Eventually he’d come to the conclusion that nothing was his fault, but not until he’d worked his emotions into the ground.
Still, talking with Hudson was helping in ways that he wasn’t expecting. He kind of thought Hudson might just call him a moron for letting a guy like Austin get to him. He wasn’t expecting Hudson to validate how he felt. He wasn’t expecting Hudson to understand.
“How long have you been divorced?” Peyton asked.
Hudson bit his lip and shrugged, glancing away again. It was obvious the topic of his ex made him uncomfortable, but he also wasn’t refusing to answer, and Peyton had no doubt Hudson couldn’t be bullied into revealing anything.
“It’s been a good long while. Long enough that I’m starting to feel like a class-A moron for not being able to move on.”
“Are you still…”
“No,” Hudson said in a rush, his bark of laughter bitter. “Uh, if you were gonna ask me if I’m still in love with him, then the answer is fuck no.”
Peyton smiled gently. “I was going to ask if you’re still talking to him.”
“He knows me better than to assume we’ll ever speak again. I’m a burn the bridge kind and the town on the other side of it kind of guy,” Hudson said. He paused to take a long drink, and he rubbed his right eye so hard it looked painful. “That’s why he got me the fucking bird.”
Right, the bird.
“I have to say, that might be the weirdest divorce gift I’ve ever heard of,” Peyton admitted.
Hudson laughed and shrugged. “Nah. Not when you understand what he meant by it.” When Peyton lifted a brow, Hudson actually blushed and stared down at his hands. “It was to point out that chances were, after he was gone, the only thing I’d have left to talk to was the animal.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Peyton leftHudson’s that night hating his ex with a passion he didn’t think he could feel for a total nameless stranger. The more Peyton talked about the details of his date, the more Hudson shared about his ex, and none of it was pretty.
The guy was a self-centered prick, and although Peyton wasn’t surprised that someone would behave that way after their spouse became disabled because he’d seen it more than once, he was struggling to figure out why someone would leave Hudson. Yes, he was prickly. Yes, he was an asshole.
But he was also kind in ways that most people weren’t. He wasn’t a people-pleaser, which meant every word out of his mouth was genuine. Every drop of attention he paid was because he wanted to. He didn’t invite Peyton over because he felt sorry for him and decided to endure his company for a while.
He had Peyton over because they were something like friends now and he was trying to make him feel better.
Peyton had managed to drag a few niblets of information out of Hudson when the night was over too. Like how his favorite spice was cinnamon, and how he loved maple and peanut butter together, and how he had a love-hate relationship with marshmallow fluff because it was his favorite as a kid and his mom used it to manipulate him.
“She used to buy it for me whenever she wanted me to perform as the perfect son,” Hudson had said a short while before Peyton left. The bird, Pancake, had finally come out and had taken to Peyton, so he was stroking his feathers as the bird groomed his temple. “I want to hate it, you know? But the taste of it reminds me of the only parts of my childhood that actually felt good. Even if that was all a lie.”
“Do you eat it now?” Peyton had asked.
Hudson had given him a look to make it obvious he could tell Peyton was fishing, but he answered anyway. “No. I never buy it for myself anymore.”
“Would you though? Like, say a baker moved in next door and wanted to make something nice for his new friend. Would you eat it then?”
Hudson had rolled his eyes and grimaced, but eventually he gave a grudging shrug and Peyton took that for the yes that it was.
And the next morning, he got to work. He decided on maple and peanut butter cookies with a marshmallow fluff center. They were easy and would hold their shape, and he was partway through mixing the dough when he heard Hudson’s back door slide open.
A small part of him wanted to run out because he felt almost addicted now, but he also didn’t want to impose on Hudson’s morning routine, or his private time, because it was just that: private. The man had shared, but nothing current about his life. He’d mentioned his ex, but not the person he was fucking all hours into the night.
He mentioned his mom but hadn’t said a word about his best friend or his job or what he did for fun.
Peyton wasn’t going to pry, but he was going to use what little wiles he had in order to crack the man open like a stubborn walnut. After all, that’s what he was best at.
Ping!
Glancing over, Peyton realized his phone was ringing with a text, not an order, so he snatched it off the counter and his heart thudded hard in his chest when he saw a name he didn’t expect on the screen.
Austin: I fucked up. I know I did. Can we talk?