Page 24 of Waiting for Forever
While Hudson was trying to make amends for his shithead ways nowadays, Ronnie was still a dick. Since they’d arrived an hour earlier, Ronnie had pounded six beers and hit on no less than four women—all of whom wisely shot him down. Unfortunately, each rejection was followed by Ronnie loudly and drunkenly insulting the women, calling them frigid or stuck-up or stupid.
Hudson had tried to get him to lower his voice, and he even apologized for Ronnie. He refused to go down with the asshole’s sinking ship, considering he was just starting to make strides toward redeeming himself.
When he hit his limit on Ronnie, Hudson excused himself to go to the restroom, and now he was hanging out by the bar, claiming a stool that was out of Ronnie’s line of sight, wondering how long he could hide out before the guy realized Hudson wasn’t coming back.
Hudson leaned forward and called the bartender over. “You might want to cut off the guy I came here with,” he suggested, when he noticed his old friend stumbling over to yet another table of women.
The bartender scanned the room until he saw Ronnie and muttered a curse. “That guy is in here every weekend, getting wasted and hitting on women. Never catches a clue that none of them are interested.”
Hudson nodded. “Just an FYI. He drove himself here.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll get Tony, the bouncer, to go confiscate his keys. I’ve got the number to a couple of ride-share drivers who deal well with getting the drunks home. I’ll give one of them a call.”
With Ronnie taken care of, Hudson turned his attention back to Paige. Her date—who really did look like a douchebag,with his brand-spanking-new dark blue jeans and too-tight T-shirt that Hudson assumed was supposed to make the guy look muscular—reminded him of a banty rooster. His hair was long on top and coiffed with an ungodly amount of gel, his facial hair was more peach fuzz than beard, and he’d swaggered into the bar like cock of the walk when they arrived, stopping to fist bump a couple of men he knew.
Now—like the last few times Hudson had looked—the guy was texting on his phone. Paige looked completely bored, leaning back in her chair, watching everyone bumping and grinding on the dance floor.
When the guy finally put his phone down, Paige pointed to the dance floor. For a moment, Hudson thought the two of them were going to dance, but the man’s phone rang at that moment. He glanced at the screen, then raised his pointer finger before heading outside to take the call.
Paige sighed, her shoulders slumped. She looked more annoyed than sad.
It was obvious she wanted to dance…so Hudson stood. If her date wasn’t going to pay attention to her,hewould.
However, before he’d made it two steps away from his seat, Ronnie had made his way to Paige’s table.
Hudson saw red when Ronnie grabbed Paige’s hand, trying to pull her up from her seat.
“I don’t want to dance with you,” she said, struggling to reclaim her hand.
Fortunately, Tony the bouncer had already been on his way.
“Time to go,” Tony said, strong-arming Ronnie toward the exit, as Hudson and Paige watched his former friend cuss a blue streak at the bouncer, claiming he “had rights.” Then he glanced back at him.
“Hudson!”
Hudson didn’t have a clue what Ronnie thought he was going to do for him. Not that it mattered. Tony was way stronger than Ronnie, and he had him out the door before Hudson could reply.
“I’m sorry, Paige,” Hudson said, pissed that the guy he’d shown up with had manhandled her.
Paige rolled her eyes as she looked at him. “It’s not your fault. Ronnie’s been an asshole since high school. You know tha—” She paused.
“I know that because I was the one being an asshole next to him.”
Paige smiled. “It’s funny. Ever since we started working on the house together, I keep forgetting that.”
Those were probably the nicest words she could have said to him. “Good. I wish I could erase those years from your mind completely.”
“You’re off to a great start.”
“Thanks. Although, I might have set myself back a little bit tonight.”
Paige looked at him curiously. “Did you come here with Ronnie?”
Hudson grimaced. “He called a couple hours ago, asked if I wanted to go out for drinks. Guess I was thinking he might have matured.”
Paige snorted. “Never going to happen.”
Hudson had zero interest in talking about Ronnie. “Where’s your date?”
