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I slinked back to my office with a dark cloud hanging over my head—confusion over Adriana listing me as the baby’s father, frustration over Nico’s refusal to let me talk to him about it, and a lingering hint of nerves over who Griff Marian was to Nico besides friends. Which, of course, just led me to the depressed realization that it was none of my business.
After getting through the rest of my workday in a daze that involved brushing off nosy questions from half the town, I shuffled upstairs, intending to crawl into bed for a long nap. Lo and behold, my brother Hudson was sitting at my kitchen table again, working on his laptop.
“Hey,” I said, kicking off my shoes and going to the fridge for a beer. “Want one?”
Hudson looked up before indicating to the fast-food cup sitting on the table next to his computer. “Nah. I stopped for a sweet tea on the way over here. Needed some caffeine.”
A few of my siblings, including Hudson, lived a couple of hours away in Dallas. It didn’t stop them from driving out to Hobie all the time to be with the family, but it usually didn’t include a weekday visit like this one.
“What did you come back to town so soon for? Here to see Darci again?” I asked, twisting open the cap and sitting down next to him.
He looked up in surprise. “What? No. Well, kind of, I guess. Actually—”
I raised an eyebrow at his rambling, and he blew out a breath.
“I came Friday for the bonfire and stayed at Doc and Grandpa’s all weekend. I just haven’t gone back to the city yet. Darci asked if I’d stay and have lunch with her today before she had to go to work, so I did.”
“Why do you sound so freaked about it?” I asked.
“I’m not freaked. I’m just… I don’t know.”
“Put out?” I suggested.
Hudson scrubbed his hands over his face before closing his laptop. “I guess so. I don’t know what my problem is. She’s so fucking sweet and cute. Honestly? I just… don’t really know how I feel either way. Isn’t that terrible? What the hell’s my problem?”
“There’s no problem, Hud. Sometimes there’s just no chemistry even when you feel like there should be. There’s a huge difference between someone being right for you on paper and someone feeling right for you in your heart. Sometimes you get one without the other, and that’s okay.”
“You sound like you speak from experience. Are you talking about Xavier?”
I laughed and shook my head. Xavier had been the closest thing I’d had to a boyfriend in the past ten years. His family had moved to town when we were seniors in high school. Everyone kept telling me how perfect we were for each other, so I’d finally caved and agreed to give it a try when we’d found ourselves in medical school together. It was odd. I’d felt like a Ken doll walking around town with another Ken doll, feeling perfect in our perfection as we smiled at each other with matching tooth sparkles. There had been no passion, no fire. And somehow I’d convinced myself that fire was too much to ask for. Maybe real relationships didn’t really have that.
Things with Xavier had been fine, but just not… great.
When I’d finally told him it wasn’t working, he’d been shocked. I still remembered him saying, “But we’re perfect for each other—ask anyone.”
He’d been so upset he’d avoided Hobie like the plague after that. He’d taken a surgical placement in Atlanta and rarely even came home long enough to visit his parents for the holidays. I hadn’t seen him in ages.
“Yes, Hudson. I’m talking about Xavier,” I said, even though I’d been thinking of Nico. My brother was right. Xavier was the perfect example of what I was trying to explain.
“I just feel so bad for her. She’s been trying to get me to notice her forever. How do I tell her it doesn’t feel right without hurting her feelings? Maybe I’m being too hasty. Maybe I should take her out again and give it another chance first.”
I looked at my brother and tried to think of how to explain it.
“Don’t you want to be with someone who lights you up the minute you see them? Someone you either want to throttle or kiss or… argue with or laugh with or… just fucking attack with your entire body the moment you’re in their presence? Someone you can’t keep your goddamned hands off of and can’t stop thinking about when you’re apart from them?”
Flashes of Nico fired in my brain and my body as if a Nico fireworks show had been shot off in my nervous system.
Hudson stared at me, unblinking. “Weston? Something you want to talk about?”
“No.”
He snorted and laughed until the corners of his eyes were wet. “Sure, buddy. I buy that… not.”
