I fumbled through them, sitting across the table from him while Hudson paced like a tiger outside, trying to stay calm and trying to stay in the moment. After six years in a medium-security prison, staying in the moment was the only way I survived.
“It’s freaking dinner with a friend,” I mumbled, tossing another secondhand and faded black shirt toward my bed.
My closet was enormous. My clothes were less than… well, they were shit. There was no pleasing way to say it.
I paced my spacious new bedroom, complete with a queen-sized bed and a mattress sent straight from heaven. For six years I hadn’t slept through a night without waking. Now?
Holy freaking cow… I was rested in the morning. Amazing what a non-lumpy or bug ridden mattress could do for your energy levels.
Not that any of it was helping me now.
He’d told me to dress casual. That was it. And since I didn’t have his phone number, I had no way to ask him where we were going.
Casual.
Pffft
I grabbed my phone and typed out a text.
Out of curiosity, what does one wear on a non-date dinner thing with a friend who says to Be Casual?
I hit Send before I talked myself out of texting Angie. She wasn’t a friend, but the only person under the age of thirty-five I knew. And oh.
I slapped my forehead. Oh shit. She was on her own date.
Never mind! Abort! You’re on a date. Don’t answer this. No biggie. I swear.
But as I was typing, three more gray dots popped up, disappeared and reappeared.
Is this a “be casual non-date dinner” with Hudson?
Ugh. She needed to let the Hudson thing go.
Sure, he was attractive. Hot, some would say.
Me? I knew better.
He was a do-gooder helping his dad with being an even better do-gooder and I was the recipient. This dinner was like the welcoming committee. Only it was a committee of one. And that one was a man who was fine.
A friend.
Hudson being the friend?
Ugh. Yes. Hudson. Dinner. Nothing to get excited about. Just DINNER. Casual. What do I wear?
Not that orange top thing you wore last week. It was hideous.
Hmmm. Maybe Angie wasn’t great.
It was salmon.
It was F-Ugly. Curl your hair, put on more makeup than you wear at school, pale pink lips he’ll wonder if it’s your real color and anything tight fitting so he spends more time looking at your ass and tits. Jeans. Short sleeves. Grab a cardigan. It’ll be chilly.
Doubt arose. Are you saying I’m ugly so wear something so he doesn’t look at my face?!
Bitch, please. You’re fine. You’re sexy as hell. All the guys stare at your ass before wondering if you’re going to shank them. Wear the tight shit so you can figure out if he’s really only your friend. No male friend will stare at your tits or ass.
Boys on campus stare at my ASS? They’re like, seven years younger than me!
It’s a fine ass. Go. Dinner. Non-friend or friend when the date is done, I need DEETS, girl.
Which reminded me why I didn’t want to text her in the first place.
Aren’t you on a date?
A movie. And he hasn’t made a move. Lame-O. Better get you some so we both don’t go home empty tonight. KWIM?
Oh. I knew what she meant.
I glanced up and froze.
I was in my bathroom, my makeup and hair already done to Angie’s suggestion but that wasn’t what caught my attention.
It was my smile. Wide.
Almost happy.
Because of her.
“Damn,” I whispered and spun so I couldn’t see myself. Tears beckoned but I pushed them back as I headed to my closet.
Hudson would be here in fifteen minutes or fewer and he didn’t need to see me falling apart.
All because someone had been genuinely nice to me.
Me.
The ex-con.
Was it really possible that not only did I have a friend in Hudson… but I had one in Angie, too? A real-life, honest to goodness, girlfriend?
“Don’t let me screw this up,” I muttered as I pulled down a skin-tight, simple gray V-neck T-shirt.
Only I didn’t know if I was talking about my friendship with Angie, or my non-date with my friend, Hudson.
Either way, I was gaining friends. And it terrified the crap out of me.
20
Lilly
Exactly fifteen minutes later, I’d paced a worn path in my new apartment, a rap echoed through my door.
Right on time. I shouldn’t have been surprised he would be. Plus, it’s not like he had far to travel.
I snorted at the thought and on shaking ankles due to nerves and the height of heels I rarely wore but couldn’t pass up when I saw them at Target last week, made my way to the door.
I opened the door with a deep breath and realized my error.
I’d seen Hudson in all manner of dress in the last several weeks. From a full suit at work, to athletic pants and a T-shirt at the diner, to slacks and polo when he was hunched over the church steps, and yet nothing prepared me for the sight in front of me.
Hudson, hair styled and swept to the side, recently shaven based on the quick whiff of cologne or aftershave that sent certain parts of me tingling.
His head dipped down, eyes widening as he took in my skinny jeans and fitted top and bright red heels.
He wore jeans curved around his thighs and fell straight down, tight enough there wasn’t a whole lot left to the imagination.
I yanked my eyes up to his cream sweater, the blue dress collar peeking out above the sweater’s hem and picked my jaw up off the floor.
“Hey,” I said, lamely. Perhaps I should have smacked myself in the face for the stupid comment. Hey?
Hudson grinned. “Hey yourself. You look beautiful.”
A shiver of warmth flickered through my fingertips straight to my stomach. Beautiful? Perhaps years ago. Now I felt worn and old and aged in not such a great way.
If there was a mirror close by I’d check it, try to figure out exactly what he saw in me I didn’t.
“Thank you.” I stepped back so he could enter. “I forgot my sweater and then I’ll be ready.”
“No hurry.”
My sweater was draped over my couch in the living room. The little white lie was necessary for me to have a moment or two to gain my composure. Good grief. I’d practically jumped him in my doorway, and how embarrassing would that have been?
Yet… hadn’t his eyes lingered a little too long on me as well?
Enough. That assumption didn’t need to be watered.
Hurrying to my closet, I flipped through hangers, trying to find something else and came out with a dark red, crocheted sweater. Not as pretty as the one I’d first chosen, but it worked so I didn’t look like a fool.
“Just a friend,” I reminded myself, slipping my arms into the sleeves. “He’s just a friend.”
Pep talk done and nerves calmed, I headed back to the living area where I found Hudson resting against the door to my apartment, casually leaning, one hand in a pocket of his jeans, ankles crossed at the floor.
Looking so much like a model from a teenage department store, my heart flipped a few beats before resettling.
“Ready?”
“Yes. Where are we going?”
“Somewhere close.” He stepped aside and opened my apartment door while I grabbed my keys and purse, now filled with pepper spray.