Accidental Abduction (Masked Men of Sage Springs #1)

Chapter Four

Hudson

“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I fucking told you, dude.”

Glaring at my best friend as I wiped down the glasses lined up on the bar, I regretted confiding in him about what had gone down with Viv at her place. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

“Hey, you’re the one who confided in me. I didn’t ask to get pulled into your relationship drama.”

“Didn’t stop you from giving your opinion.”

“And what did I fucking tell you? I told you not to settle for some spoiled brat who doesn’t appreciate you.”

His words stung, but a part of me felt like the future I envisioned was falling right out from under me.

“Shit. Man, I don’t like that look on your face. What are you doing?” Reid had known me for almost twenty years, so he knew when I set my mind to accomplishing something.

Taking a breath, I decided I was not letting the last four years go down the drain without a fight. “What I should have done a while ago.”

“Dump her and run?” He laughed. I knew he was trying to find humor in the situation, but I was panicking here.

“No, you ass. I’m going to be the guy she started dating again.” There had to be a way for me to keep her interested. I knew I’d let the bar take over my life, but I hadn’t realized it was this bad. Maybe her trying to break things off was the wake-up call I needed. I was thirty, not dead, so I needed to live my life outside the four walls I’d sequestered myself in since taking over .

“Fuck,” he sighed, giving me the look everyone seemed to give me lately—disappointment. “Don’t do that, man. They always say they want the bad boy, but no woman over twenty-four really wants to end up with the bad boy. They want to fuck the bad boy until the endorphins wear off.”

“Is that why you—“

“Don’t bring me into this again. Viv fucked you until you had to grow up. She wanted the motorcycle and the tattoos—you’re welcome, by the way.” He smirked as he surveyed the sleeves on both my arms. He’d spent countless hours designing and inking the elaborate patterns onto my skin. I rolled my eyes, but his smile just widened. “She didn’t want the nice guy with the big heart and the big dic—“

“Okay, I get it. But I have to try, or I’ll always regret it.” Letting our relationship end like this didn’t feel right. Viv walking out of my life right now felt like a punch to the gut. “Maybe I have become this complacent guy who only focuses on the bar. We were in love, and now I don’t recognize either of us.”

“And what if you regret it because you do whatever it is that you think you need to do?”

Only one way to find out.

Reid left me to wallow in my office, contemplating where I went from here. There were only two options:

Cut my losses and focus on the things in my life I could control so I could enter my next relationship in a healthier place.

Re-evaluate what I wanted and prioritize Viv the way she wanted me to so we could repair things and move on from here.

Both options sounded daunting, but either way, I wanted a partner to share my life with. Someone who understood me and was willing to make compromises and support each other. That meant I needed to be a supportive partner, too.

The itch to get on my bike and just ride sounded appealing, but I had a mountain of paperwork to do and details to complete so we were ready for the party in a few days.

My phone vibrating next to my laptop interrupted my chaotic thoughts, and I sighed as I saw Mom scrolling across the screen.

“Hey.” My voice sounded strained, and I knew she’d pick up on it, but I was too tired to care.

“Do I need to send your dad down there?” she asked, immediately going into problem-solving mode. “I told him you might need help getting everything ready for this party. That’s why he never bothered to do anything more than put up a few decorations for holidays. It wasn’t a party type of establishment. But I guess since those college kids seem to like the atmosphere in there, you’ve gotta cater to the new demographics.”

If I let her, she’d just keep talking, filling in both sides of the conversation herself.

“I think Haz and I have got it handled, mom. But I appreciate that you guys are willing to step in if we need you. You’re welcome to stop by and see the place before the party if you want to double check that we did it right. But I promise we’ve got it under control.”

She laughed, knowing that I was teasing her about her perfectionist nature. She liked to have things done a certain way, but she also knew when to let Hazel and me forge our own paths.

“Your dad and I will be here passing out candy, but I know you two will make it fun. You’ll both have to come over next week and tell us all about it before we leave for our trip. We can have a family dinner. Just let me know what works for you and Viv, and I’ll call Hazel. Maybe we can invite Charley and Reid too. Make a dinner party of the whole thing.”

Biting my lip, I contemplated not telling her about Viv. I could stick to my usual excuses and just let her focus her energy on Hazel and Charley .

“How is your sweet girlfriend? Is she excited you’re taking her to the party instead of working?”

Not sure I would describe her as sweet, but Viv put on a good show in front of my parents. They thought rainbows shot out of her ass. The way I used to. Now I wasn’t so sure what I thought.

“I think she’s looking forward to the party,” I sighed, closing my eyes. “But she’s not going with me.”

The line was silent for a moment, but my mother wasn’t a na?ve person. She knew how to read between the lines.

“Did you break up with that poor girl? I told you that you needed to learn from your father’s mistakes. That bar will still be there at the end of the day, but it can’t talk to you or make you feel loved.”

Hearing the concern in her voice just confirmed that maybe I was the cause of all of this. I’d made selfish decisions and my relationship had suffered.

“She isn’t getting what she needs from me anymore.” Wasn’t that what she’d told me?

“Oh, Hudson.” I hated that she sounded disappointed in me. “Do I need to have the same conversation with you that I had with your father?”

“Probably,” I mumbled. They were still together after thirty-five years, so clearly, they’d done something right.

“You need to figure out what you want out of life beyond the four walls of that building. There was a reason that Grandpa was divorced, and Grandma lived on the other side of the country. Owning a bar can be stressful, and if you let it, it’ll take over your life.”

Clearly, it already had.

“But if you have a partner there that keeps you grounded, someone who pulls you back when you get too deep, then you can live the life you want. You’ve done a good job of getting the business where it needed to be when your dad retired. He was tired. And while I know he used me as an excuse, he wanted to travel more and spend time out in the garage building things. ”

“I knew about the separation,” I confessed, remembering how hard things were between them before I left for college.

“You didn’t know everything, Hudson. Your dad was the one who moved out. He was afraid that his lifestyle wasn’t fair to me because with my schedule opposite of his, we never saw each other. He told me he wanted to sell the bar, and I tried to talk him out of it, knowing he loved that place and wanted to pass it down to you.”

I’d always thought it was the other way around.

“And how did you change things? I thought you two were going to get divorced.”

“A grand gesture,” she said simply, a smile in her voice. “I showed up at the bar one night, joined him behind the bar and told him I was going to move to a different shift. If our schedules conflicting was what he was worried about, I solved the problem. You two were old enough to get yourselves off to school and didn’t need me around after, so I started working night shifts a few days a week so we could both be home during the day.”

“I don’t know…” I wasn’t sure that solution would work for Viv and me, but maybe I could hire another bartender and do more of my work during the day while she was at work. If I made more of an effort to let others step in and help at the bar instead of doing everything myself, maybe that’d relieve some of the stress.

“Just think about it. Start small. Maybe making a small gesture will help things along.”

“Maybe…” At this point, it wouldn’t hurt for me to make a few changes and see where things went.

“I’ve got faith in you, and you need to have some in yourself too. Just jump, and if you two are meant to work things out, she’ll catch you. Everything will work out how it’s meant to.”