Page 54 of None Of Your Business

Are you fucking serious right now, Piper?

I force a smile. “Sure.”

I hurry to the kitchen and fill the kettle at the sink.

Hudson is going to kill me. He probably has lives to save today, and he’s stuck in my bedroom.

Yep, first he’s going to kick me out of group therapy, I won’t be able to paint anything and have to cancel my show, then he’ll kill me.

I wonder how he’ll do it. I hope it’s fast.

“Peppermint okay?” I call out over my shoulder.

No response.

“Piper?”

I set the tea tin down and turn around. The living room is empty.

A spike of dread shoots through me. I rush out of the kitchen and freeze at the mouth of the hallway. Piper is standing outside my bedroom, her hand inches from the doorknob.

“Piper, don’t!”

She snaps her head around, her hand hovering over the handle. “You’ve been acting weird since I got here.”

“I have a concussion.”

“You keep staring at your bedroom door. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you get a puppy without telling me?”

I lunge toward her, but my hip hitches and I stumble.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’m too late. She pushes the door wide open.

Standing inside, looking confused, vaguely guilty, and entirely too large for the room, is Hudson.

Piper lets out an ear-piercing scream. “Rowan, run!”

She grabs a heavy book from the shelf beside the door and raises it over her head.

Piper is screaming, I’m waving my arms, and Hudson is standing there like a statue that just realized it’s in the wrong museum.

“Stop it! Jesus Christ, stop it, woman! Drop the book!” I shout, grabbing Piper’s shoulders and shaking her. “Will you get a grip? It’s Hudson!”

She freezes, the book still raised mid-air. Her gaze travels from Hudson’s shoes up to his bewildered face.

“Oh.” Her finger points between us. “W-what are you doing in my sister’s bedroom?”

I look at Hudson. He looks at me.

I can see the sensible explanation forming in his doctor-brain, but my mind goes straight for word-vomit.

“We’re having mind-blowing sex!”