Fourteen
Hudson
Her gaze drops to the grease-spotted paper bag in my hand. “You brought food.” Her voice is raspy from sleep.
“You need to eat before you take your medication.”
She lets out a defeated huff and steps back, swinging the door open.
I set the bag on the coffee table, unpack the containers, and slide a steaming cup of black coffee toward her end of the couch.
She watches me, her green eyes wide. “You got coffee too.”
“You seem like a person who requires high doses of caffeine to interact with society.”
She reaches for it like a drowning woman, takes a slow sip, and opens the breakfast box. The second she smells the food, she grabs a fork and starts eating like she hasn’t seen a meal in days.
I take the armchair across from her.
Mouth half-full, she looks up. “You’re not eating?”
“I ate an hour ago.”
She mumbles something that sounds vaguely like appreciation, then goes right back to stabbing her eggs.
“As you can see,” she says after a moment, gesturing wildly with her fork, “I’m alive. Survived another day. All thanks to my big hero.”
“Eat your damn breakfast.”
She smiles into her food. I feel a dangerous twitch at the corner of my mouth and shut it down.
She’s wearing the same oversized green sweater from last night, paired with paint-stained gray sweatpants. Her red hair hangs loose around her pale face, the bandage stark at her hairline.
A dark, angry bruise is blooming along her left temple.
“How’s your head?” I ask.
“Better than yesterday.”
“Dizzy?”
“Less.”
“Nausea?”
“Nope.” She points her fork at me. “I’m fine. You can run a full diagnostic, but the conclusion’s going to be the same.”
“Good.”
“That’s it? No flashlight in my eyes?”
“Did you want one?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then eat.”
Twenty minutes later, the food is gone. She’s back to her usual stubborn self, which means I have zero clinical reason to keep standing in her living room.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I say, standing up.
“Bold of you to assume I have a ‘to it.’” She offers a small, quiet smile. “Thank you,” she says, her voice losing its bite. “For the food. And yesterday.”
Shit. She means it. Even if she’s slightly annoyed about having to admit it out loud.
“You’re welcome.”
I turn toward the hallway, but before I can take two steps, a shadow falls across the frosted-glass panel of the front door.
Rowan gasps. “Don’t go out there.”
She’s already on her feet, moving with alarming speed for someone with a taped ankle and a concussion, her eyes wide with panic.
“It’s Piper,” she whispers frantically, hands flying to her hair. “She’ll see a doctor leaving my house at eight in the morning and ask five thousand questions.”
“I can explain that I was checking on you.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because then she’ll ask why you were checking on me.”
“You hit your head.”
“And then she’ll ask how.”
“You fainted.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Hudson. How did you make it through medical school?” She stares at me like I’m dense.
Then I remember our conversation from last night.
Her family doesn’t know.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Rowan lunges forward. “I need to hide you.”
She grabs my forearm. For a woman who claims her joints are held together by a hope and a prayer, her grip is terrifyingly strong.
“Bedroom,” she orders, pointing down the hall like a drill sergeant.
“What the fuck—”
“Move your giant feet.” She pushes harder, throwing her entire weight against me.
The doorbell chimes.
“Hudson, please,” she begs.
Before logic can take over, my feet move. She steers me backward down the hall, opens her bedroom door, and points inside.
I look at the unmade bed, then at her. “You’re hiding me? Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“In your bedroom?”
“It’s not a plot twist I love either, Shrink Wrap. Get in.”
The doorbell rings again, followed by Piper’s muffled voice from the porch. “Ro? You in there?”
Rowan gives me one last shove. “Don’t breathe,” she whisper-hisses, then clicks the door shut and locks me inside.
I stand perfectly still, my keys still clutched in my fist.
“Piper! Hi!” Rowan’s voice rings out in the hallway.
“You look terrible,” I hear Piper say as they step inside. “What the hell happened to your head?”
“Tripped over a canvas in the studio and clipped the workbench.”
“Jesus, Rowan. Did you get checked?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Urgent care.”
Technically, there had been urgency… and care.
“Honestly, Ro. Only you could nearly knock yourself out walking around your own studio.”
Rowan laughs. It’s the most nervous laugh I’ve ever heard.
“You’ve been like this since you were five,” Piper says with a sigh. “Dad used to say he should’ve wrapped you in bubble wrap.”
“I’m fine. Do you want tea? I was just about to make some.”
Their footsteps muffle as they move toward the kitchen.
“You’re not killing yourself over this show, are you? Because if it gets too much, nobody’s going to care if you postpone it.”
“That’s comforting.” The words are dry, but something in her voice isn’t.
“You know what I mean.”
I let out a slow, silent breath and take in my surroundings.
There are paintings here, naturally. A small, unframed canvas hangs above her bed, layered in deep blues.
Anywhere else, I might’ve walked straight past it.
Here, I already know I’ll be thinking about it for weeks.
A dark denim jacket hangs over a chair. On her nightstand sit two battered paperbacks.
How the fuck did I get to this point in my life? Hiding in a twenty-six-year-old painter’s bedroom because she panicked, and I completely forgot how to say no to her.
From the kitchen, the low murmur of their voices continues, followed by Rowan laughing at something her sister said.
I stand still in the quiet room, my eyes fixed on the blue canvas, waiting.