"T ally!" three men shouted in unison .

My mother looked up the stairs with a great beaming smile. "Tallula get down here!" she called. "Your brother and the lads are here !"

I laughed as I came down the stairs and hurtled into an embrace with my brother, then into a three-way group hug with Jules and Ewan. The lads. My brother's bandmates .

My brother Niall was the bassist for the band Wreckage and everyone was always telling me what a big deal that was. But honestly, he was still my hopeless brother, regardless of his widespread fame. And his old bandmates, well they were sort of hopeless too, if you asked me. Ewan, the broody Scottish guitarist and Jules, the sarcastic Northern drummer, they were old friends, more like an extra set of big brothers who descended on the house every six months or so to muss up my hair and tease me about my sketches than famous rock stars .

"You're all wet," Jules grumbled as I pulled back. "Good to see you again, Tally. You look like a drowned rat ."

"I was in the shower!" I protested, deliberately avoiding Hudson's eyes. He was hanging back like he always did, and for once I was grateful. My cheeks were still burning .

"Jules, you're the worst!" August called across the great hall, setting down her bags .

A giant shout went up from all four band members as they descended on their just-arrived manager. I hung back with my mom, grinning a little to see her give them all heaping amounts of shit about being behind schedule for something, her fiancé Jules in particular. Then her face snapped into sweetness. "Mrs. Penrose," she said, striding across the room in her kick-ass boots. "So wonderful of you to host us all ."

I took a step back away from August's intimidatingly red-headed presence, but my mother just smiled, all graciousness and courtesy. "We certainly have the room," she said, letting August pump her hand up and down in that exuberant way Americans have .

"It'll be good to have the house full again," my father said, strolling in from the library with a book in his hand. He gave Niall a proud pat on the shoulder before telling August, "and if the band sets up in the basement, it'll be just like when Niall was a teenager ."

"I played cello in an orchestra as a teenager," Niall protested as I laughed .

"I want to hear more about you as a teenager," Reese declared, wrapping her arms around his waist .

"Oh! My dear, I have pictures!" my mother laughed, clapping in delight .

"Oh, fuck me," my brother muttered, but gamely followed his bride as she ran for the piles my mother had organized .

"I have to see this," August declared, trailing after them .

"When does CeCe get here?" I asked Ewan .

The guitarist looked glum. "Not until the day of the wedding," he sighed. "She's doing some kind of merger and acquisition thing with another label that I frankly don't even pretend to understand. Working sixteen hour days." He shook his head. "I keep trying to remind her that her fiancé is a bloody millionaire, but she doesn't listen ."

"Celia would never stand for staying at home and being Mrs. Boyd ."

"Oh, but the idea of her in an apron and pearls and nothing else, though..." he said with an evil grin .

I stuck my fingers in my ears. "Lalalala, can't hear you." I wrinkled my nose. "So gross ."

He laughed and pinched my side. "Good," he said with a grin. "Don't grow up, Tally ."

I stuck out my tongue at him, which made him laugh all the harder. He wandered over to the knot that was forming around my mother and her mountain of pictures. With the light streaming in at a slant across the room, the seven people clustered around looked like some kind of Renaissance painting. "Nice," I muttered, and turned to run upstairs .

"Where are you going?" Hudson asked, emerging from the background .

"Getting my sketchbook," I told him, gesturing to the grouping. "They look interesting ."

He glanced where I was pointing and cocked his head to one side. "I'll take your word for it. They look pretty normal to me ."

"Go on over there," I told him. "I need to get this down ."

He gave me an odd look, but obeyed, loping his way across the floor to the clustered group. I turned and took the stairs up two at a time .

My latest sketchbook was smaller than I usually used, but I sort of liked the constraint of having to fit my vision in a small space. It forced me to really distill an image down to the key parts. I grabbed my favorite charcoal pencil out of the jumble in my wildly disorganized case and went back down the stairs. Settling down at the bottom step, I opened to a fresh page .

Roughing out the huddle of people was quick work, and the angle of the shadow that slashed across them was interesting enough to keep me busy for a short moment. But when I started to add in the details - the curve of my mom's smile as she laughed about Niall's hair and how she could never get it to sit down no matter how much water she used - I slowed down and started to notice something .

I glanced back up and looked .

There was a knot of people, leaning in and laughing. A mass of rounded shapes. And then there was one vertical line, standing apart .

Hudson. Hanging away from the group. Smiling but not participating. Holding himself back. Taking up his space - standing with his legs hip's width apart and his arms easily at his side, one thumb hooked in the pocket of his jeans - but unwilling to enter the space of others .

I turned the page and started another sketch, glancing at him furtively as I quickly captured him. I roughed out a few lines, taking special note of how studied his stance was. He was holding himself like someone who was relaxed, I realized. But his muscles were tense, coiled. Like he was ready to bolt from the room at any moment .

I finished the sketch and leaned back. Tracing my fingers over the lines I had made, I looked back up again, wondering if I was really seeing what I'd drawn on the paper. I glanced back up at him and caught him looking at me .

Quickly, I closed the book, setting it down on the stairs where I'd remember to grab it before I headed up later tonight. "What's so funny?" I called across the room, coming over to join the group. I leaned over my mother's shoulder .

"I gotta see this," Hudson said and I looked up in surprise to see him suddenly at my side, and in the group. No longer a tense, vertical line in the corner .

I narrowed my eyes at him, silently warning him not to get too close. But he just gave me his easy American smile and looked back down at the picture my mother was holding, completely unruffled .

I looked at him again and wondered. Had I actually seen it? That tension I'd drawn ?

Or was I fooling myself into thinking that Hudson was feeling anything at all ?