HUDSON (The Beckett Boys, Book Six)

by Olivia Chase

  I summon my best “I’ve got this” smile and give it to Michelle. “You know what,” I say with as much conviction as I can fake, “I think I’ll stay in Pharaoh Case Study.”

  “Good girl,” she says. “I think that’s a wise decision.”

  “I usually try to make wise decisions,” I say. It might sound silly to someone who knew what happened last night. But it’s true. Just because I effed up once doesn’t mean my history of good choices has to be thrown out the window.

  “From your record here, it looks like you certainly do.” Michelle smiles at me. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No,” I tell her, looking her in the eye. “I think I’m good.”

  I walk out of the Admin building and head across the main courtyard to the Student Union, where the dining hall is calling my name after a long morning without breakfast. The late August sun is beating on my bare arms. I really do love walking around campus, especially after October hits and it cools down a little. The buildings are white brick, and look almost colonial, with thick columns. The grounds are dotted with rosebushes and Pecan trees, our state tree, and whenever I pass the center fountain with the deer statues, like right now, I can’t help smiling. I always called the big stone stag “Bambi’s Dad” when I was little and my parents took me here for walks.

  I make a small pit stop on my way to the dining hall. The school store sells shirts, and I don’t have time to run back to my boarding house to change. I need out of this shirt that still smells like Gage. I score a simple ribbed tank in the official royal blue on clearance—must have been from last year. In the bathroom, I pull the tag off, practically rip my bar shirt from last night off, and shove it into the bag the store put my purchase in. Once my new tank top is on, I pull my black hair into a messy bun and finally put on some eyeliner. Good. Now I can almost convince myself that I woke up in my own bed this morning.

  When I enter the cafeteria, I halt, trying to decide if I want a burrito or a huge freaking salad with cucumbers and chicken. I decide to go for the burrito and make a left, only to run straight into a confident-looking blonde guy with a deep tan.

  “Becker,” I choke.

  “Hey, you,” he says, sounding way too casual and way too unaffected. “Wassup?”

  I gape at him. I’d pictured him in front of me again, finally, so many times this summer. All of the scenarios involved me leaping into his arms, or him scooping me up for a big bear hug. None of them involved us standing awkwardly, like neither of us meant to see or be seen by the other. One text message from his friend Ryan—another guy I barely know—and it changes everything.

  These guys who are one step up from strangers to me are really dicking up my life these past twenty-four hours.

  Not anymore, I tell myself, not anymore.

  I scramble for the can-do, me-first attitude I had going back in the Student Services office. “Grabbing some lunch,” I say. Because what else am I doing in the dining hall, you idiot.

  “How’s Day One?”

  HAHA. “Great,” I almost bark. “Fabulous. Yours?”

  Becker shrugs. Life is a series of Whatev, let’s roll with it for him. I used to love that about him, how nothing seemed to faze him. I was jealous of that ability. “Not bad.”

  We stand there staring at each other. He’s smiling—jerk—and looks at me like he wants me to say something. “Um, cool,” I finally manage.

  He keeps smiling, and I don’t miss his green eyes shoot for a nanosecond up and down my body. Not yours anymore, I want to say, by your own choosing. But I have to stay cool. “Well, good to see you.”

  “Wait a sec,” he says, and I turn around. My heart lifts a little, which I swear to God is involuntary. “I need to ask you something.”

  Like my forgiveness? “What’s that?”

  “Got some cash for me?”

  “What?”

  He glances sideways, like maybe he’ll have to dumb it down so I can understand. “Remember the last day of class last year, how you forgot your lunch pass?”

  Is he serious?

  “And I lent you eleven bucks?”

  I nod. I can’t lie; that did happen. Because we were a couple, it wasn’t really a big deal. We both forgot about it.

  Becker shifts his weight to his other leg. “Well, I kind of really need that back right now.”

  I don’t believe this. I mean, after what he pulled with making his friend Ryan do his dirty work for him, I guess I do believe it. But God. What an obnoxious prick.

  “Hang on,” I mumble, opening my purse. I pull a ten out of my wallet—my last bit of cash, I’ll have to hit the ATM tomorrow—and hand it to Becker.

  “It was eleven,” he says, eyes on my handbag.

  “I know,” I snap. “I don’t have any more bills so it’ll have to be quarters.”

  Becker sighs, like four quarters would just be too much weight to deal with carrying. “Okay, sure.”

  I unearth the quarters from various pockets in and on my purse, then drop them into his waiting palm. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” He gives me a nod, then lopes right past me. I resist the urge to turn and watch him walk out of here. Instead I hear another male voice loudly greet Becker and then raucous laughter of an entire group, probably about something totally stupid.

  So that’s it. He just sees me, after an entire summer, and then it’s back on his merry way, on to his friends and I’m not even on his mind anymore the instant he looks away from me. I feel a surge of fury and I have to fight a ridiculous urge to run after him and call him a bunch of names, and ask him what the hell happened that he turned cold after two years.

  It’s not the money. I mean, I did owe the eleven dollars, fair and square. But his attitude! So apathetic, like I’m just some rando and not someone he was very intimate with. He can remember eleven dollars, but he can’t remember how he used to tell me he couldn’t concentrate all day unless he saw me.

  He didn’t even say bye. Not now, or when it mattered.

  I spot a yellow head of perfectly executed waves from the best do-it-all straightening iron money can buy sitting at a table over by the window. At least Isabel will be happy to see me. Seeing my ex took away my appetite, but I pile up my tray with burrito fixings anyway.

  I need to eat, just like I need to take Gage’s class. Got to push through. I remember my friend trying to dissuade me from leaving Vulcan’s Bar with Gage last night and am glad for the Bristowe tank top I bought just minutes ago. Isabel would definitely notice if I was wearing the same thing I was last night. I’m actually kind of worried she’ll be able to notice I haven’t showered.

  I plop down across from Isabel and she puts her phone down. “I was just texting you,” she says. “What the hell happened last night?”

  “Nothing,” I say, a little too quickly. Isabel raises her perfect blonde eyebrows. “I mean, I kissed him, sure. Just felt like kissing a cute tourist, I guess.”

  “Ahh yes,” Isabel says. “You’re in the reeling stage. That happens.”

  “Don’t judge me,” I say, with a huge mouthful of burrito. “I just got dumped, twice removed.”

  “No judgment.” She smiles. I think she believes me about just kissing, since she’s not pressing it. She doesn’t need to know everything else, at least not right now. “And yeah, I told a girl in my Geriatrics class about it, and she couldn’t believe it. That he did it through a text, through a friend. She was like, ‘That asshole!’”

  “Speaking of that asshole, I just bumped into him.”

  “Becker? When?”

  “Like five minutes ago. And do you know what he said, after a whole summer apart? And after breaking up with me?”

  “Hopefully, ‘sorry,’ or ‘I suck.’”

  I shake my head. “Nope. He asked for eleven bucks back that he lent me in May.”

  Isabel turns and scans the dining hall, like she’s looking for this prick so she can gauge for some sign of humanity in him. “Is he still
in here? What a… I can’t even.”

  I shake my head and mutter something incoherent, and keep eating my burrito. Isabel knows me well enough to give me a few minutes, and then changes the subject, telling me about her first day and the phone call she got last night. The prof liked her application, and she has a meeting with her tomorrow. She gingerly avoids reminding me what I was doing the moment she got that call last night, but I don’t need her to. I’m already reminded.

  I spot a couple of guys checking us out a few tables away, but between Becker and Gage, I can’t deal with any kind of flirtation at the moment. Isabel sees them too, and, like a reflex, flips her lush blonde locks over her shoulder.

  “It’ll be okay,” she assures me. I must have been sitting here holding my burrito and looking worried for longer than I thought. “Just avoid him for awhile. Give him some space. I think that’s probably what you both need.”

  Give Becker space. Give Gage space.

  Between trying not to see either of them unless absolutely necessary, I’m just hoping I won’t have to stay holed up in my bedroom until Christmas break.

  Chapter 6

  KERI

  I walk down one of the campus streets and turn a corner onto Pecan Street, which isn’t officially part of the Bristowe College property, but almost all of these older houses on this block are rented by students. Or owned by them, if they’re fancy, their parents like to invest, or their Grandma Judy dies and leaves it to them. That’s what happened to Isabel.

  I hope this is the first and only time in my life I have a landlord who’s the same age as me. The house is a traditional with white siding and with black shutters, and Isabel finds time between partying, studying, and buying makeup to keep the flowers out front watered. I clomp up the porch steps and unlock the screen door, shuffling inside over the creaking old wood boards, and upstairs to my bedroom.

  My room isn’t huge, but it’s not small, either. It’s got the same old hickory flooring as downstairs, and I’ve got a bay window that looks out at the cedar and pecan trees in the backyard. It was already a pleasant enough room, but I added my own touches with my aqua colored curtains and paisley comforter.

  I put my handbag on my night sand, kick off my wedges and flop onto my bed. Good God, I’m tired. I haven’t exactly slept much in recent memory.

  My phone trills in my purse. “Ergh,” I mumble, leaning over to rummage for it. It’s my mom.

  “Hey!” I greet her.

  “Hi, darlin’,” she says. “How you doing?”

  “School started today,” I say, unable to muster a good or a fine.

  “I know! Do you like your classes?”

  Even worse question to avoid. But since I can’t, I summon a fib from the same place I got the ones that got me into the mess I’m in. “Yeah, I think it’s going to be a good semester.”

  “Oh, good.” She pauses for a second, which isn’t like her.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  Another small pause. “Well, we just got home from Austin.”

  My breath catches. My parents shun big cities and only ever go to Austin for doctor appointments. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, you know your dad has high blood pressure.”

  “Yes,” I say, trying not to freak out. But I hear him in the background talking about his baseball game on TV and he sounds okay, which calms me a little. I sit down on the edge of my bed. “But he’s been on medicine for that.”

  “He has,” Mom says. “But now we got us another problem.”

  “What? Oh God, what?”

  “Atrial fibra… where’d I put that paper about it…” I refrain from rolling my eyes. Any other time, my parents’ bumbling around makes me giggle, but not when they call me with problem and doctor in the opening topic. “Atrial fibrillation. That’s what he’s got.”

  “So that’s like a heart attack?” Is my dad having a heart attack?!

  “No, no, sweetie. Not yet.”

  “What do you mean, not yet?!”

  “It just means the top part of his heart keeps wanting to beat all fast. And the rest of his heart doesn’t… you know, agree.”

  “Okay. So what does that mean?”

  “It means we have to be a little more careful.” Mom sighs, and I can picture her sitting in her La-z-Boy chair, fiddling with one of her handmaid blankets, like she does when she’s worried. “It means we picked up some new medicine just now at CVS, and we asked the doctor all about how safe it is, and made sure it won’t mess with the blood pressure medicine he’s already on.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I say, daring to calm my nerves a bit. “What’s the prognosis?”

  “Well, sweetie,” Mom says, and I can almost hear her knuckles kneading that blanket. “It’s… it’s not great.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice calm, even though my nerves are shooting right back up.

  “Medicine first. For rate control first. Then rhythm control.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “And then, maybe a blood thinner.”

  “Why?”

  “It has to do with blood clots.” My mother, bless her heart, would have no idea what she’s saying if she didn’t have that literature right in front of her, even after a doctor explained it. “Blood clots, teeny little things. They can go to his brain and give him a stroke.”

  I open my laptop and start Googling all of this. Blood thinners, yes. Clots, yes.

  Stroke. Possibly, yes.

  Shit.

  “And it also means,” Mom says, “that with his blood pressure, we need to be concerned.”

  Of course we do. “Surgery?”

  “Maybe.” Her voice sinks a little, and I wish I could hug her. “Abla—ablation surgery, it’s called. If none of that other stuff works.”

  Ohhh, my God. No. no no no.

  “About the heart attacks,” I say. “When I asked and you said not yet?”

  “The high blood pressure,” Mom says. “It just means we have two heart things to look out for. But we’re staying on top of his medicine.” There’s a faint scuffling in the background. “Oh, hell. He got all impatient about getting home after the Ranger game started and spilled his Dr. Pepper all over the floor in a hurry to turn on the TV.”

  “Dr. Pepper?” I screech. “He’s got two serious heart issues and you’re letting him drink Dr. Pepper?”

  “Sweetie, it’s diet.”

  “It’s gone!” I order. “Dump them out. Mom, come on. This is a huge deal.”

  “I know it.” My mom’s not a big crier, but I catch a small sniffle. “I’ll get rid of them, honey. Okay? All the soda, all the cookies.”

  I put my forehead in my palm. Why do they still keep cookies around?

  “Oh, here, Keri,” Mom says. “He wants to say hi.”

  My dad’s voice fills my ear. “Hey, punkin.”

  “Daddy,” I say, pushing down a tiny sob. “Put down the Dr. Pepper. Like, now.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Don’t you let your mother scare you.”

  “Just take care of yourself. Seriously. Should I come home for a few days?”

  “No, no. Don’t you worry about me. How’s school?”

  Ugh. “Good,” I lie. “It’s going good.”

  “You got that class with the big shot tycoon? We read about that in the paper.”

  I’m glad my dad can’t see my face. Really, really glad. “As a matter of fact, yeah. I do.”

  “Look at you.” Dad sounds unfathomably chipper after just being told his heart has two danger signs on it. “Our future boss lady businesswoman! Learning from the rich and famous.”

  “Well, the second part is technically true.”

  “And the first part will be, too.” I can tell my dad’s smiling. “We’re proud of you, punkin. Real proud.”

  I lean over and plunk my face down into my pillow.

  After I hang up with my mom, who comes back on the line when someone hits a triple and Dad has to go, I draw my knees up to
my chin and just sit for a while. The sun is finally starting to set after a long, hot day. I’m trying not to stress, but I can’t help it. How can I not be freaked out about my dad having heart problems, even if he’s still at home and in good spirits? He’s always done the whole macho tough guy thing.

  What am I going to do about my dad? And my mom, who always says she’s going to change up the fats, sodiums, and general food situation in our house, but always reverts right back to the down-home cooking she grew up with? She can’t screw around with this.

  Plus, she doesn’t exactly have an A on her health report card, either. She had me pretty late—she was past forty before a pregnancy actually made it to term, was still putting my hair in pigtails when other moms her age were touring colleges with their kids. She had a cancer scare awhile back, but thankfully that got taken care of.

  Having older parents is a little weird when you’re a kid—it often means that your friends mistake them for your grandparents, and that they are even further from getting your pop culture references than regular parents. But now it means that I, being the only child, have to take care of them. I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like in the future, but I do know that I need to make bank, and I need to make sure any job I accept gives me flexibility to visit them a lot.

  Or maybe I’ll even tell them to sell their house, and move them closer to wherever I end up. But in all honesty, I have no idea how I’m going to be able to look after them like they deserve, and still be independent.

  I realize I didn’t tell my parents about Becker, how I’m suddenly single after two years. And I sure as hell can’t tell them anything about Gage. But oddly enough, my dad did do something for me and that whole fiasco. He helped confirm that staying in the Case Study class is the right thing to do.

  My dad is proud of me.

  And Gage can just take it like a man and deal with my presence in his class.

  The next afternoon, Tuesday, I climb the stairs to the third floor of the business building, where the faculty offices line the hallways. According to the syllabus, Gage should be in his office. I hesitate just outside the door, then muster up my courage enough to knock. “Come in,” is the immediate response.