Page 108 of Pretend for Me

I blow out a resigned raspberry and unlock the door from my phone for him to come in. Not ten seconds later, he’s in my room, bulky arms folded and looking at me lying on my bed like I’m the most pathetic excuse for a human.

“Jesus. You look and smell like a skunk’s asshole.”

I groan, shoving my head into my pillow. “Get out before I call security to take your overgrown sasquatch ass out of here.”

He rolls his eyes. “Get the fuck up. I have a couple slices of pizza for you out there and my helicopter waiting. You’re going to take a fucking shower, eat something, and then we’re heading to my ranch.”

“I hate pizza. And who the fuck eats that shit at nine AM?”

“Who hates pizza?” he asks, screwing up his face. “And who the fuck polishes off a fifty-year-old bottle of whiskey at nine AM?”

I’m sure I protest, tell him to fuck off a couple more times, and insist that I’d mostly polished off the bottle last night. Okay, so I might have used the last bit as mouthwash ten minutes ago. But the bastard digs his feet in like a bad case of syphilis.

Which is why, an hour later, I’m knee-deep in horseshit. No, not figuratively.Literally. Because nothing says friendship like forcing your buddy to clean out horse stalls while he’s nursing a hangover that could rival a heavy metal concert.

“Fuck,” I groan, taking a spot on a patch of wildflowers with my bottle of water. The fucker wouldn’t give me a beer like I asked him to after making me work like a dog for the past three hours.

Since the minute we landed at his ranch, he’s put me to work. From scooping out the stables—I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much horse shit!—to patching up a few fences, I’ve done enough manual labor to last me a decade. I have cuts on my hands, my back is stiff, and I’m sweating out last night’s whiskey through every pore.

The sounds of Hudson’s boots have me turning over my shoulder to see him approaching. He throws back his head to take a long swig of his beer before he settles down next to me.

We’re silent for a few moments, watching his horses graze, before I feel Hudson’s eyes on me. He isn’t the type to make friendship bracelets and polish your nails, but he cares . . . in his own irritable, grumpy asshole way.

“Alright, spit it out. What’s going on with you and Piper? I’m in no mood to drag it out of you like I had to drag your ass here.”

I sigh, thumbing the label around my bottle. “It’s not much more complicated than what I told you guys in the chat. Somewhere in the middle of pretending, I fell for her. And when I told her how I felt, she freaked out. Said she needed space to figure out her feelings.”

“I’m assuming you also told her you wanted to make the marriage real?”

I nod. “I do. I want her to be my wife, and not just temporarily. I love her.”

“And you haven’t tried to contact her since she left?”

I shrug. “I sent her a text a couple of days ago, telling her I love her and that I’d be here for as long as she needs, but no, I’m giving her the space she asked for.”

Hudson nods, peering off into the distance, seeming to mull over my words.

“I met Piper a few years ago when she and her best friends had just started the salon,” he says after a few moments. “She cut my hair, and since I’m a sucker for routine, I never went to anyone else. Not saying I didn’t think about it though, because fuck, the woman can talk. After every haircut, I felt like I’d just gone through a stage-rendition of her entire life story, complete with a couple of musical numbers and a cast of forgettable men named after sausages.”

I snort out a laugh even as something pierces my chest. What if she doesn’t give me another chance to hear her endless babbling?

“But I’ll tell you what,” he says after taking another sip of his beer. “In the times we’ve texted,” he side-eyes me, knowing I’ll act like a possessive asshole at the mention of him talking to her, “she’s never once forgotten your name.”

I grunt, plucking a flower from the grass and throwing it. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, I just mean you were different. You meant something to her from day one.”

Hudson rolls his bottle around in his fingers. “But in the time that I’ve known her, I also found out she’s had a complicated history with her dad. The way he treated her mom and both his kids, the way he walked out on them, and the marks he left on Piper’s impressionable self-worth? It became thelens she used in the future to view love and marriage. Add to the fact that both her best friends have gone through messy divorces . . .”

He shakes his head. “Now, I’m not saying she doesn’t have feelings for you or that she doesn’t believe you love her. What I’m saying is, she doesn’t believe she can hold on to that love. Hell, she probably doesn’t even believe she deserves it! It’s why she’s always chosen these half-brained deli meats who’ve wanted nothing but a few nights in her bed. It’s why she’s always had her rules?—”

“She told you about her rules?”

He rolls his eyes. “Anyone who’s sat in her salon chair a few times knows about her rules. The girl’s an open-book.” He eyes me for a moment. “But I might be one of the only ones besides her closest friends to know that she broke those rules for you.”

I take a wobbly breath, looking back out at the horses.

“And I thought that was interesting,” he says cryptically.

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