Page 34 of Her Goal
He tilts his head sharply to the side but not in question, more like there’s something I should know. “Because I was uninvited. My brother told me not to come.”
“But my mom always said you could join our barbecues, birthdays …”
“It was a standing un-invitation.”
“I don’t understand.”
Using those long arms of his with big pecs and corded muscles below the elbow, he holds the door open for me, making it so I have to get close to him again to pass through.
“I can operate the door on my own, thank you.”
“Would you rather I slam it in your face?”
My tone is all snark when I say, “I’m saying you don’t have to hold it open.”
“I’m being a polite human, and am well aware you’re capable of opening a door. When I hold a door open for you or anyone else, my intention isn’t to undermine you, but to put you before myself.”
I feel strangely breathless all of a sudden. Hudson is intense but not angry. Like he really means it … wants me to understand.
Alrighty then. I brush past him, welcoming the fresh night air on my face.
As if picking up on the previous thread of our conversation and family gatherings, he mutters, “Maybe you didn’t know Hunter as well as you thought you did.”
This gives me pause, but I keep up with him as the very last of the evening summer warmth relents to the chill of autumn. Nebraska is in that place of overlap and unlike my Colombian-born mother, who loves the heat, I’m ready to say good riddance to the summer and welcome fall.
“When is the party?” Hudson asks.
“You really don’t have to.”
Pausing in front of a truck with knobby tires that looks like it was built for off-roading, he says, “Maybe I want to see what I was missing all these years.”
“Bedlam. You were missing mayhem.”
He shuffles his foot on the ground. “Bedlam and mayhem always smelled so good, though.”
I stifle a laugh and rearrange the hard expression reserved for encounters with this man. “I find it hard to believe that Hunter would’ve told you to stay away.”
Hudson’s dark brown eyes lift to mine. I glimpse sadness before little wrinkles form as he smiles. “Since my brother can’t make it to celebrate your parents, I should represent the Roboveitcheks.”
“It almost sounds like you want to go.”
“Your mom makes great cookies. Pulverizers?”
It cannot be helped. I burst into laughter. “Do you meanpolvorosas?”
His shrug is slightly bashful. “The ones dusted with powdered sugar on top.”
“Yeah, they’re butter sugar.” I’m surprised he remembers.
“You’d always bring a platter of them to our house at Christmas. Hunter never ate them, which meant more for me.”
By the peek I got of his abs earlier, it doesn’t look like he indulges much, but I thought Hunter always gobbled them up. Walking back in my memory, he’d put them on the counter, but I never saw him eat them.Huh.
Hudson leans against the truck. “Let’s see. Your mom was a seamstress and your dad played guitar, right?”
“Are you preparing for a quiz?”
“Will there be one?”
