“Who’s yelling in here?” Quinn pokes her head into the room and frowns when she sees Chelsea. “Reagan-”
“It’s nothing, we were just talking about Dad.”
Quinn shrugs. “Oh yeah, he’s in Angola with The Guys.” She frowns at me. “You really should find the time to talk when he calls you know, it’s not exactly easy to make phone call from there.”
I suppress the urge to growl. “So he’s with the guys in some remote corner of the globe instead of spending time here with us while you’re back on break, huh?” I roll my eyes, “Shocker.”
Quinn makes a face. “Oh, did you want to go to the sub-Saharan conflict zone, Reagan? Were you just dying to take in the scenery with a dash of extreme poverty and active war zone?”
“You know what I mean. I mean spending time with them all the time.”
My older sister frowns. “It’s work, Reagan. And besides, you know they’re all military or whatever. It’s like a brotherhood thing.”
I shrug. “Yeah but they just - I don’t know, they’re weird.”
Quinn grins, “You mean hot.”
“Um, not what I meant, but eh, I guess.”
“You guess?” Quinn is grinning at me. “Uh, news to Reagan, they’re hot. Chels? You with me here?”
Chelsea blushes and grins. “They’re super cute, Reagan.”
“They’re old!”
Quinn laughs. “Fuck you! Old? I think Hudson’s my age and Bryce is younger than that, bitch.”
“Fine, whatever.” I reach for the TV remote.
My older sister frowns again. “Did you finish your application essay for Columbia yet?”
I groan dramatically, “Yes, MOM.”
She bristles, and I cringe. “Sorry.”
“Just finish that application, dummy.”
P R E S E N T
“What, no Charger?” I smirk at Hudson as his driver brings the Bentley limo around to the back-door of the gym.
He flashes that cocky grin at me as he opens the door for us. “Not today.”
“Hmm, yeah, much too flashy,” I nod with phony enthusiasm. “Good thing you’ve got the Bentley limousine as a far more inconspicuous backup.”
He shrugs, “What fun is money if you can’t spend it?”
“Oh is there money you haven’t spent? I wasn’t aware of that.” I smile sweetly at him, nodding towards the sleek, ultra-luxury Bentley.
“Get in the car, Archer,” he smirks, his eyes glinting at me.
Later as we’re finishing lunch on the rooftop terrace of the exclusive place he takes us, I frown as I watch him. Half-listening to him as he doles out relationship advice to Chelsea.
There’s a mystery to Hudson, almost as if there are two of him both sharing the same stupidly good-looking body. The one Hudson is arrogant and - wait, no, scratch that, both Hudson’s are arrogant. But while the one smug, cocky, overly-confident Hudson surrounds himself with luxury and and sarcasm and boorish behavior, there’s another one that I keep getting glimpses of, like the one sitting here talking to my sister.
That Hudson is, well, utterly different. The second Hudson is fragile and partly broken, full of demons with fire in his eye. He’s the man with battle-scars and tattoos peeking out just enough from underneath that Armani armor to make me crazy to want to know which Hudson is the real one.
Or are they both?
But then of course, I’m reminded of who he is. I’m reminded that however charming and sober and put-together this new Hudson is, this is still one of the family of men my father surrounded himself with off in some remote corner of the globe when he was avoiding us - his real family. I remind myself that however handsome his face is, and however sweet he’s being to Chelsea right now, this man has an agenda in helping finance my campaign.
My father might be gone, but Hudson Banks is here, as if he’s helping my Dad exert his will over me from beyond the grave, which is a bizarre and uncomfortable thought.
Chelsea seems right as rain with him though, sitting there wrapped around Hudson’s finger. I shake my head at the sudden pang of, well, something that sure feels a whole lot like jealousy, even I know that’s impossible. But just the same, I find myself clenching my hand a little tighter around my water glass as Chelsea leans towards him, and puts her hand on his arm as she laughs at something he says.
I mean it’s harmless. Her mannerisms are far more sibling-like than anything flirty, but I still can’t seem to shake the possessive feeling, as if Hudson is mine somehow.
But of course, he’s not ‘Mine,’ I’m not ‘His,’ and there’s nothing between us in that regard at all. He made that perfectly clear back before, during that summer and then at my father’s house. And then of course, I have to remember what he did - or more importantly what he didn’t do that night back then. I have to close my eyes and remember just how shitty I felt when I came downstairs and saw him walking out the door with that girl-