Nineteen
I make it three steps past reception before Hudson appears, wearing exactly the expression I was hoping not to see tonight.
His eyes go straight to my forehead. “No.”
“Good evening to you too.”
“You’re not going in there.”
“Excuse me?”
He’s still staring at the bruise. The purple-black has faded to a sickly yellow-green that’s spread toward my temple, and no amount of concealer is fully covering it.
“It looks worse than it is,” I say.
“It looks terrible.”
I roll my eyes and try to step around him.
He blocks me. Again.
“What are you doing?” I ask, planting my hands on my hips.
“Preventing you from going in.”
“You and Dr. Webb agreed I could sit in.”
“Before you fainted.”
“So?”
“So everyone in that room watched you lose consciousness, and now you want to walk back in looking like that?” He points directly at my forehead.
I slap a hand over it. “Stop pointing. I’m starting to feel bullied.”
Hudson exhales through his nose. It’s the sound he makes whenever I’ve exhausted him. I’ve come to enjoy it.
“It’ll distract the group,” he says. “Cara will spend the first twenty minutes fielding questions about whether you’re okay instead of running the session. You’ll hate the attention.”
Bastard.
He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“I liked you better before you knew things about me.”
He turns and starts down the hallway, getting a few feet before he realizes I haven’t moved.
“Where are we going?” I ask, eyeing his back.
“Observation room.”
My stomach dips. “That’s your creepy room. One-way glass, dim lighting, people being watched. Creepy.”
He just keeps walking. “Cara already approved it.”
“Wait.” He stops and looks over his shoulder. “You asked her?”
“This afternoon.”
“You assumed I’d come?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
That does something irritatingly warm to my chest.
He tips his head toward the door at the end of the hall. “You coming?”
I shift my bag higher on my shoulder and follow.
What choice do I have? I need the inspiration.
The observation room is smaller than I expected.
A long pane of one-way glass takes up most of one wall, facing the therapy room.
Two monitors sit on a narrow desk beneath it, one displaying a session log, the other a set of graphs that mean nothing to me.
Two chairs sit in front of the glass, very close together.
I move toward the second chair, then pause. There’s a thick seat cushion on it and a lumbar support strapped around the back.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He doesn’t look away from his monitor. “A cushion.”
“I know what a cushion is.”
“Then this is going well.”
“You did this?”
“I put them there, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to be sitting here for an hour.”
I run my fingers over the edge of it.
Something tightens in my throat. I don’t like it, so naturally I ruin it. “Is this our second date? It feels romantic.”
“It’s a cushion.”
“And a lumbar support. Very sexy.”
“I wasn’t trying to seduce you.”
“Please. Look at you in your knit sweater and glasses. I know what you’re doing, Dr. Vaughn.”
His mouth pulls at the corner.
When I finally sit, I need to hold back a groan because my ass is sitting on a cloud.
Oh, he bought the expensive stuff.
Show off.
“Better?” he asks.
“No.” He looks over at me and arches an eyebrow, seeing right through my bullshit. “Maybe.”
“Thought so.”
Through the glass, the group room looks bigger than it does from the inside.
“Can they see us?” I ask, leaning toward the pane.
“No.”
I wave both hands.
“Rowan,” he warns.
“You just said they can’t see me.”
“That’s not the point.”
I give Howard the finger anyway.
“Are you five?” Hudson scolds.
“Howard won’t mind. He probably wouldn’t even notice if he could see me. Have you heard how many anniversaries he’s forgotten?”
Hudson looks over at me, tilting his head. “What is your problem with Howard, anyway?”
“My problem isn’t with that Howard,” I tell him, tapping my chin with my pencil. “My first boyfriend’s name was Howard. His mother used to call him Howie.”
Hudson blinks, looking entirely unimpressed by my story. “I still don’t see a problem.”
“One day in class,” I continue, “he got a papercut and said, ‘Howie got an owie.’”
Hudson’s jaw goes slack.
“You see?” I nod solemnly. “I was scarred for life. Now every time Dr. Webb says the name Howard, I get second-hand embarrassment.”
“Howie… got an owie?”
“Yep.”
“On a professional level, I now understand your aversion to relationships.”
“Exactly.”
He looks down at his notes and rubs his temple. “Howie got an owie,” he mutters under his breath.
The good doctor is perplexed.
I open my sketchbook as Dr. Webb closes the door on the other side, signaling the start of the session. “Last week we spoke about patterns. Tonight I want to talk about attention.” She looks around at everyone. “When did you first realize your partner had stopped noticing you?”
Well, that’s just fucking rude.
The memory of the night I first met Hudson outside my parents’ house comes flooding back.
You should have Beckett look at that leg.
I thought you were a psychiatrist.
I am. I notice things.
I force my pencil to move against the paper, but the observation room suddenly feels ten degrees too warm.
Beside me, Hudson shifts in his seat. The whisper of fabric draws my attention. He rolls his sleeves to his elbows and leans forward, pushing himself directly into my peripheral vision.
My eyes trace the flex of his wrist, the subtle line of tendons, and the way his long fingers rest against the dark wood.
It isn’t until the session ends that I realize what I’ve drawn.
Staring back at me in terrifyingly intimate detail is Hudson’s hand.
Every joint, the precise turn of his wrist, and the subtle shadow cast by his knuckles. It’s practically a love letter to his anatomy.
Oh, God.
I try to slam the sketchbook shut, but I’m a second too late.
A shadow falls over the page.
“Look at that,” Hudson murmurs, looking over my shoulder. “You even got the scar. I’m flattered. Though I thought today’s topic was attention, not fixation.”
“It isn’t a fixation. You were standing right there.”
He chuckles and plucks the sketchbook out of my hands. “This is the work of a woman who was staring.”
I lunge up from the chair to grab it, but he holds it just out of reach. “I don’t know. I think this should go on the fridge. Or maybe I’ll frame it for my office.”
“Hudson, I swear to God—”
I reach for it again, but my head spins. The entire room tilts on its axis.
“Whoa—”
Hudson catches me around the waist, his other hand cupping the back of my neck as he steadies me against his chest.
The air gets sucked out of the room.
My forehead rests just below his collarbone. I’m pinned against him, held upright by the solid pressure of his hands, and I can feel the rapid thud of his heartbeat under his sweater.
Neither of us breathes.
His thumb rests against the base of my throat, right over my thrumming pulse.
“Are you falling for me?” he teases softly. “Or was that just the weight of your embarrassment?”
I swallow hard and look up at him. His blue eyes are dark, searching my face, lingering on my lips before darting up to the bruise on my temple.
“The room spun,” I whisper, my chest heaving.
“You’re still getting dizzy?”
“Only when I stand too fast.”
He doesn’t move his hand from my neck. He simply holds me there, the proximity no longer an accident, but a choice. “Can you stand on your own?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, though my legs feel like lead.
Slowly, his hands fall away, leaving a ghost of heat where his palms had been. I lean back against the desk for support, clutching my sketchbook against my chest.
“Gemma is opening up more.” My voice is raspy as I scramble to throw a wedge of distance between us. “Did you notice?”
“I noticed.” He clears his throat and steps back toward the door, though his eyes haven’t lost that intense, lingering burn. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
We walk side by side toward the exit.
He glances down at the sketchbook under my arm and nudges me. “So, are you going to sign it for me later?”
I try to stop it, I really do, but a smile takes over my face.
“Fuck off, Hudson.”