Page 38 of Waiting for Forever
She laughed, then winked, completely unembarrassed. That was perhaps one of the things Hudson liked best about them. They’d fallen into this relationship as if they’d known each other forever, everything easy and comfortable.
After fixing the leak in her upstairs bathroom and replacing the pipes, he and Paige—along with Tyson and Caleb—had spent the better part of Saturday hanging new drywall in here.
“You like the color?” Paige had gone back and forth a hundred times between pale gray or pale blue. Ultimately, blue won, and he thought it was the right choice.
“I love it.”
Paige’s gaze dropped to his hands, noticing the bag he carried for the first time. “What’s that?”
“Dinner,” he replied, as he lifted the bag containing a bucket of chicken. “And…” He pulled his other hand out from behind his back, revealing the bouquet of flowers he’d picked up from the florist on his way home. “These are for you.”
Paige lit up like he’d just given her a million dollars. “Hudson. That’s so sweet.” She rushed over to take them from him, placing them to her nose to smell. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Felt like doing a little celebrating with my girl.”
“How was it?” she asked. “Your first day.”
“It was great. It’s a whole different world when you’re the boss, and I’m not going to lie, I love calling the shots.”
“I could have told you that weeks ago,” Paige replied, wiggling her eyebrows.
They’d established very early in their sexual encounters that Hudson had one hell of a dominant streak when it came to their bedroom games. Mercifully, Paige admitted she was a big fan. He chuckled to himself when he recalled her saying just that, after he’d incorporated a bit of spanking as foreplay one night.
The woman was a completely open book, which Hudson found helpful, to say the least. Given his lack of relationship experience, it was a blessing to be with a woman who had no problem expressing her feelings, her needs, her desires. It was just another way she was absolutely perfect for him.
“Come on,” she said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Let’s get out of these paint fumes. I cleaned off the kitchen table earlier because I was tired of looking at all the crap on it.”
With home repairs came disarray, something that drove Paige crazy. She’d been handling it okay, though he noticed every so often, she had to take a break from the work to organize and declutter. On a positive note, his tool bag had never looked better. He could find everything now, rather than rummaging for ages, digging through the haphazard pile.
Hudson followed her to the kitchen, placing the bag of food on the table, as Paige went to the sink. She found a vase in the cabinet beneath, so after arranging his flowers and washing her hands, she carried the bouquet back to the table, making it their centerpiece.
“I love the colors in that arrangement,” she said, still looking at her flowers.
Hudson began pulling food out of the bag as Paige walked to another cabinet, grabbing plates for them. While he loaded them up with chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and coleslaw, she ventured over to the fridge.
“Beer or wine?” she asked.
“You pick.”
Paige pulled out an open bottle of Chardonnay they’d cracked into last night. “Might as well finish this,” she said, pouring them each a glass.
She lifted hers, tapping it against his. “To being your own boss.”
They both drank, then ate as he asked about her day. She’d had today off, and she had put it to good use, making an impressive amount of progress on her to-do list. As always, she asked him detailed questions about little things she wanted to learn to do on her own, so he talked her through how to do them.
“Oh my God,” she said, as they finished eating. “Why the hell are we talking about this house? Who cares about all that?” she said. “I want to hear aboutyourday. Did you run into my dad?”
He nodded. “I did.”
She gave him an exaggerated wince, meant to make him laugh. “How did that go?”
“Honestly, a lot better than I expected.”
He could tell that response surprised her. “Really?”
“Really. He knows about us, by the way.”
Paige frowned. “But Mom insisted…” She paused as the light went on. “TJ.”
