15. Hudson
“Y’all,” I called, lifting my hands to stop my friends from totally freaking out, but all three of them were too busy on the phone already calling the other three. “It’s not that bad of a—Jesus,” I muttered, pressing the palm of my hand against my forehead just as pain spiked through my skull and Oaklynn appeared in the doorway.
Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks were blotchy from crying, and her expression was filled with trauma.
I immediately dropped my hand from my brow, feeling like shit for putting her through this.
“Hey, darlin’,” I said, trying to come up with an apology sufficient enough to make up for the literal nightmare I knew I’d just put her through.
Two nights in a row.
“Oh God, Hudson,” she gasped and came rushing forward. “I am so sorry you had to live through that.”
“No, no,” I insisted, opening my arms to receive the hug that she seemed intent on giving me. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I never meant to share those kinds of visuals with you. I have no idea how I did it, but I’ll make sure I never do it again. Okay?”
“That is not even what I’m worried about right now,” she insisted. “I’m just—it must’ve been so horrible for you. Watching your best friend?—”
“Yeah,” I said to keep her from finishing her sentence.
As she tightened her arms around me, I rested my cheek on her hair and greedily accepted whatever comfort she wanted to provide. Over her shoulder, I caught sight of Damien watching us as he hung up his phone.
“Union just got out of his morning practice. He’s on his way.” His gaze dropped to Oaklynn, and suddenly, his eyes widened before he lurched forward and grabbed her arm. “Babe,” he started in a shaking voice as he tugged her right out of my embrace.
In one smooth move, he grabbed a napkin off the table and pulled her snug against him before pressing the tissues to her nose. “You’re bleeding.”
“Am I?” She lifted her finger to investigate the area while Damien led her to a chair and made her sit.
“Lean forward and pinch your nose, okay?” he instructed in a calm voice, even though the tension on his face told all of us he was freaking the fuck out.
But so was I. Gripping my head, I started to back away across the kitchen until my back bumped into the oven. “Oh fuck, Dimples. I’m sorry. I’m so?—”
“This is totally not you,” she argued, trying to look up at me and waving her hand in dismissal, except Damien pressed her head right back down, nearly between her legs.
“It hasn’t stopped yet,” he said as he motioned his hand urgently toward the table. “I need more.”
Alec rushed to snag a handful of napkins, and Parker crowded closer, grimacing. “Damn, that’s really bleeding.”
“Wow, thanks,” Oaklynn’s nasally voice came up from her lap.
“I’ve never seen you get a nosebleed before,” Alec said, handing the whole handful of napkins to Damien, who then pressed them to her face. “Is this new?”
“Yeah,” Oaklynn muffled back through all the dark hair that was spilling over her face. “First time ever. It’s kind of freaking me out. I’m going to be okay, right?”
“I mean…” Alec winced. “I got them all the time as a kid, but I never shared a ghost dream with anyone else before, so…”
Damien shot him a deadly glance. “Not helping,” he gritted out before turning back to Oaklynn and running a hand over her hair. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“So first nosebleed directly after sharing a dream about a ghost with Hudson. Damn. This really is Ivey’s fault,” Parker concluded as he lifted his eyebrows condemningly my way.
I shrank backward even more, already feeling shitty enough, while Oaklynn growled, “No. It’s not?—”
The back door blew open, interrupting everything.
“I’m gone two fucking nights,” Keene ranted as he stormed inside, his arms waving in anger. “And y’all decide to experience dream sharing and retrocognition without me? Thanks a—what the hell is wrong with Vargas?”
He stopped abruptly beside Parker when he finally noticed that everyone else but me was gathered around her, and Damien was tossing aside bloody napkins so he could press a fresh batch to her nose.
Parker sent Keene a dry glance. “We decided it was time to jump her into the gang.”
“Without me?” Keene exploded in clear affront. Then he frowned my way and motioned crazily. “And why is Ivey hovering all the way across the room, looking guilty like he did this?”
“Because I think I did,” I muttered miserably.
Keene’s brow furrowed in confusion, so Alec caught him up to speed with a quick, “They hugged. She started to bleed.”
“Ah.” Rubbing his chin, Keene nodded thoughtfully before lifting a finger. “I have read that nosebleeds aren’t exactly uncommon during paranormal activity.”
“Thalia never made my nose bleed,” Oaklynn argued, sitting upright and shoving her hair back into place before lifting her hand to cover Damien’s fingers that were intent on staunching the blood flow. “I think it’s stopped.”
Unconvinced, he kneeled before her and set a finger under her chin to tilt her face up. “Let me see.”
As he looked up her nostrils, Keene winced and took a step back. “Damn. You are not looking your finest right now.”
Oaklynn shot him a glare. “Screw you.”
“I mean, I would,” he answered. “But you seem pretty attached to Archer.”
“I’ll get you a wet, warm washcloth to clean up,” Alec said, hurrying toward the sink, next to where I was still hovering.
“I still don’t see how I gave her a nosebleed,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not a fucking ghost.”
“Just how hard did you hug her?” Parker wondered.
I scowled at him, while Oaklynn once again insisted, “This isn’t Hudson’s fault. Thank you, Alec.” She accepted the washcloth he handed her and pressed it to her nose, only to groan in delight and close her eyes. “Oh God, that feels good.”
When Keene and Alec grinned mischievously at each other as if thinking the same thing, Oaklynn lifted a finger without even opening her lashes. “Don’t say it.”
But there was no stopping the two freshmen once something dirty had entered their heads. “That’s what she said,” they chorused together, snickering sophomorically.
“Wow,” I murmured, shaking my head sadly as the back door came open again. “Y’all just can’t help but be immature dumbasses, can you?”
Thane slowed to a stop as he entered the back door. “Well, you were right,” he told Parker. “He is turning into you again.” Swiveling his attention back to me, he approached almost leerily. “How’re you feeling, bud?”
“Better than Vargas,” I answered, motioning toward her and hoping to avoid his worried attention. “She just got a nosebleed from hugging me.”
“Oh, shit.” His concern successfully diverted, Thane turned back to her and touched her shoulder. “Do you get them a lot?”
“This is the first one,” Alec answered for her, just as Foster swept inside.
“Damn, Oaklynn,” he said the moment he got a look at her. “Who hit you?”
Around me, every other guy in the room answered, “Ivey.”
* * *
“For cripe’s sake,”I growled an hour later, as I pushed up from my chair and lifted my hands irritably. “I’m not that bad off yet.”
“Then maybe you should check the aggressive way you’re standing right now,” Parker countered with a little too much smugness in his smirk. “Because that’s not a normal Hudson pose.”
When I glanced down at my stance, however, I scowled in frustration and dropped my hands.
“And if I recall correctly,” Foster spoke up. “That last time you told us to relax, we were visiting you in the hospital two weeks later.”
Fuck.
I pushed a hand through my hair. “It just—it feels different this time. Alright?”
“Different, how?” Thane asked. “Is it not as painful?”
“No.” I shook my head, furrowing my brow as I tried to think up the best way to explain what was happening. “It’s still just as intense as I remember it being. But I don’t have the urge to claw it out of me this time the same way I used to. Like… I don’t feel as if I need drugs or alcohol to deal with it. I can just weather it better now or something. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“No, I think that makes sense,” Alec said. “You’re older and wiser. Both your mind and body should be stronger than when you were fourteen.”
“But what the hell even is it?” Parker asked.
“Well, if it’s triggering Oaklynn too, then it has to be about Brett,” Keene said logically. “Since she’s Ghost Girl.”
Oaklynn glanced at Damien dryly. “Boy, do I just love that name,” she deadpanned.
As he stroked a hand over her hair in comfort and then tugged her from her chair and into his lap, I turned my attention to the others.
“Except that doesn’t explain why it happened before. Oaklynn was nowhere near Westport when I was fourteen. So why then?”
Everyone was silent for a moment before Keene shrugged. “You lost your virginity then.”
Alec sent him a confused squint. “You actually remember when Ivey lost his virginity?”
“Hell, yeah.” Keene nodded as if it were no big deal. “I remember when we all did. And besides, he was the first of us to pop his cherry. At the time, it was, like, the coolest thing on the planet. And it happened not long before he went off the deep end. Remember? Plus, wasn’t the girl he lost it to big into all that weird, voodoo shit? Maybe she was a sensitive like Oaklynn, and she was the first person to stir up Brett’s ghost.”
“Oh!” Foster snapped his fingers and pointed. “Yes, I remember her. She told me my chi was out of flow once. Then she put all these needles in me and?—”
“Dude. You let some crazy chick put needles in you?” Parker demanded.
Foster shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know how to say no. I was afraid she might stop seeing Hud if I offended her. And besides, I felt great afterward. I think it actually helped me throw a ball better because I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn before that.”
“Ah… So you used voodoo to cheat and become a good ball player? Wow, the truth comes out.”
Foster sent Parker a dry glance and answered, “It wasn’t voodoo. I think it was some kind of Chinese technique.”
“But does it mean she was a psychic medium like Oaklynn?” Thane pressed.
When everyone looked at me for an answer, I shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Parker scoffed. “Maybe because you’re the one who had sex with her. Did you not learn anything about this girl in those few days you two were together?”
“Actually, I think we hooked up for the better part of a month, but, no, not really. Nothing useful anyway. She was just weird, you know… Wore a lot of strange symbols and was big into new age shit. I didn’t think much of it at the time. All I cared about was the fact that she was three years older than me and liked teaching me a whole lot of fun stuff.”
When I winked at Oaklynn, she rolled her eyes.
“Well, do you happen to know how we find her now?” Thane asked. “So we can ask her if she’s somehow psychically connected to ghosts.”
Parker snickered. “Oh, I would love to hear you have that conversation with her.”
I cringed. “But he can’t because, sorry man, she died.”
“What? How did she die?” Damien demanded. “Was it soon after you met her?”
“Jeez, Ive.” Keene whistled and shook his head. “Did you give some girl your virginity, only to get her killed?”
“No,” I cried defensively. “It was a couple of years later, long after I lost contact with her. She’d moved to New Orleans by then, from what I heard. And I have no idea how she died. There was a rumor it was suicide, but I don’t really know.”
“Suicide?” Foster repeated in alarm.
Alec spread his arms to motion to both me and Oaklynn. “So now we need to worry about both Ivey and Oaklynn harming themselves?”
“Hey, I feel fine,” Oaklynn argued.
Only for Parker to touch the side of his own nose. “Yeah, and I think you still have a little leftover blood right here.”
She rushed to wipe at her nose, only to realize he wasn’t being serious. Scowling, she sent him the middle finger before she asked the rest of us, “Why aren’t I actually seeing Brett like I did Thalia, though?”
“And what’s up with the dream-sharing stuff?” Alec wondered.
When no one had a ready answer, Keene cleared his throat. “There’s a place I want to go and ask some questions,” he said. “See if we can get some answers there. And I’d like to take Vargas with me.”
“Ooh.” Oaklynn sat upright, perking to attention. “Road trip. Count me in.”
Keene grimaced at her. “It’s in town.”
“Oh.” She slumped back against Damien, uninterested.
“Okay, then.” Thane glanced around. “That’s good. That’s a start. Does anyone else have any ideas?”
“For what?” Parker demanded. “We don’t know shit about what’s happening or why. How do we even begin to fight this?”
“Well, we know more now than we did six and half years ago,” Foster said with an encouraging nod before he grinned at Oaklynn and lifted a hand for a high five. “Thanks to Vargas, we know it must have something to do with ghosts.”
As she slapped her palm against his, Alec agreed with Foster. “That’s true. It’s definitely something paranormal-related and not just some typical brain tumor or depression as we assumed back when Ivey was fourteen.”
Parker sighed and threw up his hands in defeat. “Well, of course, it couldn’t be something we could actually combat with normal things like science or medicine. No. Ivey has to go freaky, supernatural problem on us.”
I shrugged. “Sorry.”
“I just don’t want you to pull away from us and shut us out the way you did last time,” Thane said, watching me with acute worry. “Promise you won’t push any of us away again.”
“I won’t,” I assured him. “But I’m telling you, I’ve got this. I can handle it this time.”
“Would you be able to tell us if you’d stopped being able to handle it, though?”
“I swear to you,” I assured, looking him straight in the eyes. “I’ll be open and honest every step of the way. I won’t hide shit or try to push you away.”
Even though I’d only pushed them away last time to protect them.
These guys were my brothers. My heart and soul. Their lives were more valuable to me than my own. And when I’d felt a dark violence swelling up inside me, I had taken all of it on to myself so it wouldn’t harm a single one of them.
“And if I ever change any of that,” I went on, “then you can worry, okay?”
“I’ll still feel a lot better about this if we take turns keeping an eye on you,” Thane started.
As the others chipped in, already coming up with a schedule, I lifted my hands. “Nope, sorry. No playing bodyguards this time. I’ve got brunch at the country club with the princess within the hour. And then work, and my six-month review after that. I have to appear absolutely normal and not like someone on suicide watch, okay? My entire future depends on this.”
The others glanced at each other as if they wanted a reason to disagree with me, but they knew they couldn’t—because I was planning for my future and in no way acting as if I was ready to end it all. I knew I’d won this round.