Chapter Text
“So, uhm, your daughter’s coming home for Christmas, right?”
They were standing in the printer room on Connie’s floor. Hud really had no business being there, his lunch was over and he’d used up all of his breaks hanging around Connie’s desk. But the sales department manager had a dentist appointment that day and was out of office, so he’d figured he could take one more extended “bathroom break”.
“She is,” Connie smiled warmly. She was currently in the process of changing the ancient laser printer’s cartridge, which was a task that – apparently – only she in the entire building knew how to do.
“Anna’s coming on the seventeenth and staying until the first few days of January,” She slammed the printer’s lid shut. It barely stayed closed. That thing has probably been there since the corporation’s early days. “But don’t worry, she’ll mostly be out of the house seeing all her friends, so you can still come over,” she added with a laugh.
Hud shifted uncomfortably on the flimsy desk he was sitting on. Jesus, he was never this nervous around Connie, not since the early days, anyway. But somehow what he was about to ask felt different. They’ve been going steady for a few months. At first Connie was convinced this was nothing but a brief fling for him, but he quickly made his intentions veryclear. He was in it for the long run.
He adjusted his tie that didn’t need adjusting at all.
“Actually I thought, uh, maybe I could meet her?” His voice broke a bit at the last word. What the hell, sure. Why not melt into a puddle, at this point.
Connie stilled. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was obviously caught off guard by the question. Fuck, maybe it was too much too soon. Maybe it was some sort of unspoken rule that you’re not supposed to meet your older girlfriend’s adult children under any circumstances. He probably fucked this whole thing up in one fell swoop.
“Oh I–,” she stumbled. “Are you sure?” She looked at him, still surprised and slightly hesitant.
“I mean, yeah, absolutely. You’ve told me so much about her and I’d like to finally meet the mysterious Anna,” he laughed nervously to ease the tension.
Thing is, Connie didn’t actually tell him much of anything about her daughter. Hud knew she was twenty and went to college out of state, but that was about it. He has seen childhood pictures of her on the mantel at Connie’s house and he was fairly certain Anna did not look five years old anymore.
Everything he learned about her came from Connie’s fleeting anecdotes. When they passed an ice cream shop on their way to a weekly date night, she mentioned that she and Anna used to go there all the time up until she was in middle school, when Anna suddenly decided that eating ice cream was above her, for whatever reason. Once at breakfast, Connie told him that they would get up extra early in the morning sometimes just to chat before the day started and she really missed that, especially during Anna’s freshman year. And obviously, she told him how proud she was of her daughter; that she had grown up to be such a smart and capable young woman, but Connie always cut herself off before she could gush more.
Hud suspected that maybe Connie was somehow embarrassed and didn’t want to overwhelm him, or maybe didn’t want to remind him of how much older she was. After all, he was closer to Anna’s age than Connie’s. But he wanted to know. He wanted to know every part of Connie’s life and show that he accepted all of it. Hud wasn’t going to act like a step father or the father who stepped up, since Anna was a full grown adult, but he still wanted to learn more about Connie’s family.
Connie smiled, looking to the side. It was obvious from her eyes how much she loved and missed Anna.
“She really is great.”
“No doubt about it, and I’d like to see for myself.” he said, before adding “If that’s okay, of course.”
Connie’s smile didn’t falter. “It is. I’d love for you to meet her.”
God, what a relief. Here he was, thinking he messed it up, but actually he’s never been so fucking back.
“I thought maybe we could do dinner or something,” he shrugged, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
Hud realised too late that he inadvertently set up the meeting place as Connie’s house. He’d love to have them over at his place, but it was, simply put, bad. It was a true and blue bachelor pad, although neither him nor his roommate Mike were bachelors. Mike’s girlfriend was actually staying with them for a bit after getting evicted from her previous apartment. It was pitched to him as a temporary solution, but from the very beginning he knew that Brittany was there to stay. Anna didn’t need to be overwhelmed by meeting her mother’s controversially young boyfriend, his weird roommate and the latter’s even weirder girlfriend in one day. He’d like to leave a good first impression.
Connie gently put her hand on his chest, looking at him with that playfulness in her eyes that always made him fucking crazy.
“Sounds good. We can do dinner at my place.”
She placed a soft kiss on his cheek and walked out of the printer room, back to her desk. He knew her dusty pink lipstick left a mark, but he didn’t want to wipe it off.
***
They set a date. December 20th. Not so early that Anna would still be tired from traveling and not too close to Christmas either. Just a normal, casual date that is downright perfect for meeting your girlfriend’s only child. And Hud was not freaking out at all.
Dinner was set for seven. He started getting ready at four. First things first, Hud needed to choose what to wear. He had his work clothes – a simple white dress shirt with grey slacks that he would sometimes pair with a half-zip pullover, if it was chilly – but that didn’t seem appropriate. Sure, Anna wouldn’t know that it was his office attire, but Connie would. He wanted her to know that he was making an effort and also had normal, adult man clothes outside of work.
The problem was, he didn’t, really. Most of his wardrobe were sweatpants, tank tops and the occasional graphic tee with some stupid text on it. He definitely couldn’t wear the “I <3 MILFS” shirt his friends got him after he started seeing Connie.
The only other presentable outfit Hud had was a plaid three piece suit he wore for his sister’s wedding a few years back. Chloe insisted that all the brides-men wear the suit with a salmon pink shirt and pocket square, which was a bit loud. He made the executive decision to wear the suit with his work shirt and a blue tie. Maybe lose the waistcoat.
They didn’t have a full length mirror in their apartment, so Hud was hogging up the one in the bathroom, trying to tie his tie. Mike was lingering in the doorway behind him for no discernible reason. It’s not like he had better things to do, like wash the dishes for once in his goddamn life.
“Trying to make yourself nice for your old lady?” He snickered in his annoying, nasally voice.
That was fucking enough. From the very moment Hud mentioned Connie for the first time, Mike would not stop making jabs about her age, even though Hud let him know every time that this bullshit would not stand.
“If you speak about her like that ever again, I am going to change the locks and make you sleep outside until you freeze to death.”
He slammed the door in Mike’s face. He really, really hoped that Mike’s hand would have been gripping the doorway, so the door could have broken his fingers. God, he needed a new roommate.
Fuck, okay. Next thing on the agenda was figuring out what to bring as a gift. Even if Connie insisted he didn’t need to bring anything, it still felt rude to show up empty handed. A few days ago, he had a brainstorming session in the car while stuck in traffic about this exact thing. At first he thought about bringing flowers, but that felt off somehow. Should he get flowers for both Connie and Anna, or just one bouquet as a kind of gift for the house? Flowers are pretty personal, he figured, you needed to know the person to know what they like. Hud knew Connie liked calla lilies and snapdragons, but he had no idea about Anna. What if he got her something she was allergic to?
Since flowers were out of the question, the next best thing was alcohol. Anna was underage, but Connie didn’t strike him as a parent who would be scandalized by her daughter having a glass of wine at dinner. Rosé would be the obvious choice – if young people decided to drink wine, nine times out of ten it would be rosé – but that was a no-go, since Connie mentioned to him once that it gives her a headache. Connie’s favourite wine was Malbec. She loved to unwind with a glass at the end of a long week. He kept a bottle at his apartment in case one day, maybe, maybe, the place would be clean enough to have her come over. He grabbed the bottle and placed it next to the front door to make sure he wouldn’t forget it.
It was four thirty now. Maybe he’d rushed a bit with the whole getting ready thing. Hud guessed all he could do was to sit on the couch like an obedient puppy and wait for the time to start heading out. He was happy to do that for Connie.
***
He pulled into Connie’s driveway at six fifty seven, after spending a good fifteen minutes in the nearby McDonald’s parking lot to not arrive too early and seem too eager. There hadn’t been any snowfall in the last few days, so it was still clear from the time Hud shoveled it for Connie last week.
He put the car in park and stared at Connie’s front door. She put a wreath on it in the last days of November, because she wanted to get into the Christmas spirit early. She treated the entirety of December like it was one long Christmas, so he better not fuck this up for her.
He still had three minutes left. Hud gripped the steering wheel tighter, as if it would somehow anchor him in place and he wouldn't fly away like a helium balloon. He took a deep breath. It’s fine! It was going to be fine. He wasn’t going to embarrass himself or say something wrong. The three of them were going to have a normal, pleasant evening. Anna wanted to meet him. If she didn’t, she would have told Connie so, she’s a grown adult. He could do this. Hud got out of his car, almost slipping on the ice.
Connie opened the door after two knocks. She was wearing an ivory coloured silk shirt with the first three buttons undone, so he could see the modest golden cross she always wore. Her legs looked stunning in her black pencil skirt. Hud had to focus hard to not think about how it felt to slide his hands under it. Fuck, she was ethereal.
“Hi,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Come on in.”
As he was sliding his shoes off, he saw Anna standing in the entryway as well. She did not look like how he imagined at all. Hud expected her to be tall, not unlike her mother, but she was barely five-two. Her wavy blonde hair reached just below her shoulders. That’s what Connie’s would look like if she ever grew out her pixie cut, he thought. Anna was wearing one of those cloth sweatshirts he remembered his stoner friends wearing in high school. He couldn’t read her face at all, which was intimidating.
He instinctively put on his best salesman voice.
“Hello, I’m Hudson, I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said, extending his hand for a handshake.
He saw her trying to suppress a grin as she accepted his hand.
“I’m Anna. Likewise.”
Her handshake was firm. That alone made him respect her more than a lot of people he had to converse with in weekly meetings. Now he was extra determined to get into her good graces.
Connie was straight up beaming. Hud could see how happy it made her that her boyfriend and daughter were finally meeting.
“Well,” she clasped her hands together, “now that everyone is acquainted, let’s go sit down. The lasagna’s still in the oven, it’s taking longer than expected.”
Suddenly he remembered that he brought something with him.
“I, uh, brought some wine,” he said, almost like a question.
“Oh, Hudson, you shouldn’t have.”
“None of that, I can’t show up empty handed when you went through the effort of making dinner.”
He handed her the bottle. Connie studied it for a moment and a look of recognition spread across her face.
“Malbec,” she said in a low voice, “you have good taste."
“I learned from the best,” he murmured.
“Alright, lovebirds, let’s get going,” Anna said with a grin, gesturing towards the dining room.
***
The lasagna didn’t take that long to finish cooking after all. Soon they were all sitting at the dinner table.
“You’re literally the best chef I know,” he said while shoveling more food in his mouth.
“You flatter me,” Connie smiled politely, “It just comes from practice after making dinner for this one for eighteen years.”
“I disagree, I lived with my dad until I was twenty one and he still can’t cook for shit— sorry, I mean, he can’t cook at all.”
That earned a laugh from both Connie and Anna.
The silence that came after that was uncomfortable. Apparently only for him; both women seemed perfectly content to eat in silence for a bit. His mind wandered to dinner conversation topics. School. Work. Hobbies? Hud decided to go with the first one.
“So, Anna, what’s your major?”
He immediately felt so fucking old. He usually felt like a stupid lost puppy around Connie, but asking her daughter the equivalent of “how’s school?” reminded him that he was no longer the youngest person ever.
“Biology,” Anna responded and took a sip of her wine. She didn’t wince so Hud guessed she liked it. “I’m gonna start writing my thesis soon. In biology you can write a thesis about literally anything, so that’s nice.”
Hud nodded thoughtfully. He knew nothing about biology, except the fact that he slept through most of it in school.
“What’s your thesis about?” he asked, before quickly adding, “if you already chose a topic, that is.”
Anna set her utensils down. Hud saw a spark light up in her eyes, the same way Connie’s would when she talked about her daughter.
“Okay, so, I’m gonna test the water of three rivers in Boulder to measure the microplastics percentage, and then I’ll test three rivers in a rural part of Colorado, I haven’t decided where yet, to see how much they differ in plastic pollution, but the key is that all these rivers need to have the same ecosystem– or, I mean, similar, because it can’t ever be the exact same – but they need to have the same microorganisms living there so I can test them as well and see how it affects their immune system and reproduction and so on.”
She looked at him excitedly and waited for his comment. He hadn’t even begun to process all of that information. Thankfully, Connie helped him out.
“Sometimes I wonder where she gets her brains from. Definitely not from her parents.”
“Hey, come on! You say this as if you’re not the only reason why our office building is still standing,” Hud protested.
Connie chuckled and rolled her eyes at him.
“Yeah, well, it’s true and you know it”
He turned back to Anna: “I mean, wow, that’s– that’s really cool. And also complicated.”
Anna just shrugged at that, as if it’s no big deal to bust out words like microorganism and plastic pollution with such ease.
“Eh, well, it’s second nature at this point. I’ve done nothing but study sh– stuff under a microscope for three years so it’s all I know how to talk about, pretty much.”
That did not make it seem any less impressive. Hud didn’t even know how to use a microscope.
Anna seemed a bit more relaxed now that she could talk about her studies. It’s not like she was tense before, or maybe she was, Hud just couldn’t get a read on her for a bit. Now he could tell she was enjoying the evening. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“What did you study in college?”
Hud should have guessed she would turn the same question to him, but he was still, somehow caught off guard.
“Oh, I actually never went to college,” he swallowed dryly, “I went to community college though, got my associates in communication, so– yeah.” He picked at the lasagna with his fork.
He was slightly embarrassed about his education, even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about, and Connie reminded him of that fact constantly. It just always sucked when a new person with a shiny bachelor’s degree would join the sales team and at the mandatory team bonding evening they’d jokingly say something akin to “so they just let anyone work here, huh?” when he revealed he never went to college.
“That’s cool. I bet it’s useful for swindling people out of their money in sales,” Anna said, her voice nonchalant.
“Anna!” Connie hissed. She clearly anticipated this.
Hud felt like the air was punched out of him. The evening was going so well. Did Anna hate him this whole time? He should have known that she wouldn’t be thrilled to meet her mom’s office boytoy.
“No, um, HRV Enterprises is a completely legitimate company, we do not sw–”
Anna barked out a loud laugh. It sounded just like Connie’s.
“Relax, I’m joking. My girlfriend wants to go into sales so I’d be a hypocrite. Besides, I probably couldn’t sell the cure for cancer if I tried, so props to you.”
Hudson dropped his head to his chest and exhaled.
“Damn, you really got me there,” he chuckled. If Anna was already ribbing him like this, it meant she liked him, right? Also, wow, girlfriend? He shouldn’t have been surprised, nothing about Anna screamed "heterosexual woman", but it was rude to assume. At least now he knew he had pretty good gaydar.
Meanwhile next to Anna, Connie sighed.
“Hudson, I am so sorry, I thought she left these kinds of jokes in her childhood, where they belong!”
She looked at Anna pointedly, but Anna just grinned in return.
“Gotta keep ‘em on their toes, mom.”
Hud ate the last of his lasagna before speaking again.
“If your girlfriend wants any advice on how to start out in sales, she can always reach out to me. I have LinkedIn.”
Anna chuckled again and shook her head.
“Thanks, I’ll let her know.”
“Speaking of, is Ashleigh going to visit us while you’re here?” Connie asked.
Anna sighed: “Maybe? I honestly don’t know, she’s home for Christmas but her parents are making her help them move.”
Connie leaned away from Anna, looking completely exasperated.
“First of all, again?”
Anna nodded weakly, not believing their audacity either.
“Didn’t they move into that house just last year?”
“Yeah, they did. But apparently they decided that it’s too big now or whatever so they’re moving again.”
Connie shook her head and took a sip of her wine. Hud hasn’t seen her this irritated since the company decided to update their dress code and listed short sleeve blouses as “inappropriate”.
“Second of all,” she continued, “during Christmas break? Is that really the best time to move? I hope Jake is helping, at least.”
Anna crossed her arms and gave Connie a deadpan look.
“What do you think?”
“God, I should have guessed. It’s like I always say.”
“It’s like you always say,” Anna nodded.
They didn’t elaborate on what Connie always says, but it was clear that whatever it was, it wasn’t praise towards Jake, whoever he was.
Hud had no idea what was going on with Ashleigh’s family, it clearly wasn’t a conversation for him to be included in. But he didn’t feel left out. Although the topic was obviously not pleasant for either of the women, it felt warm. He got a glimpse into Connie and Anna’s everyday chats. He could now imagine them debriefing over breakfast or gossiping a little bit. It was nice. Maybe he could be included in it some day.
As if to prove his point, Anna looked at him, then at her mom, and asked: “So, they fix the old ass printer yet or what?”
Connie let out a startled laugh.
“Oh my god, don’t start.”
***
The dinner came to an end a couple hours later. They chatted for a while about the faulty printer and how it’s been a constant headache for Connie since Anna was in kindergarten, a bit more about Hud’s sales job, which Anna pretended to be interested in, and more about Anna’s major that Hud was interested in, but didn’t understand. Anna had to explain to him what a chordate was three times and he still didn’t get it.
After he said his goodbyes to Anna and reminded her to give Ashleigh his LinkedIn, Connie walked him to the door.
Now that they were alone, he finally allowed his hands to rest on her waist, but they soon traveled downwards to her hips.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, “I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too much.”
Connie smiled widely at him. Her green eyes were almost amber in the low light from the fireplace. She looked so fond. Hud would stay in this moment forever if he could.
“You didn’t, at all. I can tell she really liked you.”
She put her soft hand on his cheek and placed her lips on his, a lingering, tender kiss. At times like these, he felt like a knight finally in the presence of his lady. Connie knew that touch like that drove him wild and left him wanting more, but he could tell she loved to see him try to desperately hold onto his control around her.
“Good night, Hudson.”