A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

at the kitchen, I got lost looking for the luxe bathroom he’d called mine. I had to call Hudson to show me the way. I smiled at the bottles lined up in neat rows on the countertop. There was an amazing array of shampoos and conditioners and spray leave-in frizz tamers. No wonder his hair was always so soft.

After turning on the shower, I went to stare at myself in the mirror. I looked like someone who’d been having sex all night without sleep. As the mirror steamed, I couldn’t help myself. I started poking around the drawers.

In the back was a half-full bottle of nail polish remover sealed in a plastic ziplock bag. A small blue comb that looked brand new was in the second drawer. In the bottom drawer was a powder compact I didn’t bother to open. The items looked old, almost dusty, as if they’d been there for years.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, delicious smells of breakfast were coming from the kitchen.

“What can I do to help?” I asked, tousling my hair while his back was turned. I’d put on too much leave-in conditioner and my curls had gone flat.

“Not a thing. Just relax and drink your mimosa.”

Hudson was wearing a black T-shirt with the word GENUINE across the chest, his hair still wet from the shower. A slender champagne flute was on the countertop, and I slid into the barstool without complaint.

“You like your eggs any certain way?”

“However you make them.”

Hudson expertly chopped yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini on a cutting board and slid them into a copper-bottomed skillet to simmer.

“Remind me to give you some tomatoes before you leave.”

“You have a garden?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I like to grow my own veggies. Part of being healthy.”

Over plates of the best omelet I’d ever tasted, I caught Hudson looking intently at me. I hoped there wasn’t Swiss cheese on my face.

“I can’t figure you out, Jess. Usually I know by the first couple of dates if we’re a match.”

“Fish said we were a match,” I said, trying to discreetly wipe my chin. And I agreed wholeheartedly.

“We’ll see,” he said, taking my empty plate.

Hudson wiped down the counter with a dish towel, then folded it carefully in thirds and hung it in the center of the oven door rack. A minute later, he reached for it again, refolding exactly the same way after he’d used it.

No wonder his house looked so perfect.

“Thing is, I don’t like to invest a lot of time into something I don’t think will go the distance.”

I wondered what that meant, but I was too busy enjoying the bubbles in the mimosa.

“I’ve just recently become aware of my own mortality,” he said, looking very serious.

“Don’t be silly. You’re a very young grandfather.”

“No, I mean I want someone to spend the next twenty-five years with. I’m starting to feel like I’m running out of time. In ten years, I’ll be almost seventy,” he said, turning away to soap up the egg pan.

“We have all the time in the world, sweetie,” I said, draining my champagne flute.

63

“One word,” Eddie said decisively. “Viagra.”

It was Sunday and I’d told Eddie all the details, including my surprise at the sudden loss of Hudson’s erection.

“I can’t talk to him about that.”

“If not you, who will?”

I thought for a moment. The owner of the comb in the bathroom had to have dealt with the same situation. Was Viagra discussed then?

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “He rallied and came through beautifully. Get it? He came through?”

“Ha ha. I get it. Men age badly in that department,” Eddie said, pulling a grape out of the fruit bowl. “I’ve always thought they should have Viagra vending machines, you know, like the ones for condoms?”

“Great idea! Let’s do it before someone else thinks of it.”

“Or maybe just send him some Viagra free trial coupons in the mail, anonymously.”

I swatted Eddie with a dish towel, knowing I couldn’t bring up the subject with Hudson so early in the relationship. Maybe down the line. I was surprised he hadn’t talked to a doctor about it. Didn’t he know it was very common?

Honestly, I didn’t care about the temporary lapse in Hudson’s potency. We’d done just fine, the two of us. There was more to sex than just thrusting.

“Oh good lord, Jess, you’re practically glowing,” Eddie said, shaking his head.

64

“Good morning, beautiful,” Hudson texted me Monday before I even got out of bed.

Hudson was an amazing texter. He began every sentence with “hon” or “sweetie” or “baby.” I locked most of his messages to save forever.

“You make me feel very special.”

“You are special, Jess.”

I began to lean in on his praise and affection for me, something I relied on even as I felt a nagging sense of disbelief that someone so sweet had come into my life—through a dating site, no less!

We joked about the toothpaste I’d wiped on my teeth in my kitchen just before he’d arrived. About the way he folded his dishtowels. Even about his spotless house.

“I’m a little OCD,” Hudson said.

I didn’t care. I just thought of him as amazing.

“Turn over so I can kiss your back,” he told me in bed.

“You’re tickling me.”

“I’m loving you, my sexy kitty,” he said.

Even our dogs were crazy about each other.

Penny and Chloe were close enough in age and size to be great companions. We started taking them for walks after Hudson closed up his shop, covering blocks of Meredia until all four of us were tired. I always ended up carrying Pen-Pen because she got winded even before I did.

We walked downtown and I showed him my work neighborhood, pointing out the deli where I sometimes got a turkey wrap, Brew Coffee where Joe and his buds had standing orders for danish, Stone Soup Antiques, and the barber shop that gave Ian a great, precise clean-edge cut.

“I should go there,” Hudson said. “I could use a new barber.”

“But your hair is perfect!”

“Aw, you’re biased,” he said, pulling