“Sleep well, sissy Missy. I’ll see you on the other side. I love you.”
“Always.”
Hudson left then, pinching the bridge of his nose with his head down. He’d go cry and shed his emotions where I couldn’t see so he could be brave and strong the next time he saw me. I knew him well.
“I promise,” Dad said. His chin shook and his eyes were so damn sad.
“Thank you.” I sighed with relief, although I already knew he would.
Dad had already started looking into her story. He didn’t share that with me, but one day I went to use his laptop and found articles online. Of Lilly. Of her brother. Her father. The sentencing. He’d been searching for hours.
His gaze searched my face in a way that if I wasn’t already freezing, would send chills down my spine. Almost as if he could see my end coming faster than I could. “And don’t worry about Hudson. He’ll come around. Just give him some more time.”
“I know he will.” Because he was stubborn but full of heart and goodness like the man who raised us. Of that, I had no doubt. I sniffed, then laughed. “She’s also really pretty.”
A quick laugh burst from him, making me smile as he kissed my cheek. “Don’t get your hopes on that one, Melissa.”
My hopes were the only thing I had left. So that night, after Dad left, I prayed extra hard for that, too.
I had nothing to lose.
But Hudson—he had everything to gain. And maybe, just maybe, I could help him, too.
1
Hudson
My head throbbed a low, steady beat as I woke right before memories of last night hit me hard and fast.
I jolted in bed and scanned my room. Outside the crumpled sheets next to me and the indentation in the pillow she’d slept on, all evidence of Lilly being there was gone.
“Shit.” I scrubbed my face and threw off the covers. Last night was incredible. Her body. Her heart. Her trust. She gave me everything she had, and I was the asshole who took it when I’d been drinking enough to know better, drinking enough to think it was a good idea too.
And it’d been incredible.
The way she loved me with her hands and her eyes and her expressions… for a brief moment I felt a single sparkle of hope I could salvage everything we had together once she learned all the shit we’d been hiding.
I’d practically pleaded with Dad last night to tell her today before it went any further.
It would have been bad enough before last night. But today…
Things had changed.
We had to. I had to. Even if it risked ruining the fairy tale holiday images Dad wanted for her. After last night, there was absolutely no way I could continue with Lilly until she knew everything.
I used the restroom in my bathroom quickly, intent on finding her. She couldn’t have gone far. And it wasn’t like she could hide in my condo. There wasn’t anything except the living room—
“Oh fuck,” I rasped. My heart thumped a wild warning bell inside my chest.
She’d showed up out of the blue last night, taken me by such surprise, I hadn’t had time to do anything.
I raced out of the bedroom, the door slamming behind me.
No way was she finding out like this.
I pulled to an immediate stop as soon as I saw her.
Lilly. Face ravaged with pain and confusion, holding the photograph of Melissa and me.
She’d come to one of my last baseball games in college.
Icy guilt and fear twisted and coiled inside me, sending a ferocious chill down my spine as I took in Lilly’s pain-filled features.
“Who is this?” she asked, voice so scratchy like she’d been screaming for hours.
I didn’t need to look at the photo.
I needed her to give me a minute, a minute I absolutely didn’t deserve, and God, I could only imagine what she was thinking.
Especially after last night.
“Lilly,” I said her name, and it was all I could choke out.
There were no reasonable explanations for this. Scum. I was scum. I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel shittier about myself.
“You know her?!” she shrieked.
She might as well have slammed that glass into my face. It would hurt mildly less than seeing her like this.
I stepped toward her, palms out, trying to calm her even though it was futile. Nothing would calm the maelstrom of emotions whipping through the air, sucking us into its vortex right now.
Still. I tried. “Please. Let me explain.”
“Who is this!?” She screamed so loud I flinched. It was a wonder the glass didn’t shatter in her hand.
God. This was not at all… not at all what I wanted to happen. Yet, I’d predicted it.
I saw the end of us before we ever began. Now I was staring down that barrel without any decent way to explain myself.
Not after last night.
This never should have happened. In my darkest nightmares of having to explain to Lilly everything, I’d never anticipated this.
The frame fell from her hand and clattered to the table. It might as well have been a gong, signaling the end of a beginning I never should have allowed to have happen.
This was my fault.
I should have kept my distance.
“Lilly. Please. I know… I get what you’re thinking—”
“You don’t know shit, Hudson.” She spit it out with such venom.
Could she see how much this was killing me?
How much it hurt to know I’d caused the devastation testing her features?
No. She was lost in her own despair and fury, not that I could blame her.
“Or hell, you know everything, don’t you? Who is this girl to you!”
Her scream rattled the walls and sent a freezing ice to my veins. It chilled me straight to the bone, past that to my marrow, aimed for my soul.
“It’s Melissa,” I choked out, although she already knew that. “My sister.”
She stumbled back. Her hands flailed in the air until she barely stopped herself from falling by gripping the edge of the couch.
“Your… sister?” Tears poured from her and her face paled until she was ghost white. “Like sister sister?”
It felt like I was killing her. Pain. remorse. Sorry… I was hurting her and it’d all been because of my choices. I’d never felt like less of a man.
“I know—”
“You have a sister?”
My hands fell from my hips. To my sides, up to my face. I had no idea how to stop the tumultuous emotions or find the words.
“I had a sister,” I rasped. Melissa’s death still slashed through me like a finely sharpened blade.
Lilly sniffed, swiped tears from her cheeks and it killed me. Absolutely killed me to not be able to be the one to comfort her this time. Killed me that I was the one causing them. Was it possible for your heart to shrivel and turn to stone inside your chest right before it splintered to a million tiny pebbles?
“You never told me about her,” she croaked, through tears and brokenness and damage I had caused. “Never. Not once. You let me sit here, cry about my brother.” She made a choking sound and stepped back, hands flying to her face and her eyes widened.
“Please—just… can I explain?”
“You let me… you let me tell you about her! You sat there, in your truck, while I cried over this girl and you said nothing.”