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.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hudson
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 a 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 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 just like that, I’m losing myself in her. I’m lost in that kiss and it’s 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.