Chapter 14 #3
“Paisley!” I called to her, running the short distance to the crash. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she huffed, dusting her palms together. “I turned too fast.”
The knees of her leggings were scratched but not totally torn, and otherwise, she looked okay.
“Here, let’s get you up.” I offered my one hand while I grabbed the handlebars of her bike with the other, righting both of them.
Paisley dusted off her legs. “You really should be wearing a helmet, you know.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You sound like Hudson.”
If I hadn’t just come from her stone-faced, scolding brother, I might’ve laughed.
“Don’t let him get to you,” she went on. “He’s always grumpy. He doesn’t like it when people get too much in his business.”
Yeah, no kidding. “That’s okay. I shouldn’t have stopped over without permission.”
“Hudson doesn’t have a lot of friends. I hope…I hope he didn’t scare you off.”
“I don’t scare easy,” I told her, trying to give her a reassuring smile. It felt like the kind that I usually gave Mom’s friends—practiced but phony. “I’ll see you later.”
“Hopefully next time I see you, you don’t have an old lady skirt.”
This time, I did laugh, and gave her a small wave before I started the long walk to the main road.
I walked along the side of the road, not quite into the shoulder—shards of glass shimmered in the dirt and gravel along the edge.
The list of people I could call were few, and really, it only narrowed down to Morgan.
She was the one least likely to kill me for being here.
Landon would kill me for lying, and Mom would have a whole list of reasons to choose from.
Leaving school property when she strictly told me not to, getting off the bus early, forging her signature on a note.
Whatever way I cut it, I was dead meat. The other option was to walk the whole way home, an option that was risky because I’d have to walk along the main road.
Any one of my parents’ friends could see me.
My parents could see me on their way home from work.
I curled my hand into a fist, wanting to kick myself for being so absolutely stupid.
I should never have gotten myself into this situation.
Of course Hudson and I weren’t friends. He’d made it very clear before—he didn’t need me, and that thought settled heavily on my stomach.
Why had I been so worried about him missing school?
Why had my interest piqued at what he’d been doing the night before?
Maybe more importantly, why did I care what he thought about me? Why did the fact that he was upset with me make me feel sick?
No, I knew why. It was because without Hudson, I couldn’t do the rebellion list. He was a staple in it, like a prerequisite to a class. I couldn’t be rebellious on my own—I didn’t have it in me. I needed him to push me. I needed someone to experience it all with.
It was a fun run while it lasted, my thoughts murmured sadly, and I kicked a clump of mud as I walked along the road, nearing the bend that led to the entrance of the mobile home park.
“Gemma!”
I turned around to see Hudson walking toward me, brows pinched together, expression not all that forgiving. I sighed a little. “What? I’m not really in the mood for round two.”
Hudson’s frown deepened, and he opened his mouth to say something when a loud barreling sound of an engine drew my attention to the bend in the road.
I almost expected it to be another bus. The truck that rounded the corner, though, was much shinier, going a speed too fast for the gravel road.
Except it didn’t look like it had any intention of stopping or swerving out of the way, like they didn’t see me.
And since I wasn’t walking along the shoulder, I was right in its path.
Hudson’s body slammed against mine from behind, and his hand wrapped around my upper arm to tug me to the side, off the roadway, out of the path of the monster-sized truck.
The toe of my shoe caught on the hem of my skirt, and that, combined with the uneven ground, sent me stumbling into Hudson’s arms. They wrapped around me as the two of us lost our balance, falling into the shoulder before rolling into the grassy ditch together, finally coming to a stop.
With my world still spinning, I lifted my head, staring directly into Hudson’s eyes.
The way I was sprawled across him was somewhat reminiscent of the way two people in love laid together, limbs tangled, breaths mixing.
Except neither of us breathed. We were chest to chest, with one of my hands pressed against his bare shoulder while the other was spread into the grass at his side, propping myself up.
My loose hair hung around us in a curtain, rays of sun peeking through the strands.
Hudson was still as a statue underneath me, but his arms were unrelenting at my waist, wrapped in a vise I couldn’t push up from even if I had the wherewithal to do so.
Ever so slightly, I flexed my fingers against his skin, feeling the smooth muscle underneath.
This was the first time our bodies had really collided since the bridge, but we had never been like this. Chest to chest, legs to legs. My heart gave a surprised tha-thump, one that seemed to bring my body to vibrant alertness.
As I stared down at him, feeling my heart race in my chest, I had one thought. He is the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen.
And it was at that moment that I wasn’t sure if it was my heart racing or his.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered back, because something about the distance between his mouth and mine made talking normal too loud. “Are you?”
“I probably have a grass stain along the back of my head, but I think so.”
I wanted to laugh, but I just continued to stare.
Hudson’s hands loosened their band around my waist, moving to settle at my hips.
With all ten of his fingers pressing firmly into my sides, he eased me off of him and into a sitting position on the grassy bank.
It was my heart racing fast, I knew then, because it sped up even more at the touch, and dipped in disappointment when he drew away. Swallowing hard, I looked away.
“People drive like idiots on this road,” he said, dusting off his sweatpants with one hand while rubbing his head with the other. “I…should’ve told you that.”
“Yeah, a heads-up would’ve been nice,” I said with a breathy chuckle, wincing. “Is that why you followed me? To tell me to mind the NASCAR racers?”
“I was going to apologize for being a jerk,” he said, the blue in his eyes much different than they’d been five minutes ago. All of the irritation was gone, replaced with vivid concern. “Are you really okay?”
Even though he’d taken most of the fall, I took mental stock of everything.
There was a big grass stain along the hem of my skirt from where I stepped on the fabric and mashed it into the ground, one that would take a lot of pre-treatment to get out.
Not as bad as the butter incident with Jaden, though, thankfully.
My palm had a pretty bad scrape across it from where I’d braced myself in the fall.
It stung something fierce, and I couldn’t tell if any glass slivers from the shoulder had embedded into my skin.
Hudson reached out and cupped my hand with his, peering closely. “It’s not bad, but we should still clean it. I have stuff at my house.”
At that moment, I didn’t question the one-eighty Hudson had turned, how he went from so angry upon seeing me to concerned.
I didn’t think about how he’d been snapping mere minutes ago to gently holding my hand now.
In fact, that dazed thought from a moment ago still lingered now, becoming a distant whisper.
He is the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen. “Okay.”