Too mad to do anything but ignore the tears glimmering in her eyes, he went on the defensive. “So now it’s my turn to take lessons from the woman who lives her life according to to-do lists she wrote as a fifteen-year-old?”
She gasped, her hand flying to her throat. “That’s not fair.”
“Matches, life isn’t fair.” If it were, they wouldn’t be screaming at each other. “Get used to it. If I lie to the people I love, it’s only because it makes everyone happier, makes their lives a little easier.”
And that was exactly why he did it. He wasn’t hiding anything, unless it was for their peace of mind. And as to being a fixer? Well, big fucking deal. He liked to help people. She could sue him.
“Sounds like rationalizing to me,” she shot back, crossing her arms so that her tits rose higher under the sorry excuse of a shirt she was wearing.
Why was he even noticing that? He sure as hell shouldn’t. What he needed to do was get the fuck out of here. His feet didn’t move.
“I don’t give two shits about what the way I live my life sounds like to a woman who spends her life in a lab surrounded by ants.”
She flipped him off. “At least I know who I am and I’m honest about it.”
“Oh really?” He laughed. It was a rough, mean sound that perfectly complimented the acidic anger flowing through his veins. She couldn’t be right about him. She wasn’t. “That’s what you think?”
“It’s the truth.”
And she probably really thought it was. He may have been delusional when he fell for her, but she was just lying to herself. And if this was all imploding right before his eyes, he might as well go all in and watch the world burn down around him. He took in a deep breath, watching her whole body practically spark with fury as she stood in front of him, five-feet-nothing of ticked-off woman. Good. That’s what he needed. She said he never took what he wanted? She was wrong. Because right now he needed her to despise him. It was the only way he could walk out that door. The only way he could stand seeing her beside Tyler at another Harbor City event. Or God forbid, at her wedding. So he ignored the voices telling him to shut the fuck up already and did what he had to do.
“I don’t know whether to laugh at you, or pat you on the head and go my way, Matches, because the truth is that you don’t have a fucking clue about anything, especially not what a real man and not a fifteen-year-old’s fantasy of a man wants. Hell, you didn’t even know what you wanted until I showed you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So now you’re mansplaining my own wants and needs to me?”
“Someone has to.” He reached out and glided his thumb across her full bottom lip. It was the wrong thing to do, but he couldn’t stop himself. He needed to touch her. Righteous indignation still flared in her eyes, but her mouth softened just a bit. He could kiss her right now. It was the only fucking thing he wanted to do. But he couldn’t. That wasn’t what she needed—and to give her what she wanted he had to let loose with the napalm. “If you could’ve figured it out on your own then you wouldn’t have fucked—repeatedly—the first guy who offered to help you learn what exactly it is that you need between your legs.”
Her eyes went wide, and she inhaled a sharp breath. Her hand struck out, connecting with his cheek before he saw it coming. It hurt like a motherfucker, and he was glad it did.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, and don’t come back,” she ordered, her voice shaking with emotion. “Ever.”
“Gladly.” He thought he couldn’t feel worse. He was wrong. There were people whose parachutes hadn’t opened that had experienced less pain than was breaking him from the inside out right now. But he turned his back on her, and his feet finally started to move toward the door. “You’ll have to text me and let me know what Tyler thinks of that little moan you make when you come. Maybe you can give him a blowjob while you’re on the ottoman. It’s a good move. I taught you well.”
“Just go,” her voice broke.
Hudson yanked open the door and walked out, stopping halfway through, unable to keep moving without one last look at her. But it was too late. By the time he’d turned, she was already gone. Her bedroom door that had been open before was now closed. It was for the best. How else could it have ever ended for a man like him but with misery? He closed the door and headed for the only place in the world wher
e he could escape.
Chapter Twenty
Felicia had texted in sick again. Two days in a row. This was a first. Part of her—a very tiny part—felt bad about it, the rest of her felt worse. Still in the same PJs she’d been wearing for the past seventy-two hours, she laid back in her bed and clicked start on the next episode of The Great British Bakeoff. She didn’t even like to cook, but the show was soothing right up until someone’s Baked Alaska melted. That was about as much drama as she could take today. Her still unfinished draft of her journal article was open on her laptop, but she just couldn’t force herself to do more than write a sentence and then promptly delete it so she gave in to the inevitable and clicked her laptop shut. British bakers, that was what she needed, not ants that reminded her of that first walk through the ant lab with Hudson.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. The Mouths group text notification lit up. Her brothers and sisters were chatting not one day after she’d confessed all—okay, almost all because no one needed to know about the blowjob on the ottoman—to Fallon. This couldn’t be good. She picked up her phone.
Frank: I’m gonna kill him.
Fallon: We can use the hospital morgue to hide the body. No one will look there.
Ford: As an officer of the law, I am not endorsing any of this.
Faith: God, you’ve been an insufferable prick since you made detective.
Fiona: It’s the asshole who broke your baby sister’s heart we’re talking about here, little brother.
Finian: Or did you turn in your balls in exchange for your badge? I hear that happens with cops. That’s why real men become firefighters.
Frankie: High five!