Needs Friends?

We study for a couple of hours more, but eventually we’re all tired of schoolwork, and the gathering breaks up.

Hudson looks bemused as we help him clean up. And I get it. We’re a little loud and a lot disorganized as we talk and move over and around one another.

For a guy who has lived such a solitary existence, this must feel like absolute chaos. But there’s something in his eyes, something in the very slight upward tilt of his lips that tells me this is good for him. That it’s past time Hudson Vega stopped being a loner and got himself a fun, loyal, and absolutely ridiculous group of friends. The fact that most of us were once his enemies doesn’t matter. He’s part of the group now, whether he likes it or not.

Maybe that’s why I stop Flint and Luca as they start to pick up the purple chairs to carry back to the study lounge. “Leave them,” I say, grinning at Hudson, who’s now looking at me with wide eyes. “We’ve got lots to do in the next couple of weeks. I’m sure we’ll be down here again.”

“Good call, New Girl,” Flint tells me, holding up a hand for a fist bump. “I didn’t even get a chance to try out any of those sick axes over there.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Luca tells him as he herds him toward the exit. “None of us has time for an ax in the back tonight.”

“Excuse you.” Flint makes a face at him. “I have excellent aim, thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah?” Luca wraps his arm around Flint’s waist with a grin. “Maybe you could show me sometime.”

Mekhi snorts at that, which makes Macy giggle as they, too, make their way toward the door. Jaxon doesn’t say anything, but for just a moment, I can see amusement lurking in the depths of his eyes, too.

At least until Macy turns around and asks, “Are you coming, Grace?”

Everyone is looking at me—Jaxon and Hudson included—and my palms grow damp. I should say yes, should just walk right out of here with the rest of them, but the truth is I want to talk to Hudson. More, I want to figure out what happened between us earlier and if it means something or if it’s just an aberration.

“I’ll, um, I’ll be up in a few minutes. I just need to talk to Hudson about something real fast.”

“Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” Eden murmurs as she scoots past me, backpack over her shoulder and wide grin on her face.

She didn’t say it loud enough for anyone else to hear, but as I watch them leave, I realize that doesn’t matter. If my friends hadn’t been thinking something was happening already, my bright-red cheeks would definitely convince them.

I glance at Jaxon as he nears, but his face is surprisingly warm. He leans down and whispers in my ear, “It’s all good, Grace,” before heading up the stairs. And I want to cry at what that must have cost him.

I love Jaxon. I do. He saved me when I got here, brought me out of the frozen depths of depression and numbness that had surrounded me since my parents died. I’ll be grateful to him for that for the rest of my life. He was my first love. And those never go away, not really.

But then there’s Hudson, who sees so much more than the weak, wounded girl I used to be. He sees who I really am and who I have the potential to be. Jaxon wanted to protect me, wanted to take care of me, but Hudson wants to help me learn how to take care of myself. And I know, if I were to give in to these mating bond feelings coursing through my body—and it doesn’t work out…

Losing Jaxon was terrible, but our relationship was struggling before our bond was broken, if I’m being honest. Struggling between the girl he fell in love with and the girl I wanted to become. We hadn’t known each other before we were mated, and there’s a part of me that knows deep down, part of the reason I loved Jaxon with all my heart was because he loved me back just as much. We needed each other. We were both in pain, and we filled an emptiness we didn’t know how to fill on our own.

But with Hudson, it will always be different. He knows me better than anyone, better than myself. And even though I can’t remember those months we were trapped together, we’ve spent the last several weeks becoming real friends.

And that’s what really terrifies me.

When Jaxon broke up with me, he walked away from only a piece of me, the piece he knew. The only piece the wounded girl I was could let him see. But if Hudson were to reject me? It wouldn’t just be a piece of me—he would be rejecting all of me. And that…would be oh so much more devastating. That would break me in places I didn’t even know I could break.

But after what happened with Hudson earlier tonight…I don’t know. Suddenly, it feels like all the hiding, all the burying my head, all the pretending this isn’t happening doesn’t just have the ability to hurt me—but Hudson, too. Like if I don’t do something soon, I’m going to destroy any chance we have, and that thought is more frightening, even, than making a decision is.

“Are you planning on just hiding out in here all night, or do you actually have something to say?” Hudson asks, and he’s back in full sardonic mode.

48

Honesty Is the Most

Uncomfortable Policy

Are you fucking kidding me? I’m standing here worried about trying to figure out how not to shatter us both, and he’s going to come at me with that?

My nerves disappear in a second, and now I’m just pissed off. Doesn’t he realize how hard it was for me to say I wanted to stay with him, to admit to what that implied, to everyone? And he’s going to stand there and pick at me?

“Oh, you can bet I most definitely have something to say to you.” I square my shoulders as I look him dead in the eyes. “But I don’t think you deserve to hear it now.”

I grab my backpack from its spot next to the couch, ignoring the tears that are burning in the backs of my eyes for no reason that I can understand. “Let me know when you’re not in asshole mode, and maybe we can talk.”

“Hey.” I freeze as Hudson’s hand rests lightly on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” I tell him with a shrug, but I still don’t turn around to face him. I need a few more seconds to make sure all traces of those ridiculous tears are gone. And also I’m embarrassed—of the tears, of the situation, of my inability to deal with it properly—and now facing him feels all but impossible. “I’m just going to go.”

I duck out from beneath his hand and make a beeline for the door. If I’m really fast and really lucky, maybe he’ll just let me—

Or maybe he won’t. I freeze when suddenly, he’s right there, blocking my path. I stare at one of the holes in those too-sexy-for-my-own-good jeans and pray for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

Is one of Jaxon’s infamous earthquakes really too much to ask for in this situation? Or—and I’m just spitballing here—some giant, snow-dwelling leviathan to burrow through the stone floor in search of its next meal?

Turns out the paranormal world isn’t with me here—big shock—because the jeans, and the legs they are encasing, don’t move an inch. And neither does the guy they’re attached to.

Because of course he doesn’t. This is Hudson, and he’s never made things easy for me. Maybe if he had, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Milquetoast is so much easier to walk away from.

“Talk to me, Grace,” he says. “You can’t keep blowing hot and cold. It’s not fair to either of us.”

What the actual fu— “What did you just say to me?” My gaze zeroes in on his with the fury of a thousand suns. “You think I am the one blowing hot and cold? Me?” I laugh, but there isn’t a sliver of humor in it. “Says the guy who flirts with me in front of everyone one second, then disappears the next. Who says he wants to see how much heat we can take, then tells our friends that we’re not a couple.”

I poke him in the chest, but he doesn’t budge. Fucking vampires. But I’m just getting started. “I thought we were going to give this thing between us a chance, but you don’t seem capable of deciding what you want. Do you have any idea how scared I am? And yet you don’t see me pulling this shit on you!”

“No, you just keep checking Jaxon’s reaction every time you touch me.” His words land like a bomb at our feet.

And I roll my eyes. Hard. “Of course I’m checking Jaxon’s reactions. He’s innocent in all of this.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that? Why do you think I left to get the vamps’ blood?” His jaw clenches so hard, I think he’s going to crack a molar. “I love my brother more than you ever will. I died for him. But I’m not going to die for him again, and what you’re doing to me, Grace—you’re killing me slowly.”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair in frustration, leaving the ends sticking up at odd angles. It should make him look ridiculous, but it just makes him seem…vulnerable. Maybe, just maybe, Hudson is as scared as I am at the intensity between us.