“HARTLEY, THIS IS HUDSON, MY brother.”
Droplets of water beaded on the ends of his long lashes and dripped from his hair, which was slicked back in a bun on the crown of his head. His white button-down clung to him like a second skin, his flesh peeking through the wet fabric. I felt like I was back on the beach, lost inside that ocean-blue gaze.
Bear Man.
My bear man.
At least… he used to be…
“Hudson, this is Hartley,” James continued, painfully unaware that all my pieces I’d carefully glued back together were falling apart, scattering at the feet of the man I thought I’d had enough time to move on from. “She’s the reason we’re standing here now,” he said affectionately. I felt his adoring gaze caress the side of my face. “She showed me how stubborn I was.”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the longing in his eyes, sprouting like buds waking up from a cold, hard winter. How could I still love someone so fiercely after so much time had passed? My heart had only just yawned awake. Kicked off the covers, stretching before him as the haze of sleep wore off.
I lunged into the safety of his arms without thinking, cautions left somewhere in the shadows. A hot stinging pulsed behind my eyes, pressing against my heart. Time had cruelly crawled its way between us. Slipped between the broken cracks of our hearts we foolishly neglected.
His arms wound tight around me, my bones cracking beneath his desperate grip. He felt like returning home after a long vacation. Like my heart had only just remembered how to beat. I was warm, alive, and open. My skin peeling back, exposing my ugly truths.
I’d never stop loving him. I was foolish to believe I ever could.
When he finally let me go, he stood back, his gaze peeking out from behind the bars we’d wedged between us.
“You’re here.”
It was the dumbest two words I’d ever said. Of course he was. Because I was standing next to—
“Silas.” I turned in James’ direction. The revelation came hard and quick, like a punch to the gut. It felt like the universe expanded, and then contracted, the truth shaken from it like loose change emptied from its pockets.
All the fractured words Hudson had shared with me that I’d stolen, kept secret within the palm of my hand, they came pummeling to the forefront of my mind. I was the constant, and he was the adventure. A free spirit. Unruly and emotional. A mother deceased. A father on drugs. How could I have missed it?
Though, did we ever see what we weren’t looking for?
Slowly, the world decided to spin again.
I collected my blindsided thoughts and pinned them to the air between us as clarity steamrolled through my blood, scrubbing the shock clean from my tongue. “Your real name is Silas. Silas Taiga Jameson.” I pointed a finger at him as my thoughts wove into an answer. The answer. “Is that… that’s where you got James from, isn’t it? Your last name?”
A rainstorm of emotions fell across his face, dark and foreboding, as the years he tried so hard to bury came piercing through the surface.
“How did you—” He paused, his forehead shadowing over his eyes as his gaze moved to Hudson and me, the short space between our bodies throbbing with an ache to close the gap. “How do you two know each other?”
Hudson hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I felt small and large, all at the same time within his gaze. Like a star, blazing within his universe. He was still the same as I remembered, his spicy scent making my stomach come to life. My emotions were tripping over themselves, begging to be felt first. I’d been so stupid for not trying harder. For slithering into a corner, hiding, using my petty thoughts to justify the distance.
I looked to Hudson. “You found him. Your brother… he’s back.”
“Hartley?” James’ voice… I meant Silas’ voice… was smaller, private, questioning.
I tried to find the right thing to say. “He was…We were…”
What was Hudson? The one who got away? The one who gave up? The one who left a hole the size of Florida inside my heart? The one I’d ran from, all because I couldn’t find the courage to let him all the way in?
The crushing pain in James’… fuck! I mean Silas’ eyes said he knew who Hudson was to me, and it was quickly replaced with that of green-eyed ownership. He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me against him, the air choking on envy. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here with me, and you finally know the truth. We all do, I guess.”
Hudson took one look at Silas’ arm around my waist, and then met me square in the eyes. I felt like a bug under a magnifying glass. My heart was shredding, the mangled pieces lost somewhere inside the rage boiling in my stomach.
I removed Silas’ arm.
“You two are together?” Hudson asked, his voice splintered and scratchy like sandpaper. He couldn’t look at me when he asked. As if he was afraid of the truth he’d find in my eyes.
Shame painted my skin in red.
“Yes,” Silas said possessively.
At the same time, I’d said a firm, “No.”
Silas’ eyebrows swooped in distress. Betrayal placed its large, rough hands around my neck, squeezing my denial back down my throat. “We’re going on a date after the show.” Arrogance and silly pride oozed from his pores.
Hudson nodded, his lips pulled tight, jaw ticking. His gaze retreated from me, back into the shadows. I felt the walls building between us then.
Anger and hurt swirled around my heart. I didn’t want to take full ownership of this moment. I wanted it to be broken off and shared between us, but there he was, his angry gaze dropping it on my doorstep. I left. I said I’d go on a date with his brother. But who the hell was he to get angry? He was the one who changed his number. Who promised to wait for me, and then broke that promise, just like every other man I ever knew.
“I guess that’s good then,” Hudson said, his voice as dry as the air in the room.
“It is.” Silas tried to put his arm back around me, but I moved away. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t pretend. I had been pretending from the moment I walked away from Hudson.
When would my lies ever end?
“What are you doing?” Silas asked. I hated the hurt prickling in his eyes. I hated the hurt stabbing like daggers in Hudson’s gaze.
And I hated that I was the one hurting them.
“I just… this is a lot to process, James.” I shook my head. Placed my palm against my forehead as I clenched my eyes shut. “Shit! I mean, Silas.” My fingers pressed against my temples. “I can’t even call you by the right name,” I explained, feeling like the walls of the theater were closing in.
His voice softened, movements gentle. “It’s James. Nothing has changed, Hartley. I’m still the same guy I was ten minutes ago.”
“Your name is Silas.” Hudson’s words cut through the carefully constructed present Silas had created. He continued to watch me unravel. Made no move to comfort me. I felt like I was being punished. Maybe I deserved it. I did, after all, leave him. This was what I did. I caused havoc.
Silas turned on Hudson. Together, side by side, I could see why they were brothers, though Silas didn’t tower over people the way Hudson did. Their stances were similar… shoulders strong and confident. Jaws squared and chins prominent. But Hudson didn’t favor his mom the way Silas did. He was dark and brooding to Silas’ light airiness.
This should have been a celebratory moment. Hudson had waited so long to reunite with Silas, but at that moment, hostility bared its fists between them. There was a weight in the room, black and sludgy, bleeding around our feet.
And I was the cause.
“I asked you here because I wanted to make amends. To put the past behind us. Not to bring it all back up,” Silas said, his teeth pressed tightly together. “Clearly, had I known you two already knew each other, I would’ve waited for this encounter.”
I watched as Hudson abdicated his fatherly role. Drawing his emotions back in. “You’re right.” He reached out, placing a heavy hand on Silas’ shoulder. “You’re right, Si.”
Silas didn’t protest the endearment. Maybe a small part of him craved to hear it once more.
“I’m here because I love you and I want to fix things between us. I’m going to fix things between us, on your terms,” Hudson continued, squeezing Silas’ shoulder.
This was supposed to be a happy moment. One Hudson had longed for, but all I felt was an awkward twisting in my heart. An outsider, standing near them, prying in on a moment I didn’t belong in.
A flurry of anxious chatter imposed in on the moment. We all looked to the left.
“James, they’re ready for your speech,” Janice said, head poked through the doorway to the theater. I could see heads bobbing up and down as people took their seats.
“Be right there,” Silas said to her, a smile forced onto his lips. A moment later, he added, “I have to give my speech. I’ll let you two catch up then.” His eyes found mine. “See you inside?” There was more to that question than three words.
I nodded, wrapping an arm across my chest, and then wished him good luck. Watched as the door shut with a soft click behind him.
When I turned back around, Hudson was already heading outside.
I ran.
“Hudson!” I called after him as he crossed the parking lot, rain falling like tears from the sky. “Hudson, wait.”
The ends of my dress were being dragged through the puddles, but I didn’t care. I had to know why. I had to keep him from leaving without saying goodbye.
He got into his car. I got into the passenger seat.
My pulse was thundering so hard within my ears I could barely hear the rain beating against his roof. The edges of the love I held for him were curling in on themselves, withering away with every moment he kept his eyes from me.
“So that’s it then? You’re going to leave without talking to me?” I asked, voice shaky and uneven. I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care. Love did that to people. It made them insane.
I wiped the rain from my face as his hands writhed against the steering wheel. The air was shattered between us. Our hearts protested wildly against our chests.
“Why did you change your number? I called you!” I yelled as my tears blended in with the rain on my cheeks.
His palm hit the steering wheel so hard I was afraid it would crack in half. He cursed under his breath, his shoulders rising and falling unevenly. When he looked at me, there was a tortured anger warring within his gaze. He was fighting with what he wanted to say. Fighting this moment.
“Because,” he finally said. “Because I was stupid, Hartley. I’ve cursed myself every day for that mistake. Even more so now. I knew you’d call. And if I gave you the option, you’d change your mind and leave. I didn’t want that for you. I want you to be happy. To live your dream.” He paused, stealing his gaze away from mine. Gripped the steering wheel again as if it was the only thing holding him together. “Because I wouldn’t have the strength to tell you not to come home.”
Words escaped me as his admittance slowly sank in. He knew he would have asked me to come back. And he knew I would have agreed. He knew me that well, and I fucked it up.
Loving him felt like the hot burn from the sun.
The soft din of rain filled the empty silence as our hearts struggled to beat. I never imagined seeing him again like this. Feeling like there was a mile in between us even though I could reach out and touch him.
“Do you love him?”
It should have been a simple question with an easy answer, but I found my tongue wrestling with my heart on what to say.
“Yes, but not like I love you,” I admitted as my heart beat fists against my ribcage. I turned in my seat. Reached for his hand. How could he feel so familiar and foreign at the same time? There were new calluses. A scar along the inside of his palm.
His hand blurred in front of me. “I love you, Hudson. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you. I should have told you that. I should’ve… I should’ve done so many things differently.”
He wouldn’t look at me, but didn’t pull away.
“What are you thinking about?”
The skin on his hand still wrapped around the steering wheel stretched white. “How bad I want to kiss you right now.”
His eyes found mine.
“I’ve never stopped loving you, Hartley. In my heart, I know you’re mine.”
Hope spread like sunlight across my black heart.
“But my brother is in love with you, too,” he continued, snuffing the light from my heart. “I could see it in his eyes, and I can’t risk losing him again. I won’t.”
His hand disappeared from mine. Hope was dying against my aching ribs.
“Silas is all I have in the world. I can’t… no… I won’t give him up no matter how much it costs me. I’ve waited so long for this moment to make things right with him. I’m broken without you, Hartley, but I’ll be even more broken if I let my brother go again.” He stopped, eyes squeezing shut as my world fell apart around me. “But what will haunt me until the day I die is knowing that because of my heated words spoken so long ago, I’ll forever pay for my mistakes, because either way, I lose.”
He didn’t leave the door cracked. No light left on the porch.
His words were final. Unbudging. Cemented by a bond I’d never known.
“So that’s it?” The words were barely audible, trudging through the emotions stored in my throat. “We’re just going to pretend like what we feel for each other doesn’t exist?”
He kept his eyes on the rain streaming down the windshield, and it made me feel dirty. Cheap. “I think it’s best.”
“What about what I think?” My voice was meek in the swelling space. Lost within the sounds of the rain. I didn’t have the right to ask. I was my own black hole, sucking everything in my wake. Killing off all the good.
“Hartley, don’t—”
“Don’t what, Hudson? Tell you that I love you? That Silas should understand that? Tell you that we can work this out? He’ll come around?”
“You don’t understand him.”
“I do. Maybe better than you. Sure, it might upset him, but he’s an adult now. He knows my heart is stuck with someone else. In time, he’ll come to see that.”
Hudson shook his head. “I won’t risk it. We’re already on shaky ground.”
“You don’t know him like—”
When his eyes met mine, there was so much anger, so much hostility pent up, it stole the breath from my lungs. “It’s because of what you think that we’re in this mess to begin with.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. My heart banged against the walls of my chest.
“I told you I loved you. We had our chance. We could have made it work, but you thought otherwise. You thought we could mess around and nothing would form between us. You thought you could move on, and now that my brother is in the picture, you think you can lead him on, and then ditch him because you realize that what we had was real.”
I winced at his words. At his past tense of had. “This is ridiculous. I never led your brother on.” The intensity of this moment boiled in my veins. “I was clear with him from the start. I only said yes to a date, because you had never reached out to me, and I thought you had moved on. It was time I tried to. I didn’t ask for his infatuation, and I didn’t ask for him to lie about who he was. This is his doing. Not mine.”
Hudson scrubbed his hands over his face. “His? Do you ever take ownership of your choices, or are you always the victim? Silas didn’t ask to fall in love with you, just like I didn’t. I didn’t ask for you to leave me, just like he didn’t.”
Tears were stinging and hot against my cheeks, falling faster than the rain.
His hands raked through his hair, back and forth, until he had the follicles pulled tight. I’d never seen him that frustrated before. Never felt the choking rage snuffing out the air from the car.
“Right now, in this moment, I can’t care about what you think, because what you think will destroy what I’m trying to rebuild with my brother. If you care about me as much as you say you do, then you’d understand and respect that. Just like I’ve respected you.”
He inhaled sharply. The air was dead between us.
It took me a moment to collect myself from off the floor. To find my broken pieces and pick them up, clutching them against my chest. I never knew a pain like this. The splitting, cracking, ripping feeling that sank its teeth into my chest.
Hudson didn’t want me in his life. Silas didn’t want me in Hudson’s life.
All because of a job offer I’d taken. Because of my fear to let love in.
Because of my broken parts.
“Okay,” I whispered as the world blurred in front of me. As my heart let out a plangent howl. “Okay,” I said again. I got out of the car, leaving my heart in that passenger seat.
Just like that, Hudson had entered my life again.
And just like that, he was gone.