Page 32 of Waiting for Forever
Forever.
That word had been creeping into her consciousness more and more, ever since Lacy and Logan’s gender reveal.
Paige had spent most of her adult life taking things day by day, without much thought to what came after. Which, now that she thought about it, was wildly out of character for her. She was the queen of planning and organizing every single aspect of her career and her house, but she fell way short when it came to her personal life.
She wasn’t sure why she’d never realized that before.
“You’re thinking again,” Hudson said, turning to look at her for the first time.
“I am,” she confessed.
“Good thinking or what-the-fuck-have-I-done thinking?”
She laughed. “Good thinking. Very, very good.”
Hudson twisted toward her, and she mimicked him, the two of them lying on their sides facing each other. He placed his hand on her hip.
“Good,” he said simply. “I would hate for you to regret or?—”
“Never,” she hastily retorted, cutting him off. “I will never regret that, Hudson.”
He smiled, drawing the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Neither will I.”
They stared at each other for several moments, then she giggled. “And while I’ll never regret it, it will take some work for me to truly believe I’m lying naked in bed with Hudson Ryan. Trust me when I say, this was not on my bingo card back in high school.”
He laughed. “Mine either. But I think we’ve already established that I was a stupid asshole back then.”
“Can I ask you something?” Paige wondered if she should start this conversation, but it was something she’d always been curious about.
“You can ask me anything,” he assured her.
“Why did you hate Maris so much when we were in school?” While Paige meant what she said about accepting his apology, about the past being just that—the past—she’d always been curious about what had driven his anger.
“I’ll admit I’ve given that a lot of thought over the years, and I’m not entirely sure there was one big reason why. Granddad said I used to be feral, and that’s not too far from the truth. I grew up with just my dad. My mom took off when I was four and never looked back.”
Paige didn’t know that. In fact, there was a lot she didn’t know about him. Her primary goal in school was to avoid Hudson, so all she’d learned in regards to him was which hallways to avoid between classes. “Were you and your dad close?”
Hudson shrugged. “Yes and no. I think there’s a limit to how close you can truly get to an alcoholic.”
“Was he a mean drunk?”
Hudson shook his head. “No. Not at all. I don’t want you to think my anger was driven by abuse. That wasn’t it. My dad was more…” He paused, and she could see him genuinely considering his words. “He was inattentive, indifferent. The alcohol dulled his senses to the point he couldn’t focus on anything. Not even me. So for most of elementary and middle school, I was left to my own devices. I stayed out as late as I wanted, which wasn’t that late because my friends’ parentswerepaying attention to their kids. So once the last buddy was called in for the night, I headed home.”
“That sounds kind of dangerous.”
“We lived in an alright neighborhood, and I had a lot of friends there. Their mothers all took turns feeding me, and Granddad sent rent money every month—directly to our landlord, because Dad would have drunk it. From my perspective, it was the perfect life because I didn’t have to deal with all the shit my friends did, like parents getting on their case for bad grades or making them eat their vegetables.”
Paige huffed out a laugh. “Your granddad was right. Youwereferal.”
“Yep. And then it all went to shit the end of my seventh-grade year.”
“How?” she asked.
“My dad robbed a convenience store. The clerk was an old woman, and I guess he saw a shot to score some easy money. She rang up his cigarettes, and while the cash register was open, he shoved her down and reached in, grabbed a few hundred dollars. He didn’t even try to hide. Just walked to the nearest bar and started guzzling down his ill-gotten gains. Cops arrested him there.”
“I’d heard he was in prison, but I never knew why.”
Hudson shrugged. “The cops were waiting with one of my friends’ mothers when I got home from school. She offered to look after me until Granddad got there.”
