Tears filled her eyes and she squeezed her eyes closed. I hadn’t meant to make her cry. I was one breath away from shoving out of my chair to wrap my arms around her when she opened them and gave me a watery smile.
“Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary. It’s the truth.” I speared another piece of chicken from my pho. “Now. Tell me about work today. How’d everything go?”
It took a minute. Maybe two. Then she smiled, and this time it wasn’t watery at all.
It also wasn’t broken or harsh. It didn’t seem fake or forced. It was beautiful, like the rest of her, heightened more so only because she spent the rest of the dinner gushing about her day, sounding more excited over a job at an office than any child who received presents from Santa. Which made sense, because her excitement was probably the greatest gift I’d ever been given.
My engine was running, keeping me warm. After we ate dinner, I dropped Lilly off at the church where I waited for her to skip up the cement stairs. Once she gave me one last glance before disappearing inside, I pulled away from the sidewalk, drove around the block, and parked again in the same spot where I stayed and waited for her.
Sure, she could take the bus. But it was either go home and watch television and play games on my phone or, do the same things in the truck while making sure she got home okay.
Easy choice for me.
An hour later, when people started coming out of the church, I plugged my phone into the charger and ditched my last round of Animal Farm.
She stepped out a few moments later, the scarf she’d removed at dinner draped around her throat and a fuzzy black coat buttoned up and hugged to her chest. She glanced at the piece of paper in her hand and looked toward the bus stop before she did a double-take and saw my truck.
Shaking her head, I caught the exasperated smile she wore like some women wore diamonds and hurried down the steps straight toward me.
I returned her smile. It was a toss-up whether she’d be annoyed or happy to see me waiting for her. And I was damn glad it was the latter.
I unrolled the window as she got closer and leaned over my console. “Need a lift?”
“I’m not even surprised you’re still here,” she said, grinning up at me with an adorable smile, still shaking her head.
I shrugged. So she was learning just how overprotective I really was. I counted it as a win she climbed right up and buckled without trying to argue about taking the bus.
“Everything go okay?” I pulled out into the street and cringed.
What a stupid question. How did you ask about AA meetings? I had no clue the first thing that went on in them. Did she have to speak? Tell her story?
She rubbed her hands down the thighs of her jeans and set her head against the headrest turning to me. “They take a lot out of me. Some of the people who come, they’ve had it bad, and I just… I feel their pain in a way.” She rolled her head toward the front and sighed. “It’s been a really great day, but a long one. I’m exhausted.”
“Then I’ll get you home.” With a hundred questions on the tip of my tongue and the guts to ask none of them.
28
Lilly
I wanted Hudson to know.
I wanted him to know everything about me. When we were together, I no longer felt like a charity project. I felt like a woman who was desired. A woman worthy of being cared for.
I fisted my hands in my coat pocket, thought of the meeting tonight I was forced to attend even though I’d never had an alcohol problem. Hell, when I was in high school I never had more than three drinks. I enjoyed being tipsy and silly with my friends, but thanks to my brother and my mom, I’d spent years living with the repercussions of overindulgence and addiction.
That didn’t mean I didn’t learn things in my parole-required meetings. Tonight, they spoke about honesty. Being truthful with yourself when you recognized you had a problem. Being truthful when you knew you were struggling, at risk of relapsing. No one wanted to appear weak, and I’d spent six years behind walls where weakness could literally get you killed.
It took strength to be honest with your demons, with the evil thoughts in your mind that told you you weren’t good enough, that told me I’d killed my brother… one of the last things my father had ever said to me.
I stopped outside my door, keys still tucked in my purse. Inhaling a heavy breath that chilled my lungs, the words fell out of me in a rushed exhale. “I wasn’t driving the car the night Josh died. He was.”
A ball lodged in my throat and I finally found the strength to face Hudson, to have him see my truth, the one I’d hidden for so long. The one that ate away at me in my dreams and in nightmares.
He knew I was in prison. I didn’t know how much he knew of the details, but by the flash in his eyes, he was either surprised I was talking about it at all or by learning that small fact.
I didn’t know what to expect from him, but my body heated as he lifted his hand and cupped my cheek. Tilting his head to the side, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I did. I nodded, already feeling the burn of tears. The rush of relief in finally speaking my truth. I really wanted him to know the person he’d been so kind to. “Yeah. I would like to.”
I sniffed away the tears forming.
His hand slid to the back of my neck and tilted my head up so I had to look at him direct in the eyes. “You can tell me anything. Always. Or nothing at all.”
And somehow, I knew that. I could trust this man. I could trust him with everything.
I curled my hand around his wrist. “I want you to know.”
“Then I’ll listen.” He bent down, kissed me briefly, softly, but powerfully enough my body warmed. “Get your keys.”
I unlocked the door and once we were inside, relocked it behind us. Dropping my purse to the kitchen counter, I unbuttoned my coat and tossed it over my purse.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Funny.” I laughed, awkward and stilted. “I can’t remember the last time I had a drink, but I could really use one right now.” Too bad I couldn’t.
Hudson took a seat on the couch, back to the corner, one arm on the armrest and the other flung over the back of the couch. He bent one leg up, one foot planted flat to the floor. He looked sprawled out and relaxed, but the tension in his eyes belied his manner.
“Come here, Lilly.”
If he was trying to make me feel relaxed, it wasn’t working. There would be no relaxing for me. Not through this.
I went to him and once I was close, he reached out, pulled me to him so I was curled in his arm, pressed against his side, ensconced in his heat and safety of his strength. And that boulder of guilt I’d become so accustomed to carrying in my gut shrank. I could give all my truths to him and I knew, at the end, he would still hold me like he was doing now.
And while that sent a flutter of hope through me, it didn’t make telling the story easier.
I focused on the thread of his dark blue jeans he’d thrown on after work and the small, frayed area on his muscled thigh.
Clearing my throat, words escaped me. Everything had been so convoluted and dark and twisted for so long, finding the beginning was difficult.