Page 36 of Secret Hudson

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

I nod, picking up the fork again and stabbing at what's 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’m being dramatic, but the gist of it is true.

“Are you in love with him?”

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

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

I shake 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 tiptoes 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 laugh 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 drop the fork again. It's 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 twitches back and forth and I know it's eating away at him that I hurt her. After everything he’s done to Ava, that man has spent the last year moving hell and high water to make it up to her. Part of that means he isn’t about to stand by and watch someone else cause her pain either. Which, of course, puts 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 tosend everyone else packing - you do that again, and you and I will have a problem.”

I nod. “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 exhale 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 frowns. “You’re not pathetic. And Hudson would know that too,” he pauses 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 drop my chin to my chest and rest 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 isn'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 levelheaded, shit-together guy I know.”

I shrug. “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 does. Because at the end of the day, there isn’t a single person among the Finding Nolan crew who didn’t experience some degree of trauma as a kid. We were 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 were burdened with by default as children.

Blaise. Blaise barely existed all throughout school. He went 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 was then. Now, there’s no hiding. Blaise is at the center of millions of prying eyes every day. All watching. All adoring.

“Royce.”

“Hm?” I’ve been 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 chew 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 eyelash 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 throw 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 is confused. “What are you talking about? You can’t be what guy?”

“That guy. The gay guy.”

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