Secret Hudson (A Finding Nolan Novel Book 2)

by K. S. Thomas

  There was nothing. The longer it went on, the less I was sure if she was even angry anymore.

  I was about to pull the blanket over my head in a toddler move to block her out when she finally exhaled loudly. “I’m really sorry. That’s not exactly what happened here, but I understand why you would see it that way. And I know how hurt you feel because of it all, so I truly do apologize. Hurting you was never my intention.”

  “Oh please, Ava. What the fuck would you know about how tonight made me feel? Huh?”

  For a moment I thought she might actually cry. “More than you could possibly imagine.”

  Then, she turned and walked away without saying anything else.

  I watched until I saw her disappear in her own room. Then, I was alone. And it sucked.

  At first all I wanted to do was just sleep. Sleep and forget. Except my brain was so fucking wired from the overflow of new information in need of being analyzed that sleep was completely out of the question.

  So, in an attempt to counteract all of the overstimulation happening in my mind, I sought out something to dull it all. An hour and a half of channel surfing through some of the most mind numbing television I’d ever encountered and I was no closer to finding my escape.

  Running out of options, I caved and did the one thing I told myself I wouldn’t do no matter what. I called my mother.

  She answered after only one ring.

  “Kier? What’s wrong, baby?”

  I sighed. “Why would anything be wrong, Ma?”

  “It’s five o’clock in the morning where you are.”

  Oh. Right.

  “I’m just not sure going on tour with Finding Nolan was such a great idea after all.” I have no idea why I was being so vague with her. I needed her and yet, the last thing I wanted was to burden her with my hurt. I’d burdened her with plenty of her own over the years.

  “Has something happened between you and Royce? Did you have a fight?”

  I nodded. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see it. She’d know. She always knew.

  “Kieran, honey, I’m sure whatever it was, you two will work it out. You’ve made each other so happy in such a short amount of time.”

  “I know, Ma. But this is different. This is...” my voice broke off and I barely managed to choke out the last word as the pain broke free and took me down with it, “heartbroken.”

  Chapter 16

  I wasn’t super shocked when I couldn’t fall asleep all fucking night. Nor was it much of a surprise when Ava came busting into my room after I finally did pass out.

  “Get up.”

  She yanked the blanket off of me.

  “Shit, Ava. I could have been naked.”

  She didn’t care. “And what? Unlike you, reproductive organs don’t make me want to pee my pants in fear. Besides, Hudson slept on the couch last night, so you didn’t have any real reason to take your pants off, now did you?”

  So that’s where he’d gone. I didn’t know if I was relieved or pissed to find out he’d never even left the penthouse.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, reluctantly giving in to the fact that I was apparently getting up. “Where is he now?”

  “On his way to the airport with everyone else.”

  That fucking woke me up. “WHAT?”

  She shrugged.

  Then Blaise showed up in the doorway behind her. “Do my ears deceive me, or did Royce Lemmi actually shout?”

  The irony of Blaise, the hot head, being cool as a motherfucking cucumber while, I, the guy who hadn’t seen a reason to raise his voice in nearly a decade, was now yelling at the top of his lungs, was not lost on any of us. In fact, Blaise was grinning. It was enough to bring me back down to an angry mutter.

  “Oh great. So, you meant everyone else, except Blaise.” I yanked a pair of jeans from the chair in the corner and pulled them on. I wasn’t stupid enough to expect either of them to give me any privacy at this point. “Either one of you going to tell me what the fuck is going on? What? Couldn’t get a car big enough for all of us? Flight was overbooked?”

  “It’s a private jet,” Blaise interjected the obvious.

  I forced my arm through the sleeve of my shirt even though it was rolled up and wrong side out. “Yeah, I got that, Blaise. I was being sarcastic.”

  “No, you were being an asshole. Is that something we should start to expect from you on the regular now?” It was the first thing Ava had said since Blaise had appeared as her back up.

  “I don’t know, Ava. As you so astutely observed, Hudson slept on the couch last night. I’m sure it’s not too hard to conclude the rather obvious reason being that we had a fight. So, yeah, I think I’m entitled to a little asshole time. You guys have certainly made use of it plenty over the years.”

  I was really drudging up old shit now and for no other reason than to distract everyone from the mess I was making of my life. Not that it was working.

  “Can’t argue with you there. You’ve definitely seen me at my worst. But considering how you enjoyed looking down on me from your self-righteous high horse back then, I’m surprised to see you so willing to stoop down to my lowly ways.” That motherfucker was still grinning.

  “No shit.” Ava on the other hand seemed to be getting increasingly pissed. “I’m glad you both brought that up, because that’s what blows my fucking mind about all of this the most. You were there. You saw what that did to me. How the hell can you turn around and do it to someone else now?”

  I turned away from her and started throwing any loose items I had around the room into my bag. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The fuck you don’t. I talked to him last night. He told me what you said.” She rounded on me and got back in my face. “You told him I made you lie to keep up appearances. You said that I arranged for Francis to be your date. And he accused me of hiring him as your little piece of ass for the road to keep you happy!”

  I could literally feel all the blood draining from my body as each of her words pelted me like bullets from a fucking BB gun. I felt lightheaded and the nausea hit me all at once.

  “What did you tell him?” I forced the words out through clenched teeth.

  Ava’s face went from furious to shattered in a split second. “What do you think? I covered for you.”

  “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I never had to do it for you. Doesn’t feel so hot though, does it?” I knew I was being a total dick, but I couldn’t stop. The hurt of the last twenty-four hours was still too fresh, and anger was more manageable than letting the searing pain run through me at full force.

  Meanwhile, Ava seemed to be temporarily speechless, which to outsiders might have seemed like a welcome change of pace, or even some sort of accomplishment worthy of praise, but I knew better. Ava not talking was not good.

  “Alright, well, now that you’ve got that out of your system, I guess you and Ava are square.” Blaise turned halfway in the doorway like he was getting ready to leave and for a moment, I thought this bit of the torture session had come to an end. I was wrong. “But I still owe you. Come on. Grab a jacket and a hat or something. We got somewhere to go.” He gestured for the exit and started walking.

  Ava just stared at me and, for the first time, I realized her eyes were bloodshot. Because it hadn’t been enough to devastate the man I love, I had to crush my best friend to do it.

  It was purely on autopilot that I followed Blaise’s orders, reached for my stuff and went after him. I didn’t even ask where we were going. I didn’t care.

  We rode the elevator in complete silence and didn’t say much other than the bare necessities when we got into the car downstairs either.

  Twenty minutes later and we were being dropped off in front of some hole in the wall restaurant that made me wish I’d gotten a tetanus booster at some point in the last ten years.

  “What the fuck is this place?”

  Blaise smirked. “Not sure. But I asked the driver to tak
e me to the rattiest little shithole he knew.”

  That did nothing to ease the puking sensation still messing with my gag reflexes.

  “I’m just fucking with you. I asked him where we could get the best breakfast around here. Apparently, it’s mandatory for these places to look semi-condemned. You know, kinda like that diner you like so much back home?”

  So that’s what this was about. That talk we’d had the night he’d thought he’d lost Ava for good.

  “I don’t suppose they serve a decent biscuits and gravy here?” I grumbled as I walked in after him.

  “No. I tried. Guy told me to order a fry up. Said it was a breakfast worth dying for. Then he said it would have to be since the fat content could easily kill you.” He chuckled. It was weird. Not just because laughing seemed physically impossible to me at the time, but because the total role reversal between us was fucking with my head big time. I was the one who kept his cool, he was the one who was prone to overreacting and being an all-out emotional fucktard. That wasn’t exactly a trait I’d ever hoped to acquire from him.

  As it turned out, the guy hadn’t been kidding. The fry up was fucking phenomenal. And, yeah, it definitely wasn’t going to pop up on any heart healthy menu anytime soon.

  Wasn’t until I’d devoured half of the spread on my platter that I realized how fucking hungry I’d been. Lying, betraying and breaking up had burned though more calories than I’d expected.

  I put down my fork and swallowed my last bite of black pudding.

  Blaise was watching me like he’d been waiting for this moment.

  “So, shit balls,” he mused.

  And he finally got me. “Shit balls.” I grinned back at him. “I take it you’re about to impart some words of wisdom on me? Tell me all about how I’m not losing Hudson?”

  Blaise leaned back against the booth cushions. “Are you? Losing him?”

  I nodded, picking up the fork again and stabbing at what was left of my bacon to keep from having to look at him. “Yeah. Definitely. Except unlike with you and Ava, Hudson really has no reason to keep him from walking away. I mean, we don’t have history. No deep dark secrets binding us together for life.” I was being dramatic, but the gist of it was true.

  “Are you in love with him?”

  While I was busy trying to avoid eye contact, I could feel the heat of his stare burning into the top of my head. “Yeah. But I fucked it up.” I sat up straight.

  “Well, then, you’re in good hands. We all know I’m the master of fucking up.”

  I shook my head. “How the fuck is that supposed to be helpful?”

  “Because. I also know how to fix my fuck ups. And you, you’re goddamn Royce Lemmi, mister responsible, goodie two shoes, mister keeps us all on our fucking tip-toes trying to live up to your standards. Whatever you did to fuck up is probably so minor I could fix it in my sleep.”

  I laughed dryly. “While you actually have a point there, I think I might surprise you with my fucking up abilities on this one.”

  “Try me.”

  I dropped the fork again. It was time to stop dicking around and be real. “You heard Ava. I lied to Hudson...about pretty much everything, and then blamed Ava for the whole thing.”

  His mouth twitched back and forth and I knew it was eating away at him that I’d hurt her. After everything he’d done to Ava, that man had spent the last year moving hell and high water to make it up to her. Part of that meant he wasn’t about to stand by and watch someone else cause her pain either. Which, of course, put me in an awkward position.

  “For the sake of our friendship, I’m going to let you and Ava work out your own shit. But for the record, you make her cry again - and yeah, she bawled her eyes out after her little run in with Hudson last night and didn’t stop until it was time to send everyone else packing - you do that again, and you and I will have a problem.”

  I nodded. “I do that again, I’m going to have a problem with myself. Trust me, Blaise. I hate myself for dragging her into my fucking mess.”

  “I know you do. So does she, by the way. She loves you. We both do. I think that’s why it crushed her to find out that you would tell someone that she, of all people, would ever do anything to interfere with your happiness.”

  I exhaled sharply. “Yeah, well, that’s because I didn’t think Hudson would believe me if I told him I was the one interfering with my happiness. Fuck, that’s not true either. He would have believed it, but he would have hated me for it. I was basically screwed either way. And blaming Ava made me feel only slightly less pathetic, so...”

  Blaise frowned. “You’re not pathetic. And Hudson would know that too,” he paused thoughtfully. “If you told him the truth. And I don’t mean about yesterday, or any other little lies you’ve told along the way to try and keep your relationship with him hidden, and yeah, I’m aware you’ve told them for reasons that should be self-explanatory, but I’m talking about the real truth. The one you told me.”

  “Maybe you missed the part about not wanting to appear even more pathetic?” I dropped my chin to my chest and rested my face in my hands. “Somehow telling Hudson about my years of being used as a human punching bag by the alarmingly high number of homophobes who went to school with us back then, just doesn’t seem like the way to do that.”

  But he wasn’t letting me off that easy. “What the fuck happened to your self-esteem, dude? You’re not this second guessing, self-hating pussy. You’re the most level headed, shit together guy I know.”

  I shrugged. “I put on a good show. I haven’t had self-esteem since seventh grade. You get your face dunked into a toilet so many times, all your self-confidence gets flushed. You get what I’m sayin’?”

  He did. Because at the end of the day, there wasn’t a single person among the Finding Nolan crew who hadn’t experienced some degree of trauma as a kid. We’d been outcasts. Invisibles. Victims. And some days, the hunted. It was a strange and bittersweet twist of fate to go from being hated for being so different, so wrong, to being celebrated and loved, sometimes in spite of flaws far worse than the ones we’d been burdened with by default as children.

  Blaise. Blaise had barely existed all throughout school. He’d gone out of his away to hide in the shadows, been terrified to garner any attention at all because he knew what that would get him. Trouble. Kids weren’t kind to other children who came from homes where they weren’t cared for. Who came to school but couldn’t read or write yet because no one was around to help them with their homework. Who had hair that hadn’t been brushed or cut in too long, and lunches that were either absent or consisted of a jar of pickles and ketchup packets because their mother was too unstable to see the difference between that and a real meal.

  That had been then. Now, there was no hiding. Blaise was at the center of millions of prying eyes every day. All watching. All adoring.

  “Royce.”

  “Hm?” I’d gotten lost in my thoughts.

  “Those assholes, those pieces of shit, they’re all still stuck back there, in that same fucking neighborhood, working some shit jobs keeping them just as depressed and depraved as they’ve always been. They can’t do anything to you now.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “They’re not the ones I’m worried about.”

  “Then who? You can’t really think our fans would turn their backs on you. Listen, if they can look past my drug and alcohol addictions, psychotic brother and the fact that I’m openly in love with Ava, no one is going to bat an eye lash when you come out and tell them that you’re dating a dude. If anything it will be the exact opposite. I mean, think about all the young kids you could help. Inspire. Give strength to. You could be a fucking role model, Royce.”

  I threw myself back and hit the cushions of the booth, frustrated. “I know that. I know all of that. Fuck. Don’t you think I know what a fucking coward I’ve been all this time? What a selfish fucking pussy this makes me? I know. I fucking know. But I just...I can’t do it. I can’t be that guy.”


  Blaise was confused. “What are you talking about? You can’t be what guy?”

  “That guy. The gay guy.”

  “Are you fucking with me?”

  I shook my head. “No.” I knew it didn’t make any sense and I didn’t expect him to understand.

  “Royce, you’re in love with a man. That already makes you that guy.” He was getting more and more animated the less he could comprehend things and it was making me panic.

  “I know that. But knowing and saying it out loud, owning it...it’s different. You don’t get it. You wouldn’t.” I hung my head. This wasn’t going to lead to anything.

  Blaise was quiet for a long time. He tapped his thumb on the table slowly.

  “You’re not scared of how others will see you. You’re afraid that coming out will make you see yourself.”

  I glanced up, chest heavy, eyes stinging. “Bingo.”

  ***

  “Hey.”

  I opened my eyes as little as possible. Apparently pretending to be asleep wasn’t going to be as successful in granting me some privacy as I’d hoped.

  “What’s up, Angel?”

  I hadn’t exactly meant that to be an invitation, but judging from the way he stepped over my legs and moved my stuff, being stretched out and placing my camera bag on the seat beside me also wasn’t going to keep anyone from sitting with me.

  “You don’t mind do you? Derek has spent the last three hours analyzing what Sammy’s last little visit means for their relationship and I can’t fucking take it anymore.”

  I sat up and craned my neck to look back to where Derek was busy chatting up Darrel toward the tail end of the plane. Considering there were only seven of us on board, not counting the pilots and stewardess, I wasn’t all that sure why Angel felt he needed to sit by me of all people, but asking would have been an asshole move, and I was really fucking over people and their asshole moves. I was in no mood to contribute to the asshole move epidemic.