The Art of You

“A little early for drinkin’, don’t you think?”

I loved when Hudson’s Texas drawl made an appearance. Setting down the unopened bottle on the bar counter, I slowly turned around to find him doing that sexy lean thing in the doorway of my father’s game room. Arms folded. Attention locked on me with concern.

“Or, hear me out, we could pretend we’re at the airport. Rules don’t apply there. Well, at least not judgment of pre-noon drinking.”

He didn’t budge an inch at my joke. His brows remained tight, and so did every line of his body. Rigid and tense.

“Adelina’s gone,” he cut straight to business. “Constantine went with her. Enzo, too. They don’t want her running around the city without backup, especially since the questions she’s asking could get her killed.”

Good idea.

He pushed away from the doorway and came into the room, sweeping his hand along the felt pool table before stopping to pick up the eight ball. “She insisted she’d be fine. Her job is dangerous after all, but we outvoted her on the safety thing. It was five to one. Callie ruled in our favor as well.”

His tone was almost eerily distant and detached, and I couldn’t stand it. Was he mad about Pablo, or knowing I’d be opposed to some medieval idea he’d probably conjured up? Like putting Pablo’s head in a guillotine.

“Will my brothers fly back here later with my parents?” My words were stiff and had me wondering whether I required a drink to get through this talk.

Hudson kept his eyes on the sphere in his hand, perhaps hoping it was one of those Magic 8 Balls, and if he shook it, all of the answers to our ever-growing list of questions would be revealed. “Constantine decided it’d be best for your parents to stay in the city for now. Your mom objected. She was also outnumbered.”

“So democratic of you all in your decision-making processes.” Despite my sarcasm—which was so second nature I just couldn’t help it—I probably would’ve voted the same as my brothers on that one. Having my nervous mother here would only increase my anxiety. “Where are Alessandro and Callie?”

“Unpacking in the suite on the second floor of the pool house. He’ll follow up on some leads from there.” He set the ball down and rolled it, sinking it in the corner pocket. “I guess your brother wants privacy while we’re all staying here.”

Yeah, so no one hears his wife screaming his name during sex. At least one of us here is getting lucky. What a thing for me to be thinking about considering everything going on around me.

“So, it’s just us in the house right now?” I lowered my voice like that was a dirty little secret.

“Us and a few of the security detail rotating in and out of the home, yeah.” Still no eye contact.

“Adelina tell you our theory about Clarke possibly working with Kit?” I asked after stifling a frustrated sigh.

“She did.” He set his back to the pool table, bracing his hands on the wood on each side of him. “As much as I hate the idea you’re being dragged into the political limelight for the sake of a headline because of my father, I’d sure as hell prefer that to the alternative.”

“You.” I pointed to him when he finally looked up at me. “Me.” My finger briefly landed on my chest. “Same boat.” I tried a smile to see if that’d do the trick to loosen this man up. “In your case, submarine.”

He closed one eye and faked a shuddery reaction. “I fucking hated those things. Leave it to me to discover I’m claustrophobic a day too late.”

“And here I thought you opted to go out for the Teams because it sounded cooler. All this time, it was because you were afraid of going down under.”

A light, genuine laugh fell from his lips, and I was relieved to see I could crack through his defenses without too much effort.

“So, um, what do we do now?” I asked when silence replaced the sounds of his laughter.

“We have orders to rest and recover and let everyone else handle things for today.” He stroked his jaw, his facial hair coming in even more since he’d last shaved on Friday.

I searched for something to lean against so I didn’t prove my family right, that I was too tired to stand without support. My gaze flicked to the camera in the room. Constantine had a security app on his phone and was probably checking it regularly. No sound in the room, at least.

“We’re not actually doing that, are we?” Before he could answer, I lifted my hand. “Let me guess, they voted and won.”

“Prettttty much.”

“Did you just drag out a word? Copying me now, huh?” I went over to the poker table and set my palms on the felt.

“You’re a horrible influence, what can I say?” Even-toned voice despite the tease. Were his walls already back up?

“Oh, the worst.” I did my best to soften him once again. “But um, what do we do with our time, then? I’m incapable of twiddling my thumbs or sitting on my hands. I need a distraction.”

His eyes narrowed on my mouth, and now I couldn’t help but imagine the perfect distraction—his lips on mine.

If Bianca was writing my story, she’d surely add in a stolen moment. Probably in a library instead of the game room, but I’d take it anywhere.

The second Hudson locked on to the bruise at my temple and the purple beneath my right eye, his jaw strained and the brood was back.

Bianca, cut me some slack here. I almost looked up at the ceiling, as if she could hear me and really was authoring this moment. I think we’ve had enough tension. I’m ready for him to give in to desire. For some fireworks. I had to give it a shot just in case. God had a sense of humor when it came to me, so anything was possible.

If only Bianca really could pen my life to paper. She’d give me a perfect happily ever after. I just wished her story had turned out with one as well.

“Are you going to keep staring at me like I’m a broken piece of pottery you have no clue how to fix?”

“You’re not broken. No fixin’ needed.” The husky sincerity in his tone and the way he peered at me almost had me believing that.

If only. “Are you going to tell my brothers about Pablo?” I hadn’t intended to pivot to another uncomfortable topic, but the second I’d thought it, out it came.

He shook his head, not taking any time to consider my question. “Your story to tell, not mine. That’s up to you if you share.”

Phew. “Thank you.” The blue felt of the poker table beneath my palms stole my attention and I remembered the first time I’d ever sat here. Felt like yesterday, not decades ago.

“What are you thinking about?” Brave of him to ask considering when it came to me, you never knew what kind of answer you’d get.

“My dad taught me to play poker when I was only seven,” I shared. “All of us kids, actually. We used to sit together at this table in the summers and play endless games. Instead of poker chips, or even dollars, he had us play with pennies and nickels.” I smiled at the memory, doing my best to hang on to the happy ones. It was hard never knowing when the sadness would try and steal them away. And inevitably, it always did.

He came around the poker table, standing opposite of me.

“You’re in front of Bianca’s seat.”

I kept my eyes on the chair as he gripped the back of it, the slight veins in his hands popping from the tension.

“Pigtails and a missing front tooth. That was me. Permed hair and boys on the brain was Bianca.” I almost laughed at the image. God, I missed her.

Shit, I was losing the plot. Why was I sharing this story?

I blinked my attention up to him, finding him quietly waiting for me to continue.

“One thing I struggled with when it came to poker, and still do to this day, is I never played hands I didn’t think I could truly win. It’s not that I couldn’t bluff, I didn’t want to.”

“Being honest isn’t the worst trait to have.” He semi-smiled and shrugged.

“But I did lie to you. In August.” I resisted the impulse to close my eyes while I shared how I’d been dishonest with him, even though he was now well aware of that fact after my interview with Adelina. “Pablo walked uninvited into my house. I never got around to changing the locks. He had a key, and I completely forgot about that. Any time he’d come by before, he’d always rung the bell.”

He let go of the chair and took a step away from the table as if it were made of fire not hardwood.

“I’ve changed the locks since.” I quickly extinguished the flames before the man lost the plot, too. “Anyway⁠—”

“Don’t ‘anyway’ me.” He swiped his palm across his eyes as if wishing he could unsee something, his broad shoulders losing some slack in their typical tense state. “You can’t brush off the fact you were so casual about your safety and expect me to not freak out. You let this man have a key to your place, and you forgot to change the locks after you split?” He was shaking his head now.

Consider his control broken in half.

Not the story I’d wanted Bianca to write.

Where was a firefighter when I needed one to put out this new inferno I’d inadvertently caused?

“God, you stress me out.” He tore his hand through his hair, then winced at the movement, accidentally using his injured arm. “I should’ve taken more pills,” he added under his breath.

“Not good for you. Two was enough.”

The eye roll wasn’t lost on me. I about dropped another anyway on him to try and swing back to the point I’d been trying to make, but I didn’t want to be a total brat. He was right, after all. I shouldn’t have been careless with my safety.

“So.” Was that better than a sarcastic anyway? I hoped. “As I was saying, you already know what happened with Pablo, but the reason I’m rehashing this is because of what happened in the office the next day. You asked me about my arm, and I knew if I didn’t remember everything my dad taught me about bluffing and having a poker face . . . well, I knew what would happen. So I lied to you. I was trying to protect you, not Pablo. I didn’t want you getting in trouble by going after him.”

“The last thing you need to do is protect me.” He circled the table, dragging his knuckles along the felt with each step closer. When he stopped before me, he slowly guided his eyes up. “When I’m not running a bar, I hunt predators for a living. I’m well aware of the consequences of my actions and what would happen if law enforcement discovered how I took justice into my own hands.”

What if that asshole Fed looked into Hudson’s past, and he found out about his extracurricular activities and actually did come up with charges to throw at him?

“I don’t regret my actions with the men we’ve hunted. They were pure evil. Demons, as far as I’m concerned.” His hard gaze softened as his shoulders relaxed. “But I would’ve regretted the way I handled Pablo had you not lied to me. The rage would have consumed me. I don’t know if I’d have been able to stop. I’d remember what happened to Bianca, and I’d have lost it.” He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling as he worked to control his breathing. His anger stoked even now.

Memories of finding my sister in a pool of her own blood catapulted to my mind. And there it was. Proof of how fast the happy times could be stolen and replaced with the ugly.

“I would have been wrong, though.” Hudson’s words as he opened his eyes abruptly snatched me back to the present. “No mistake about it, he deserved to be punished for ever setting a hand on you, but Pablo’s not evil. Those drugs he took are. That drug is the devil. It steals lives.” His long pause, and the sad hitch to his tone, forced my eyes to open. “It killed a teammate of mine.”

Oh God. “I’m so sorry.”

He was staring at the floor between us, and when he lifted his head, his blue eyes were glossy.

Somehow, I’d blinked, and in the space of that time, he’d gone from fuming mad at Pablo to the verge of showing an emotion I rarely saw from him.

“You never told me.” I set my hand on his arm, but he immediately backed free of my touch.

He huffed out a deep, seemingly taxing breath. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He turned away, his back muscles drawing together. “Distraction.” The word came out low and gritty. “I need one.” He slowly faced me again while drawing his hands to his hips.

I did my best to keep my emotions in check. To not sob on his behalf, knowing he was hurting on the inside and I’d been unaware of his struggles. He had a much better poker face than me. How long had he been hiding his pain? What happened to you that you don’t want to talk about?

“Please, Bella.” His jaw clenched, but I spotted the slightest wobble of his chin. The fissure in the solid wall of strength he was doing his damndest to maintain. “I need a distraction.”

I thought back to Friday when I’d asked for his help to distract me at the party. “The eighties,” I blurted. “Movies, I mean. Bet my parents still have all of our DVDs in the theater room. We could watch some classics. You know, like Ghost. Dirty Dancing.”

“Swayze,” he said under his breath, which I took to mean, yes.

I offered him my hand, a little worried he wouldn’t take it.

He looked up toward the ceiling, and when I followed his eyes to the camera there, my shoulders slumped.

Constantine.

I flinched the second I felt his skin touch mine. “Feel like having a stiff drink with our candy?” he asked, taking me by surprise.

It took me a second to lift my gaze from our clasped palms to find his face.

“Who said anything about candy?” I bit the inside of my cheek, still trying to get over the fact Hudson was holding my hand knowing my brother might see this moment.

“That sweet tooth of yours did.”

The weight of what he’d been holding seemed to slip away like a magician performing a trick. Poof. Gone. He’d successfully hidden his pain under the rug, exactly the way I’d stowed the photo away between the magazines on Friday. Now look where we are. Secrets always came out one way or another.

“You’re right about that.” I forced a smile.

“So, are we pretending to be at an airport where the rules don’t apply, or what?” His sexy tone was nothing more than a bandage.

Now wasn’t the time to force him to unearth his secrets. He’d begged for a distraction, and I would put every one of my father’s poker tips to use, bluffing my way to acting okay. Just like he was.

“Only if you promise to show me whether or not you can dirty dance.”