Page 25 of The Ex Project (The Heartwood #3)

WREN

My head is throbbing this morning. My heart is beating in my eyeballs.

Whatever I had to drink last night is not sitting well with me, but I’ve managed to get myself somewhat dressed.

I’m not my usual put-together self, but I found my favourite old slouchy denim shorts in my closet, and my favourite worn tee. Good enough.

I throw big sunglasses over my puffy eyes, slip on some flip-flops, and make my way to Thistle + Thorne. With any luck, Poppy escaped a hangover and she’ll be there to make me something to soak up the alcohol still roiling in my gut.

Hudson left early, after the sound of his pager woke both of us up in the small hours of the morning.

I turned back over to go to sleep, thinking he might come back, but instead I woke up to a text saying he would head home.

My heart dropped as I read it, triggering a whole new wave of nausea, and I ran to the bathroom, telling myself it was for the best he wasn’t seeing me like this.

The café is relatively empty as I enter, and Poppy waves at me over the espresso machine.

It’s not unusual, but something is off about her.

The way she waves at me looks … frantic.

Like she’s trying to get my attention without saying anything.

I furrow my brows at her in question—I’m going to need a little more in the fog state of my hangover.

Her eyes go wide, and she tilts her head to the end of the counter.

In my peripheral vision, I catch a blonde head of hair.

“Wren!”

Emma. Emma .

She’s already walking towards me, a bright smile on her face. Too cheery for my liking this morning. God, her voice is so chipper , and it’s so loud.

“Emma! Hi!” I mirror her high-pitched tone, but even I can tell it sounds false.

“I was wondering if I might run into you. I wanted to see how you were doing after the other night. I almost asked Hudson for your number so I could check in.”

My mouth opens but no words come out, because seeing her this morning sends a sickening wave of realization over me. Everything that happened last night flashes through my mind with horrifying clarity.

The beer pong.

Hudson walking me home.

Hudson carrying me up to bed.

Hudson taking off my dress.

Asking him to kiss me.

Come on, Miller. You don’t have to beg.

I blink my eyes a few times, refocusing on Emma. She obviously doesn’t know about what happened. Here she is, asking how I’m doing, thinking about me, considering me. And had the opportunity presented itself, I might have fucked her boyfriend. Regret and remorse tangle together in my gut.

“I’m so sorry, you’ll have to excuse me.” I turn around and race behind the counter. Poppy has disappeared into the back room, but she won’t care that I’m helping myself to the bathroom key.

Emma says something about seeing me again, and I nod and smile on my way past her to the restroom.

Fumbling with the key, I finally unlock the door and throw myself towards the toilet, letting the door slam shut behind me. I empty my stomach of whatever mix of sangria, tequila, and beer is left in there until I’m retching on nothing.

Once I’m confident there is nothing left in my stomach to expel, I sit on the cool tile and lean against the wall, replaying the events of last night. Now, other moments from the party are coming back to me, too, and I’m slotting them into the timeline, trying to make sense of it all.

The bet. Oh God. He wagered a date with me.

He wagered a date with me while he’s seeing Emma.

That’s why it came back—seeing her again didn’t make me nauseous because of her sickly-sweet demeanour, although it played a part.

It was the sticky, tarry feeling of guilt that had me running for the toilet.

Because I knew about Emma, too, and I still agreed to it.

I still brought Hudson home with me. He didn’t want to kiss me.

I practically begged, and he wouldn’t kiss me.

I get up from the bathroom floor and lean over the sink to splash cold water on my face before rinsing out my mouth, letting the shock of the realization hit me with the reality of what I have to do.

Hudson and I? We’re having it out today.

I’m going to tell him how I felt about him leaving, how he never once considered my feelings in our breakup, how he’s repeating the same selfish patterns, only thinking about himself and what he wants when it comes to women.

As much as Emma is not my cup of tea, she’s lovely and she doesn’t deserve this treatment.

Hudson is being an asshat and I’m going to tell him as much.

I march out of the bathroom and find Emma gone, and Poppy behind the counter with a wincing expression on her face.

“Still paying for last night?” she asks.

“In more ways than one,” I grumble, earning a soft chuckle and a non-judgmental look of sympathy from my best friend. “Can you make me your greasiest, carby-est breakfast wrap to-go, please? And a coffee.”

“You seem like you’re on a mission this morning,” she says while plucking a sausage and egg wrap from the display case and throwing it into the panini press to warm it.

“Just doing what I should have done ten years ago.”

“Are you sure you want to get into this now?” Poppy starts on my coffee.

“I don’t have a choice. I agreed to go out with Hudson. Like, on a date,” I say. Poppy stares at me blankly. “He … stayed over last night.” I whisper that part, almost mouthing it so no one overhears.

“Oh my God. Did you …? ”

“No. No, nothing like that. At least not that I can remember. Still, seeing Emma this morning … I feel like a piece of shit.” I shake my head, and Poppy nods in solemn understanding.

“It’s not your fault, Wren. Hudson played a part in it, too.”

“He’s such a fucking asshole. I should have known better.” Anger sizzles under my skin. Mostly at Hudson, but also at myself.

“Honestly, don’t beat yourself up.” Poppy turns, lifting the warmed wrap with a pair of tongs and sliding it into a paper bag that she hands me over the counter.

“It could have happened to anyone. I bet being at the school with all those memories didn’t help.

Not to mention the amount of alcohol you both consumed.

You slipped into your old ways, and that’s okay. ”

“No, it’s not.” I pick up my coffee and back out of the café. “Slipping into old ways is going to get people hurt, like it did the last time.”

“Call me later and let me know how it goes,” Poppy says, but she doesn’t have to tell me. She’s always the first person I call.

I step outside into the sunlight, and it doesn’t make my head pound the way it did earlier. Either the vomit and getting rid of the remnants of alcohol, or my new red-hot rage, is burning up my hangover, but I feel slightly better.

I feel like raising hell.

Hudson isn’t at his apartment when I get there.

Instead, Jett answers the door in his pajama bottoms and informs me that Hudson hit the gym right after he finished up at the fire hall.

He then follows it up with some suggestive remark about how he could ‘keep me entertained’ in the meantime, and I whirl around, flashing him a middle finger over my shoulder as I walk down the hallway towards the staircase.

“Fuck off, Jett,” I call out for good measure, and he laughs behind me before closing the door. At least he’s a good sport about getting rejected. I’m not kidding around, though. I’m not in the mood. Because I don’t want anything distracting me from the verbal lashing I’m about to give Hudson.

This is so like him, too. And sure, I don’t have any real loyalty to Emma—we haven’t even spoken since the public forum—but like hell am I going to let Hudson continue behaving in a way that disregards women’s feelings.

I make the walk over to Heartwood’s only gym, and it gives me enough time to rehearse what I want to say, starting with How dare you . When I enter the building, the air conditioning hits me like a wave, but so does the stench of sweat and old gym socks.

My stomach lurches, my breakfast wrap threatening to come up on me. Weights clang and treadmills whirr as I walk into the gym. There are enough people in here for me to make a real scene if I want to. I take a few steady breaths to settle my nerves, which also helps to quell the nausea.

Hudson is bench pressing what looks to be double my body weight when I spot him.

For a moment, my mind falters, and the speech I practiced doesn’t come.

Because Hudson’s body, and the memory of being pressed up against it last night, is consuming my thoughts.

The firmness of his pecks, the heaviness of his arm draped over my shoulders.

The other … firmness that pressed up against my ass this morning before he took off.

Hudson’s body is different than I remember.

He’s less lanky, awkward teenager, and all hard, rippled, solid man.

Get a fucking grip. I square my shoulders, stride over to the bench he’s occupying, and stand right at his head, crossing my arms with one hip popped.

My shadow looming over him grabs his attention and he nearly drops the weight on himself, catching it at the last moment. It would serve him right. He places the bar on the rack with a clang and sits up to face me.

“Did you get my tex?—”

“Yes, I fucking saw your text,” I snap. “And then you know who else I saw this morning? Take a wild guess, asshole.”

A look of shock washes over Hudson’s expression. He looks stricken, like the word asshole physically pains him. When Hudson doesn’t answer, still baffled I’ve caught him playing two girls at once, I continue.

“What were you thinking?” The question is rhetorical, because the obvious answer is that he wasn’t. “Betting me you’ll take me out on a date, spending the night with me when you’re seeing someone else?”

Hudson’s mouth opens and closes without saying any words as turns on the bench to face me. Caught red-handed.