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“I lost you.”
Those three words made my stomach drop to my fucking feet.
Was he…was he serious? Normally my first instinct would be to call his bluff, but the sincerity in his eyes made me stop short.
Drew leaned forward, and the table between us suddenly felt way too small.
“You don’t hate me, H,” he whispered. “I know you. You’re stubborn like me, and maybe you want to, but you don’t. And I don’t hate you either.”
My head was spinning. Drew’s confession was something I’d known deep down but hadn’t wanted to face. It was so much easier keeping things black and white.
Love and hate.
Good and evil.
Hudson and Drew.
I didn’t know how to navigate the grey area where he wanted to exist. I didn’t even know if we could. Or if I wanted to.
“Drew…” I started, but I couldn’t seem to force any words out.
A dull buzzing sounded in the room, and I looked behind me, searching for the noise. The overhead light and table lamps flickered to life. A rush of air blew out of the A/C unit suddenly, and out the window I could see lights of nearby buildings coming back on, one by one. The rain had finally let up, now just a light mist, but dark clouds still swirled overhead. It looked like the worst was over—at least outside, anyway. I wasn’t sure the same could be said about what was happening in this room.
Drew was still looking at me expectantly, and I knew I needed to say something, anything, but for once in my life, I was at a loss.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding…
A series of message alerts rang out from my cell, one after another, both texts and emails. Drew’s must’ve still been powered down, or no doubt his would be going nuts too.
If we hadn’t been in the middle of something, I had no doubt he’d be jumping for joy to get back electricity and Wi-Fi right about now. Instead, he was still waiting for a response.
But I was drawing a blank. It made the tension in the room so thick that I was practically choking on it.
Drew let out a small, self-deprecating chuckle and shook his head. “Nothing to say, huh?”
I opened and shut my mouth several times, fully intending to respond, but he waved me off.
“I’m, uh, gonna go get some air,” he said, getting to his feet. He threw on a shirt, grabbed his cell phone and shoved it in his pocket. “Check in with my parents if my phone isn’t dead.”
And just like that, I managed to finally speak.
“Here, take mine.” I held my cell out for him, and to my surprise, he reached for it. Usually he’d be too stubborn and proud, but his defenses were down, at least momentarily.
“Thanks.” His fingers brushed against mine as they wrapped around the phone, and his touch sent a jolt through my body.
God, why did I always react to him, whether I wanted to or not?
As he left the room, I felt all the tension that had built between us deflate in an instant, and I let out a long sigh. The playing cards still littered the floor, and I quickly picked them up and put them away, even as my mind flashed back to the way he’d sent them scattering.
It’d been hot. I couldn’t deny that. The whole thing, if it were true, was enough to dent the coat of steel I’d armored myself with, but was it enough to destroy it?
Fuck. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.
With my phone gone, I decided to pull out my laptop and check messages there. It was strange to be so out of touch with the world, even for such a short amount of time, and this small bit of normalcy had me feeling less unsteady already.
Texts from my family littered the screen, and I quickly responded to each one before moving down the line. Work emails, nothing too important or pressing—
Except for one.
