Page 64 of None Of Your Business

The silence stretches.

“It’s not finished. The upper third needs more depth, and the white line is too sharp. I need to soften the edges with a dry brush, and—”

“Don’t,” Hudson says softly.

“Don’t what?” I whisper.

“Don’t apologize for it.” His voice is completely devoid of the teasing edge I’m used to. “It’s brilliant, Rowan.”

I don’t know what to do with that. “You’re just saying that so I don’t hiss at you again.”

He tilts his head. “I like when you hiss at me.”

His gaze drops to my lips. My fingers twitch at my sides with a sudden, dangerous urge to touch him.

I forget how to breathe as I watch him reach out and gently trace the dried streak of blue paint on my wrist, just above the cuff of my sleeve.

“You’re not shit, Littlest Callahan,” he whispers, a slow smile breaking across his face. “Now go paint.”

Nineteen

I make it three steps past reception before Hudson appears, wearing exactly the expression I was hoping not to see tonight.

His eyes go straight to my forehead. “No.”

“Good evening to you too.”

“You’re not going in there.”

“Excuse me?”

He’s still staring at the bruise. The purple-black has faded to a sickly yellow-green that’s spread toward my temple, and no amount of concealer is fully covering it.

“It looks worse than it is,” I say.

“It looks terrible.”

I roll my eyes and try to step around him.

He blocks me. Again.

“What are you doing?” I ask, planting my hands on my hips.

“Preventing you from going in.”

“You and Dr. Webb agreed I could sit in.”

“Before you fainted.”

“So?”

“So everyone in that room watched you lose consciousness, and now you want to walk back in looking like that?” He points directly at my forehead.

I slap a hand over it. “Stop pointing. I’m starting to feel bullied.”

Hudson exhales through his nose. It’s the sound he makes whenever I’ve exhausted him. I’ve come to enjoy it.

“It’ll distract the group,” he says. “Cara will spend the first twenty minutes fielding questions about whether you’re okay instead of running the session. You’ll hate the attention.”