Page 93 of Lucky Laces

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“Come on, beautiful,” he murmurs, extending his hand, helping me up.

“Huddy?”I ask as we walk toward Ernest’s front door.

“Yeah, baby?”he says, wrapping an arm around my waist and drawing me into his side.

“I think you’d better find a way togethungry.”

He laughs and I love the sound so much, I commit it to memory, know that I would do just about anything to hear it again.

Then we’re at the door and pushing through, listening to Ernest yell at us to “get a move on!”

We grin at each other.

“Hurry up, buckaroo,” I order, reaching for the door handle.

“Buckaroo?”He teases, but starts down the hall.

Shaking my head, I start to close the door.

Then stop, my gaze catching on something across the road.

But before I can tease out what has the hairs on the back of my neck prickling, Ernest shouts at me from the kitchen again.

“I’m coming!”I call over my shoulder.

Then look back.

Nothing.

There’s absolutely nothing there.

“Losing it,” I mutter as I close the door.

And I know it’s not just my vision that’s playing tricks.

It’s my heart…and the fact that it may be lost to Hudson forever.

Thirty

Hudson

“How’s it hanging,Sir Limps a Lot?”King shouts down the hall a few days later.

I roll my eyes and sigh.Then turn to the man at my side, the one who’s given me light clearance (this being permission to hit the gym and work my upper body).“Thanks, Doc.”

He’s grinning and shaking his head, but when his eyes lock with mine, they’re serious.“Don’t overdo it.”

I wonder if he considers having Dee sit on my face overdoing it.

But that’s a thought I keep to myself.

Mostly because King is striding down the hall toward us.

“I’ll catch you later,” Doc says, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

I barely have time to thank him before King is on me.“You going to hang out after practice?”he asks, drawing me toward the weight room.

“Don’t you have women to get home to?”I mutter.

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