I broke the silence by asking if he’d heard from Cameron. Apparently, he’d been texting Hugh all night with regular updates on his injuries, which were looking much better than they had when we first met the doctor.
He’d also been texting ideas for how to make things work between us, from paying a lookalike to act as decoy for me so I could still see the boys while doing the show, to us all moving to a treehouse in the Andes and living off foraged food. He was a creative man, but not many of the ideas were practical.
With the Cameron update out of the way, there wasn’t anything left to do except the hardest thing of all: apologize.
“So.”
“So.”
“I’m sorry I called you an asshole.”
Hugh laughed. “Don’t be sorry, I was being the king of assholes.”
“That’s... quite a horrible image.”
He laughed harder, and I joined in, relieved that the tension between us was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared. “Yeah, let’s not think about that. Look, I am so, so sorry for what I said. I won’t excuse myself by claiming I was tired and emotional, but—”
“But you were,” I pointed out mildly. “Your best friend almost died and was still in grave danger. You’d spent the day meeting our parents and rescuing people, and I’d gone completely off-script without warning you.”
“Still no excuse.” He crumpled a muffin wrapper in his hand and looked genuinely contrite. “I said some hurtful things, and what’s stupid is that I don’t even believe them. I don’t want you to date Cameron without me. I’d rather have my teeth removed without anesthetic.”
I held my hand out, and he clasped it. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that.”
“I thought I was making a grand gesture, but in truth, I was just scared.”
“Of what?”
I listened as he explained his conversation with Butch, and how he realized he was trying to delay having to tell his mom about his preferred alternative private life and about me. He worried that he seemed childish, but I felt nothing but sympathy for him; I understood exactly how he felt.
“But if my mom can accept us all with open arms, I bet yours can too,” I said. “I really think your mom and I would get along well; we’re quite similar in a lot of ways.”
“That’s what I said to Butch,” Hugh said happily. “But he told me to never mention that. Apparently, women don’t like being compared to their boyfriend’s mother.”
Hugh pulled a face, and I hesitated on hearing the word boyfriend, but we looked at each other and silently agreed to let it pass. “I’ll make an exception for Mrs. Davis,” I said, and he beamed with joy.
“Oh, and the whole disrespecting your career thing,” Hugh said. I tried to wave him away from the subject, but his face turned serious. “No, I need to say this. I respect you so much. And admire you too. You moved to another state on your own—no safety net—and after only a few years, you’ve been offered your own TV show. I might not understand your world, Muri, but I recognize awesome when I see it. You are awesome, Muriel, and I really respect you for all you’ve achieved.”
I started to tear up, hearing his lovely, sincere words.
Dammit, I remember a time when I swore men wouldn’t make me cry. I fanned my eyes as Hugh looked on with a slight grin on his rugged face. I suppose it meant I’d found the right ones.
“Thank you,” I said finally. “Really, I appreciate that so much.”
“It’s nothing but the truth,” Hugh said easily. “Anyway, we’re getting a bit serious here. Want me to text Cameron and see if we can go visit? Hopefully he’ll be loopy on pain meds again.”
“Sure, that’d be great. I’ll go to the bathroom and fix my face. I can’t believe you’ve made me cry already.”
I headed into the ladies’ room and used tissue and cool water to try and de-puff my eyes. It kind of worked, and I looked in the mirror with a huge smile on my face. Hugh and I had made up, and I had a plan. Life was looking pretty damn good.
Chapter Seventeen
Muriel Tennyson
When we called the nurse’s desk, the head nurse stated Cameron was wide awake, so Hugh and I walked straight over to the hospital.
As we walked, Hugh wrapped his arm around my back, and his touch through the thin fabric of my dress caused little bolts of electricity to shoot through my body. Would that ever stop? Could I ever get bored of a man as mysterious as Hugh, or as rambunctious as Cameron; or as hot as either of them? Surely it wasn’t possible.
We entered the now too familiar waiting room to find Chrissy there getting a coffee from the vending machine.