her. She suspected that was on purpose.
