Chapter 23 #2
I took Hudson in all at once. His shoulders were curved as he slouched over his folded legs, still staring at his hands.
His expression was the same sort of bare it’d been earlier, with eyes so clear that it was like I could finally see through them.
His head was ducked now, making it harder to see, but the sincerity was painted across his face in a clear swipe.
There was no missing the bone-weariness there, nor the sadness that lingered by the downturned corners of his lips.
I reached over and slid my hand into one of his, feeling the coolness of his rings press against my skin. I curled my fingers around his hand, hoping the warmth of mine would swallow the leftover cold of his. “You’re not a lost cause.”
“I was okay with being one.” Hudson brought our hands up in front of him, and his other came to trace the backs of my knuckles. “With just ghosting through the halls until graduation. Letting people avoid me, not getting attached. Keeping my head down.”
A flare of heat surged inside me, my familiar mantra popping into my mind. Keep your head down and keep your mouth shut.
“Until you, you know. Until you decided you weren’t going to stay in the mold others put you in. And I started wondering if I could be the same way.”
I watched him watch our hands, feeling as though my heart was about to burst from my chest. “What people say about you isn’t your fault,” I returned steadily, being as firm with him now as he’d been with me earlier.
“I know we joke about it, but you’re not the Grim Reaper.
You’re not some terrifying, horrible senior to steer clear of.
You’re human, and you might mess up, but that doesn’t mean you’re not good enough.
That doesn’t mean that I can’t hold your hand. ”
“Gemma—”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t like you.” The words came out as a confident declaration, words I’d never have said if the sun was up.
Hudson’s lips parted from the shock of the words, but I pushed ahead.
“And…I do like you, Hudson. A good idea or a bad idea, I don’t know, but it’s too late to figure it out now. ”
Hudson held perfectly still as I leaned closer to him, and I could feel his fingers instinctively tighten around mine, squeezing lightning into my veins. It brought us close, only a scant few inches between his face and mine—his mouth and mine—and my body was hyperaware of it.
“I told you that I didn’t know who I was,” I whispered, because now that he was closer, my words felt too loud. Too present. “But these past few weeks, I’ve felt more like myself than I have my entire life.”
I thought he’d say something, but he didn’t. Hudson’s fingers eased a lock of hair behind my ear. His fingertips lingered by the skin there, almost as if memorizing the touch.
As gracefully as I could, I inched closer, forward.
I looked past his glasses and into his eyes, at the little flecks of gray and blue that made up their color.
They were latched onto mine like they’d never move.
And then, giving into the urge that’d risen time and time again, I swiped the pad of my thumb along the scar on his cheek.
The divot was easy to feel, but so was the softness of his cheek, the warmth that pooled there just underneath his skin, almost as if he was blushing. Something in me tightened.
Hudson shivered.
My fingers trailed down to his pulse “Wow,” I murmured with a little gasp, looking up at him with amusement. “Your heart’s beating fast.”
“I want to kiss you,” he said suddenly, without pause or hesitation, the clarity hitting me with the force of a truck.
I almost dropped my hand. “Why don’t you?”
“Because,” he said, voice gently caressing the words, “I want you to want it, too.”
I do, I thought a little unsteadily. I do, I do, I do.
“This entire time, you’ve been the one holding the reins,” he said, reaching past me to thread his fingers through my hair. “Everything’s been your choice. I want this to be, too.”
I leaned forward and kissed the scar on his cheek. Even though it was a short moment, my heart raced with the tenderness of it, dizziness enveloping me as I pulled back. “There,” I murmured, breathless. “I made my choice—”
The words were barely out of my mouth before Hudson reached up and took my face in both of his hands, kissing me back with absolutely zero hesitation.
I fell into the yielding softness of the kiss, of the way his lips molded to mine.
I could taste the grape sweetness of his energy drink, and he had to taste the passion fruit flavor of mine.
His thumbs smoothed across my cheeks in a lulling swipe, and I reached around to rest my hand on the nape of his neck, holding him to me, chest expanding.
It was our first kiss, but it didn’t feel like a first—the way he let me lead, matched me kiss for kiss, it felt like we’d done this before.
Like it was a dance we’d been practicing for weeks, finally getting to perform.
There was something earnest about it, unrelenting, open.
My heart had to be on the brink of exploding in my chest. I was Hudson’s first kiss—the first one he got to experience this with—and the knowledge of it made me smile against his mouth.
Hudson dropped one hand to cup my waist, fingers pressing into my hip, a light squeeze.
I slipped my hands up his shoulders, grasping the fabric of his jacket, letting the world spin and tilt, as long as I had him to hold onto.
This hadn’t been on my rebellion list, but man, oh man, it should’ve been.
We both pulled away at the same time, lingering in the closeness while our hearts slowed. Hudson let out a shaky breath, and I reached up and traced the edge of his bottom lip, causing his eyes to flare again. “Now you know the hype around kissing,” I whispered to him.
“It’s a lot better than I thought it’d be.”
“Only because you had a really good partner.”
Hudson laughed, and as carefully as he could since we were still on the ledge, he pulled me into him.
I rested my head on his shoulder, listening to his chuckle reverberate.
Hearing Hudson’s musical laugh, I had the shocking, out-of-body realization of how much my life had changed.
I didn’t feel different, though. It didn’t feel like I was playing a role in a musical, or that I was pretending to be someone that I wasn’t.
Instead, what I’d told Hudson had been truthful—I’d never felt more like me. Gemma Settler, finally free of the mold she’d been stuck into. Finally free to be who she wanted.
“Don’t regret this later,” he murmured, smoothing his hand in lulling circles against my sweatshirt.
Beyond his shoulder, the sky began to lighten into a dull grayish-blue, the first glimpse of daylight on the horizon. The sunrise was coming, and I had a gut feeling it would be beautiful. “Trust me,” I whispered, melting in deeper as his arms tightened around my waist. “I won’t.”