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Before he can lift himself off the couch, I’m already over there pushing him back down. “Get down, Hudson! I swear, you’re going to make your ankle worse and miss more and more games.”
“But you might get cut from the glass,” he whines.
“I have band-aids, I’ll be fine.” With my hands planted against his chest, Hudson reluctantly lets me push him back down into a lying position. I draw myself up to my full height over the coach and shake my head, looking at him like a disappointed schoolteacher regarding a pupil who hasn’t followed directions for the fiftieth time. “I swear, I’ve never met someone so frustrating to take care of.” Turning around, I add with a sigh, “You’re lucky I love you.”
The words pop out of my mouth without me thinking. It’s like they somehow bypassed my brain and teleported straight to my lips.
I freeze, realizing what I just said. It feels like all the air is sucked out of the room.
I stay standing still, quarter-turned away from Hudson. Tension curls around me as I wait to see how, or if, he’ll react.
But the beats of heavy silence only tick on.
My eyes slice in Hudson’s direction, but my head is too turned away from him for me to get a read on his expression from my peripheral vision. And I’m too embarrassed by the fact that I just told Hudson I love him so carelessly, so without a thought, to turn my neck to face him.
Especially since he hasn’t made a single sound since it happened.
I’ve spent so much time thinking about saying those words to Hudson, imagining the perfect scenario to finally express what I’ve been feeling for a while.
And how do they come out? When I’m trying to get him to lie on the couch while I go clean up a shattered lightbulb. Not the storybook romantic scene I dreamed of.
Hudson acting like a monk who’s taken a vow of silence? Not the storybook reaction I dreamed of, either.
By the time my muscles thaw enough for me to head to the kitchen, Hudson still hasn’t said a word. Or made a sound. There’s a feeling like a big, heavy piece of lead in my stomach as I find the cleaning utensils and sweep up the shards of glass.
I still can’t bring myself to meet Hudson’s eyes when I walk back to the couch. I don’t know if he’s looking at me, or at anything but me.
Not knowing what else to do, I settle back down on the couch next to Hudson. He doesn’t shrink away. He still loops his big arm around me, and I still nestle close to him. But neither of us make a remark about the bomb I dropped in the middle of the living room with those three explosive words.
“Want to watch another movie?” Hudson finally says something, but his words sound like the careful, tentative footsteps of a man walking through a minefield.
I guess we’re just going to pretend those three words never happened.
“Okay,” I answer. Though it’s hard to shake the feeling that something’s different.
45
HUDSON
Well, that sucked.
We skate off the ice after an embarrassing loss at home.
Honestly, embarrassing doesn’t cut it. Mortifying is better. A mortifying 5-1 loss at home.
That’s right. Five. I let five shots in the net.
In the locker room, I strip off my pads in silence. The guys tell me not to sweat it, that it’s only to be expected that after my ankle sprain, I’m not going to be as quick in the crease as I usually am.
The truth? My ankle has nothing to do with it. I’m feeling fine. Full recovery. I could hop up and down on my ankle for a solid five minutes if I wanted to and not feel an ache.
We’ve had a great season so far, and we can afford the loss, even if it stings. That’s what Lane’s telling me to make me feel better.
Maybe they’re all right. But what really has me worried? That even just moments after the worst performance of my college career, thoughts of the game are already receding into the background of my mind.
What’s pushing past it, taking up center stage in my consciousness?
The fact that just a week ago, Summer said she loves me.
