Chapter Three
The days were still sunny with blue skies, but an early October chill had already rolled up Sixteenth Street along with a biting breeze that sliced through Felicia’s light jacket as soon as she walked out the museum’s side door a few minutes after she’d told Hudson good-bye. Using her taxi app had been a good call and—bonus!—it was already waiting for her. Hustling across the sidewalk before the light changed and the massive stream of people hurrying home from work grew even thicker, she straightened her spine and popped out her elbows a little and tried to make herself seem as big as possible. She felt a little ridiculous, but when you were five feet and one-half inch on a tall day, you had to do what you could to avoid being trampled in the Harbor City crush.
She fought her way through the dense crowd across the wide sidewalk and reached for the door handle of her ride. Before she could wrap her fingers around it, though, a large hand with a few specks of blue paint on it beat her to it. Her jaw tightened. Oh no. No one was snagging her ride home. Ready for battle, she turned and looked up…right into the face of Hudson Carlyle.
He shot her a cocky grin. “What a coincidence.”
That’s what the kids were calling it these days, huh? “Stalk much?”
“Not at all. I was chatting with your boss Eddie and happened to spot the same cab as you. No reason we can’t share, is there?” He opened the door.
“It’s unlikely we’re going the same way.” It was expensive to live anywhere in Harbor City, but the people in his tax bracket lived uptown, not on the East Side where her one-bedroom apartment was.
“There you go assuming again before your facts are in,” he said.
Ugh. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She hated when he was right—and he was. She was doing it. Again.
“Come on.” She slipped into the cab, her heart beating a little faster than normal—because of annoyance, obviously—and slid across the seat until her hip was against the opposite door.
Hudson got in behind her, his broad shoulders taking up entirely too much space, and closed the door.
“Where to?” the driver asked as he pulled into traffic.
Hudson looked up from the mile of space between them, a grin playing on his lips, and stared at her expectantly. The challenge did not go unnoticed. He wasn’t going to say anything, the manipulative pain in her ass. First, he sabotaged her morning with that so-called tour. Then, she couldn’t stop wondering about the kiss that had almost happened between them—she swore he was going to seal the deal before the real tour group walked in, and she was not excited at that possibility. She. Was. Not. And now, he’d elbowed his way into her ride home.
“I promise I just want to share a cab,” he said. “Ladies first.”
She didn’t believe it, but he didn’t give off a stalker vibe, even though she’d accused him. Oh, Hudson was determined, all right, but her danger alarms stayed quiet, and her gut didn’t rumble. Sometimes a cab ride really was just a cab ride.
The cabbie cleared his throat.
Felicia huffed out a sigh. “Forty-fifth and Havston.”
“You got it.” The driver nodded and cut off two cars in his effort to hurry up and get in the left-hand lane before the traffic congestion bottled them in.
Cars blurring past them, she swiveled in her seat and gave Hudson her best glare—the one that made her six-foot-six redwood tree of a brother, Frankie, shiver in his steel-toed workbooks. It had exactly zero effect on Hudson. Wait. It did have an effect—the glutton for punishment relaxed against the seat, somehow managing to all but eliminate the space between them, and winked at her.
That actually worked on women? What a frightening thought.
Thinking tall thoughts, she straightened her spine and pressed back her shoulders. “Is this where you try to go all Henry Higgins again?”
“Nope.” There went that lazy curl of his lips. “I changed my mind.”
Well, that answer sucked all the wind out of her sails. She slouched back against the seat. “Good.”
It was exactly the answer she wanted. If it wasn’t for the fact that he gave in waaaay too easily. But for someone who’d shown up at the ant lab with some bullshit story about wanting a tour, to a guy who just happened to go for the same cab as her, his giving in didn’t fit. Sitting there, surrounded only by the sound coming from the in-taxi TV as the traffic went from a flowing stream to a plugged-up sink, she turned it around in her mind but couldn’t come up with an explanation. He was up to something, but she couldn’t unwind his logic, and it made the tips of her ears itch.
She couldn’t take not knowing.
“Decided I wasn’t a good makeover candidate, huh?” she asked, breaking first.
“No.” He shook his head and went back to watching the news updates on the tiny screen attached to the back of the front passenger seat.
That’s it? No way. He hadn’t stopped running his mouth since they’d met. Now they were stuck in a cab in the middle of a traffic jam, and he decided to turn into Silent Bob? Nope. That wasn’t happening. There was no way he could outlast her in this game. Satisfied she’d be proven right, she focused all her attention on the TV screen and not the almost hypnotizing way the muscles on his forearms moved, or the mysterious flecks of paint on the back of his hand. All she had to do was wait.
One.
Two.
Three.
Nothing. Not even a twitch. He’d gone as still as the cars around them.
The question burst out before she even realized the words had formed. “Are you going to tell me?”
He slowly turned his gaze to hers. “Do you really want me to?”
“That’s why I asked.” She could take it. Small but mighty and all that.
Hudson gave her an appraising look, cool and clinical. It didn’t give even a hint the man she thought she had categorized down to genus and family the other day. “You don’t want it enough.”
She flinched. “What?”
“You’re a smart woman, determined, and you’ve definitely got spark,” he said as he reached out and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “But I don’t think you really want to snag Tyler’s attention.”
What? “But…” Words failed her. She had nothing because that made about as much sense as nest maintenance ants all of a sudden becoming queens.
Hudson took his wallet out of his back pocket and grabbed a wad of cash. “Come on, let’s do this over food. I’m starving.”
She looked around. “But we’re stuck in traffic.”
“Exactly,” he said, handing a few bills to the cab driver. “So, we might as well get out.”
“B-B-But,” she stammered, a little queasy at the idea of changing plans once she’d mentally committed—even if was just dinner plans. “I have leftovers in the fridge.”
“Come on, Matches, my treat.” He got out, holding the door open for her. “I know of a great place right around the corner.”
This wasn’t like her. She didn’t abandon cabs in the middle of rush hour, or go to dinner with men who knew exactly how sexy they were.
“Best shakes you’ve ever had in your life,” Hudson said. “Come on. Live a little.”
Her stomach picked that moment to let loose with a loud growl. Hudson cocked an eyebrow. Done in by the dare-you expression on his face and her own hunger pangs, Felicia scooted across the backseat of the cab and got out on to Hamish. They walked a couple of blocks before coming to stop in front of Vito’s Diner on the corner of Fifth. Out of the corner of her eye, she took in Hudson’s designer clothes and two-hundred-dollar haircut before directing her attention back to the diner with its winking neon sign.
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” she said.
Hudson didn’t say anything; he just gave her a knowing grin and opened the door. It smelled like cheeseburgers and homemade fries—in other words, heaven. They took two seats at the counter, bracketed on either side by the pie display sitting on the counter and the cash register on the other.
He slid the laminated menu over to her. “You have to get a shake or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
She had a minute to glance at the huge list of offerings—everything from all-day breakfast to colossal sandwiches and chicken-fried steak—before the waitress stopped by, pad at the ready.
“How’s your brother and his sweetheart of a wife?” Donna, according to her name tag, asked Hudson.
“They’re good. How’s Vito?”
“Growly as usual and refusing to do his business in the yard in this weather. What can you do? An old dog is gonna do what an old dog’s gonna do—or not doo-doo.” She shrugged. “What’ll it be?”
“I’ll have the patty melt, an order of fries, and a strawberry shake,” Hudson said, not even glancing down at the menu in front of him.
“Gotcha.” Donna scribbled a note on her pad and turned to Felicia. “How ’bout you, hon?”
Everything looked amazing. She debated ordering what most of Hudson’s dates probably ordered—a glass of water and a wedge of lemon—but to prove to herself that he had no more effect on her than one of her brothers, and that this was most definitely not a date, she ordered what she really wanted. “Double bacon cheeseburger, large fry, side salad, blue cheese on the side, cup of fresh fruit, and a large vanilla shake.”
“Gotcha,” the waitress nodded, sending her french fry earrings bobbing.
After Donna took their menus and left, Felicia looked up to see Hudson staring at her with what looked like awe.
“Are you taking some home to a starving, house-bound neighbor?” he asked.
“Very funny.” She rolled her eyes. “I had to skip lunch because of an unscheduled tour for some big muckety-muck.”
He tsked, but there wasn’t a flicker of regret on his face. “I hate it when that happens.”
A giggle just bubbled out. It wasn’t a sound she normally made, but it wasn’t like she spent a lot of time around someone as teasingly incorrigible as Hudson Carlyle. She was used to people like her family. Loud, straight to the point, and without the ability to let go of a bone once they got hold of it. There were red Irish, black Irish, and then so-bull-headed-their-ancestors-got-kicked-off-the-island-for-rebel-activities Irish. The Hartigans fell into all three categories. And just like the rest of them, she couldn’t let anything go.
“Now,” she said, “tell me the real reason why you think I don’t really want Tyler.”
“Because if you did…” His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered just long enough to take weight. “If you really wanted him, you’d have him by now.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks, and not for the first, millionth, or last time in her life she cursed her pale-but-at-least-not-freckled skin. “Flattery? That’s your new angle?”
He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
She didn’t know what to do with that, so she did what she always did when confronted with things she’d analyze to death later—she ignored it and barreled ahead. “You’re wrong, but let’s put that to the side for a minute. Why do you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”
“Would you believe I’m a sucker for a pretty girl who blushes?”
Of course, Donna picked that moment to drop off their shakes. She looked from Hudson to Felicia, an indulgent smile on her face. “You’re a sucker for every kind of girl, Hudson Carlyle—and this one, as pretty as she is, has enough lights on upstairs to know it.”
Mentally high-fiving her fellow woman, Felicia held up her shake in salute. By the time she turned back to Hudson, he was already in shake nirvana, seemingly oblivious to the burn the waitress had delivered. Since joining him seemed like the best choice, she took a sip of her shake. The creamy ice cream hit first, followed by a wallop of vanilla bean that gave a whole new meaning to the flavor vanilla. Intent on her shake, she didn’t even realize Hudson had stopped until he spoke.
“I need your help,” he said, stirring his shake with his straw. “Tyler and my brother used to be tight, then Tyler’s fiancée tried to bang Sawyer the night before she and Tyler were supposed to get hitched.”
“Oh my God!” That filled in a big blank spot. “I knew something had happened, but I had no idea what. He wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Would you in that situation?”
“After my best friend slept with my fiancée? Probably not.”
Hudson scowled. “Sawyer didn’t sleep or anything else with her. He kicked her out.”
Ouch. “So why the big bust-up between them?”
“No clue, but it’s gone on long enough.” Determination added some gravel to his tone.
“And you want to get them back together?” she asked, still trying to understand why his brother’s friendships were so important to him. “What are you, a matchmaker or Henry Higgins?”
“Both.” He looked away but not before she saw something flash in his eyes that was more raw and real than anything else she’d seen from him.
Whatever he was hiding, he wasn’t about to fess up over shakes and diner food. Not yet, anyway. But that part of her that loved to work out puzzles and observe until she’d figured out exactly why someone or something behaved in a certain way was already taking notes. Hudson might act like just another rich playboy, but there was more to him than that. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it until now.
Before she could dig in, though, Donna delivered their food, and the next twenty minutes were filled with devouring their meal and questions from Hudson about the secret life of ants. By the time Donna collected their empty plates, he’d eaten half of Felicia’s fries in addition to his own and managed to get her to spill all the salacious secrets of the honeypot ant and their neighbors in the Arizona desert, the harvester ants.
“So, it’s an orgy?” he asked, his light brown eyes huge. “An actual ant orgy?”
“Pretty much,” she said, licking stray ketchup from her finger. “The future harvester ant queen flies out to a spot where all the other future queens and fertile males are. Everyone has sex—a lot of sex—and then the females go and start a new colony with the unborn progeny from the orgy.”
“And what happens to the male ants? Do they go to the new colonies, too?”
“They all die.” She added just enough cartoon-villain glee to her voice to make him laugh—a real laugh. One that made it sound like he pretended to laugh a lot but never really meant it—but this time he did. “Life’s hard if you’re not the queen. Really, it’s hard if you are the queen. All you do is pop out babies fourteen to fifteen years, you never leave the colony, and when you die, so does everyone in the colony.”
“So, what I’ve learned tonight is that you’re just a simple girl with a nice job studying vicious insects who gorge themselves to marble proportions and die after sex.”
Her first instinct was to argue, but…he wasn’t exactly wrong. And dammit, he was gifting her with what was probably his patented I’m-too-charming-for-words smile. She shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“Tell me why this big crush on Tyler.”
Okay, that was a sharp left turn.
She could lie, make up a version of the truth that didn’t hit her so close to her vulnerable center, but he’d finally been honest with her. It would be pretty shitty not to do the same. After taking one last sip of vanilla shake for courage, she started to explain.
“I grew up the youngest of seven. I’m also the smallest, by almost a foot. The family joke is that when I was born pocket-sized—and I hate that term—my parents knew it was time to stop.” She sighed, hating that joke a little more every time she heard it. “Add to that the fact that they are all your typical Waterbury Irish—loud, fun, and destined to be cops or firefighters or nurses or teachers—and I’m a nerdy girl who studies ants for a living and, well, you get the picture.” She sucked down more vanilla shake for strength. “Don’t get me wrong, my family is great, and I’d cut anyone who ever said a bad thing about them, but it wasn’t always easy growing up where it was so obvious that I didn’t fit in. When Tyler’s family moved into the neighborhood, I was in sixth grade, and it was like a rock god was living next door. He was scary smart—so much so that he got a scholarship to a fancy Harbor City private school—hot, he always seemed at home no matter who he was with, and he’s still that person today.”
“And you want him, but have never made a move?” he asked, getting right to the sharp, jagged point of the problem.
What could she say? Nothing. She let a sharp shake of her head speak for her.
He swiped her shake, plopped his straw down in it, and took a hit of the good stuff before continuing the interrogation. “Why not?”
Now, wasn’t that the billion-dollar question? After turning the problem over in her mind for what felt like forever, she’d finally zeroed in on an answer when her mom had sent her the thirty-days-until-thirty present. “I’ve been scared to go after what I really wanted, I guess.”
“So why change that now?”
“My thirtieth birthday is in less than a month.” And getting Tyler was the only thing left on her do-by-thirty list. “Plus, there’s the cat thing.”
He raised one eyebrow, silently asking her to explain that statement.
“It was just a silly comment that my brother Finian, Frankie’s twin, made when I’d gotten a cat last year. He’d said it was the first of many, and everyone in the family had laughed.” She idly traced the alphabet on the table. “He didn’t mean anything by it; he’d just been busting my chops. However, I haven’t been able to get the mental picture out of my head. Tyler will have a wife and a family someday, and I’ll have thirty-two cats.” She sighed. It wasn’t that she needed a man to be happy or successful, but she wanted a family, a spouse, a life away from her beloved ants, which never even noticed if she was around or not. She needed someone, for once, to notice her.
“Nothing like a milestone to bring things into focus,” Hudson said quietly.
“Exactly.” She snagged back her shake before he could finish it off.
“So, let’s do this,” he said, turning on his stool so that their knees touched, sending a spark of almost tangible and definitely thrilling yes straight through her. “I’ll help you get Tyler in bed and out of it, if that’s what you decide you really want.”
Of course, that’s what he thought her thing with Tyler was, an itch to be scratched rather than a love story she’d been writing in her head since middle school. “You just had to add that last bit, didn’t you?”
“Yep.” He winked and took back his straw and put it in the measly bit of strawberry shake he had left. “And of course, you agree to let me paint you as payment.”
Maybe it was the sugar rush from the shake, but partnering up suddenly seemed like a good idea. Hudson wasn’t anyone’s idea of Henry Higgins, but she had a feeling she just might be Eliza Doolittle—or at least someone who didn’t want to end up alone with thirty-two cats.
“I’m probably going to regret this, but fine. Let’s do this.” She picked up her glass and clinked it against Hudson’s. “Not sure why you want to paint me, but just to be clear, absolutely positively no way am I posing nude. Fair warning.”
An absolutely, positively wicked gleam sparkled in his eyes. “Whatever you say, Matches.”