Page 33 of The Wedding Fake
“Are you?”
I frowned, setting down the sandpaper. “No. I mean, I did once. I met up with a woman from my DM’s, but she was batshit crazy, and with the pandemic the way it was—no.” The temptation had been there. It’d been months since I’d been with a woman, but after that first encounter, the benefits didn’t seem to outweigh the risks.
“Then what’s the problem?”
I wish I knew. I shrugged, picking up the sandpaper once more. “I don’t really know, I can just tell this was a dealbreaker for her. I think she lost respect for me.” The words slipped out of me quietly, the reality of the statement weighing heavy.
“The solution’s easy, if you ask me,” Dad said, and I perked up, one eyebrow raising in question. “Delete that shit and earn this woman’s respect.”
I grunted. Not like I hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t think it’s that easy, Dad. And besides, I considered deleting the account, but I don’t want to scare her off, either.” Lying awake last night, I’d run a hundred different scenarios through my head and had settled on two highly probable worst case scenarios. One, I deleted the account and Claire became spooked because she assumed I was getting way too serious way too fast, or two—the more likely scenario—I deleted the account and Claire assumed I had something to hide. She needed time to peruse the account on her own, if she wanted, and I was going to give her that.
Dad looked up, his expression uncharacteristically disdainful. “I don’t know, Hud. When I was young we didn’t have all this shit to get us in trouble. Thank God,” he muttered. “If your mom had known everything I was up to before she met me, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
The phone buzzed and I looked down at it.
Claire: Did you actually steal my car and you’re never coming back? Because I would understand.
A smile tilted my lips, and I swiped open the conversation.
Hudson: As a matter of fact, I’ve not only stolen it, but I crossed over the Canadian border and I’m making a run for it.
She sent a laughing emoji.
Claire: That’s fair. I have also had that reaction to my mother at times.
“Hudson, no phones at the dinner table,” Mom scolded.
“I borrowed Claire’s car. Let me just fill her in so she doesn’t think I ran off with it,” I said, and although I didn’t look up, the responding tutting from my mother let me know she wasn’t happy, but she’d let me finish.
Hudson: Just sat down to eat with my family, but I’ll head back to your place in an hour or so. Is that okay?
Claire: Of course. Don’t rush on my account.
“Are you going to tell us about this girl?” Sammie asked, her eyebrows bouncing as she grinned.
“Not much to tell,” I replied. “We live in the same building. I got a chance to hang out with her when we got stuck in an elevator together, and she asked me to come with her to a family wedding this week.”
“But you like her,” Sammie said, as if we were ten again and she was considering breaking out in a verse of “Hudson and Claire, Sitting in a Tree.”
“She’s a lot of fun,” I agreed noncommittally.
“Why didn’t you bring her today, then?” Mom asked, and it didn’t surprise me in the least that Mom was eager to meet any woman I might be into. Mom’s greatest wish was to see her children married off, in hopes of one day getting grandkids.
She’d been close with Lawrence, I thought, and the thought pierced my heart, as it always did. “She was busy with wedding things,” I lied easily, knowing it was a lie that couldn’t be undone by what I’d told Dad.
“What’s she look like?” Sammie asked, her brown eyes bright.
“Can’t show you. No phones at the table,” I said with a shrug, using Mom’s long-standing rule to—hopefully—end the conversation.
“Do you have a picture of her?” Mom asked. “Let me see.”
I shot my mother a dry frown. “You’ve been on my back about having phones at the table since I was a kid, and now, when it suits you, the rules change?”
She nodded unselfconsciously. “Absolutely. Hand the picture over. I’m curious.”
Rolling my eyes, I pulled out the phone once more, swiping and tapping my way to the picture of Claire and me from our drive. “It’s not like I keep it hidden. I posted it.”
Sammie’s nose curled. “None of us want to follow your gross thirst trap videos, perv.”