"Right, yeah no, you said that. But the thing is, Mr. Banks, I don't actually see anything about you anywhere."
The Times or not, I have no idea what this guy is going on about. I step up to the mic ready to cut him off; "Excuse me, Marc, but I think we should move on to oth-"
"I've looked you up, Mr. Banks; public record and all that and I don't see anything."
Hudson's face is white and drawn tight, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly with his breath; "I'm not sure what you're implying-"
"Sir, I'm implying that there's simply no record of you being in the U.S. Military."
Hudson's face goes dark, his lips thin, and the hushed murmur has barely begun to spread through the crowd before he turns and abruptly leaves the stage. Donald is smiling his showman smile as he steps to the mic and says something about no further questions, but I'm already rushing off after Hudson. He's gone by the time I get backstage, and my heart sinks as his phone goes right to voicemail when I try calling his cell. Whatever happened back there hit him somewhere deep, and somewhere where his armor doesn't protect him, and all I want to do is tell him I don't care and that whatever it is I'm here for him.
Of course, I have to find him first, in order to tell him that though, wherever it is he's gone to hide that he thinks is safe.
I freeze, and just like that, I know exactly where he is as I run out the backdoor and hail a cab.
P A S T
"Shit, man." Logan shakes his head and looks at the floor; "I'm sorry, brother; I'm real sorry to hear that."
I'm not, though even I get that it would be weird to say that out loud.
"How-" He coughs uncomfortably; "Shit, sorry man, that that's none of my-"
"Booze." I shrug and look up at him with a wry grin; "Apparently what they say about apples and distances from trees is pretty spot on, huh?"
"You're not your father, Hudson." Bryce says quietly.
My father was mean, fall-down drunk who I stopped talking to the day after my high school graduation when I enlisted. The only reason I even know about the neighbors finding him is because of a Google alert I set up for my old hometown newspaper's online obituary report. I know Bryce is right; I'm not my father, but it's still this grim fucking reminder about mortality. Besides, the man I actually think of as any sort of actual Dad-figure in my life was the Old Man, and I've already grieved for that father.
For a weird, brief moment, I think about calling Reagan, even though I know that door is shut. I want to call her and tell her, and just talk to her about her Dad and Dads in general. I want to hear her voice, even just once more, but I know calling would be a useless venture.
"Do you wanna call someone? A sponsor maybe?"
I know Logan is being serious, but I laugh out loud anyways; "No, man. I'm good."
P R E S E N T
I'm sitting in my living room, in the dark, staring at a bottle when the front desk buzzes up that she's in the lobby, and I'm ashamed to say I almost pretend I'm not home before I finally grumble a confirmation into the phone.
I don't turn when I hear her come in, not even when I hear her footsteps pause as she walks into the room. I just stare at the bottle of scotch sitting like some sort of monolith in front of me on the carved wood table.
"Are you ok?"
Her voice finally breaks the spell the amber liquid holds over me, and I turn to her, seeing the worry etched across her face; "That was nothing, back there, it was just-" I trail off and force a smile at her instead. I'm not comfortable feeling this exposed to her, knowing that the emotions and the baggage I usually cram down somewhere deep inside are threatening to rip me apart while she's right in front of me, and the thought of that is almost more than I can stomach.
"Look, this is nothing," I nod at the bottle; "I'm not going to actually open it or anything, I just- I don't know, I just like to look at it sometimes. I guess it helps in some weird way when I can stare it in the face and know I'm not going to let it get to me." I shrug as I look at her standing there in the doorway of the dark room, silhouetted by the low light from the kitchen behind her.
"I know you aren't." She steps hesitantly into the room; "Hudson, I don't care what that asshole was talking about, and you don't have tell me anything. I just want to know that you're OK."
Jesus, how did I find this girl?
"I'm- I'm fine." But then I look into her eyes and it breaks me, breaks the bullshit; "Well, no, I'm not actually." I close my eyes as she moves into the room, and when I feel her weight on the couch next to me and feel her wrap her arms around me, I just sink into her. "Reagan, there's a lot about me-" I pull back to look her in the eyes, and she's looking at me so innocently, and with such an intensity that I can't even tell her. How can I ruin that smile and the light in those eyes with the literal hell I've seen; with what I've done.
I kiss her instead, and I'm just like that, I'm losing myself in her. I'm lost in that kiss and i'ts better than any escape I've ever found in any bottle I've ever seen the bottom of. She's pulling us both back onto the couch and I'm collapsing into her, tearing at her stiff formal clothes. I'm pulling off the vestiges that make her the prim, poised public Reagan to get to the sexy, animalistic primal Reagan that I know that lives deeper; the Reagan that comes out when we're both naked and my mouth is on her pussy. She gasps as I slide my lips over her sex and push my tongue inside her, and she's rocking against my face as her hands grip my hair and my name falls from her lips. Her hands are on my hips, pulling me onto the couch alongside her, and I groan into her wetness as she takes me in her mouth. Her lips are like heaven, her tongue dancing across me, and there's something so sensual, so visceral about this that I almost don't want to break away.
But I have to have her; I need her in that moment. She's my new vice, my everything.
She pulls me into her as she lays back in the plush sofa, her legs wrapping around my waist to keep me inside as she rocks against me almost as hard as I push into her. We're panting, kissing, grasping at each other like we'll fly away if we don't as we move together like one wave in an ocean, like a tempest. We're both lost in the everything until the world shatters around us, as we both come screaming to the neon skyline.
Her head is lying against my chest afterword, her fingers tracing an inked line across my skin.
"Before, that time at my Dad's-"
"Ray-"
"No, no, it's not like that. You already explained all that, and I'm not mad that you didn't take advantage of the situation, Hudson; believe me. I just want to know-"
"Why I walked away, you mean?" The words are ones I'd never have imagined telling her before, though for some reason they come easy now.
"Because I knew you were hurting; I was too." I take a deep breath; "Reagan there's so much he never told you, about everything."
I can hear her sniff against my chest; "I know," She says quietly.
"I had so much shit, so much pain inside. You- you don't know, and you can't know the things I've seen, Reagan," I whisper out; "The things I've done-"
Her lips kissing my chest stop me; "You don't have to tell me."
Right, but being near me might be bad enough for you I want to scream. I've come a long way from the broken man I was when her father found me, but I'm still toxic, and I know that. I still have the demons clawing at my back, the lust for vices I'll have to deny myself for the rest of my life, and the recklessness of a man who's already seen death. How can there be a place for a girl like her in all of that shit? She's so good, and just so damn perfect and unbroken and undimmed by the darkness of the world that I can't bare the thought of even telling her that darkness exists. She's the light, and I can't let my darkness swallow that up.
"I want to, you know," I say, running my hands through her hair and closing my eyes as she softly kisses my chest again; "I just- I just can't; not yet."
"I'm here, you know, when you can."
I smile into her hair, wondering for the millionth time how all this is possible; "I know."
P A S T
I know as soon as I step off the stage that I've fucked up, even before my new campaign manager stomps over to me with that mean look on his face.
"Oooo-kay, so, that was-' He shakes his head, sighing heavily at me like I'm some sort of disobedient child; "That was not good, Reagan."
I'm feeling flustered, and out of my element, and mad at myself for not going up there and being strong; "I know, I'm sorry, Donald."
"I give you a script for a reason, you know; stick to it."