Page 138 of Cherish

“Oh, Macy. That can’t be true. I know some school staff can be assholes, but surely Uncle Finn can talk to them—”

“He doesn’t want to talk to them, Grace. He’s so busy bending over backward to make my mother happy that he doesn’t give a shit if I’m happy or not. And she doesn’t want to listen to my side—all she wants to do is punish me for getting kicked out.”

She stands up, starts to pace just as Hudson switches to a rousing rendition of the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” For a second, we both stare at each other, and then we crack up. Because Hudson’s timing is impeccable, as usual.

Once we finish laughing, Macy flops onto the bed and covers her eyes with the back of her hand. “They don’t get it, you know? It’s the strangest thing. My mom comes back, and all of a sudden they want to tell me how to dress and where to go and who I’m supposed to be friends with and how I have to behave when I’m at school.”

She shakes her head like she can’t believe it. “I thought my motherleft meyears ago, and between his duties as headmaster and the time he spent supposedly looking for her, my dad’s been nearly as absent. Now they just want to pretend like it never happened, just pick up where they left off all those years ago. It doesn’t work that way. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“No, you’re not.” I reach out and cover her other hand with mine. “You’re the best person and the most kick-ass witch I’ve ever met. They have to know that.”

“They don’t know anything,” she tells me. “That’s the problem. They say they love me, but who they really love is the good little girl I used to be. The one who never caused any trouble and did whatever they wanted me to. That girl died at the Vampire Court, and this Macy—the one who’s a mess and can’t get her shit together—is the one who took her place.”

Just the thought that she might be right makes me furious. Because Macy is still one of the best people I know, and she doesn’t deserve all the pain that’s being heaped on her. She sure as hell doesn’t deserve two parents who are so busy worrying about her messing up her life that they don’t realize life has already messed withher. A lot. It’s maddening.

“First of all,you’renot a mess,” I say in a voice that tells her I’m deadly serious. “You’ve had a string of really shitty things happen to you, and you’ve learned not to just roll over and take it. We both have—and I actually call that a win for us, not a loss.

“Second of all, your shit seems like it’s together just fine to me. Have you been through a lot of really tough stuff? Yes. Did you come out the other side? Hell yeah, you did. Could you use some help dealing with it? Probably. There’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe someone needs to tell your parents that.”

“Maybe I do,” she says, and there’s such a look of relief on her face that it breaks my heart. Relief that I believe her. More, relief that I believeinher. And I damn sure am going to have her back from now on, whether I’m in San Diego or not.

I start to tell her as much, but Hudson switches to Queen’s “We Will Rock You”andhe’s sounding more than a little hoarse at this point.

“Oh my God,” Macy groans with a roll of her eyes. “Will you please go put that boy out of his misery before he works his way through the entire lexicon of British music? For all we know, he’ll start on the Spice Girls next.”

“Hey, I bet he could rock ‘Wannabe’ if he wanted to.” Still, I get to my feet.

“Hey, do vampires prune up when they stay in water too long?” Macy asks. When I turn to stare at her with a what-the-fuck look, she shrugs. “I’m just saying. Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Can you see Hudson Vega looking like a prune?” I raise my brows.

“Well, no. But that’s why I’m asking you. You know him better than anyone.”

Again, I think of the changes at the Vampire Court. And wonder if that’s actually true. Or maybe it is, and I know Hudson as well as anybody can. Just not enough to figure out what he’s up to now.

As I knock on the door, I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. “Talk’s over,” I call out. “You can come out now.”

The shower turns off immediately.

Ten minutes later, he comes out of the bathroom fully dressed and maybe—just maybe—a tiny bit prune-y, though I’m certainly not going to be the one to point it out. “We need to find Polo,” he tells us as he slides on his boots. “And I want to let Nyaz know we’re back and to see Smokey. Let her know we’re okay.”

“Why don’t you do that while Macy and I grab something to eat?” I tell him as I head into the bathroom to get dressed as well. “I’msohungry.”

“Oh God, me too,” Macy agrees. “Woman cannot live by renegade Snickers bars alone. Partly because nutrition is a thing, but mostly because I ate my last one when I got back to my room last night.”

“We’ll wake the others while you get dressed,” Hudson tells me.

“I might go put on some makeup, actually,” Macy says quietly, as if she’s embarrassed. “I don’t know if…” And I know exactly what she’s saying—she might be starting to let her guard down around me, just a little, but that doesn’t mean she’s anywhere close to ready to go out in the world without her eyeliner armor.

And my perfect mate saves her from having to explain, saying, “I’ll walk you to your room before waking the others, then. Grace, I’ll see you in the lobby.”

“Sounds amazing,” I reply, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, because he may have already brushed his teeth this morning, but I definitely haven’t.

“You don’t have to walk me to my room,” Macy argues even as they head for the door.

Hudson just pulls it open and gestures for her to precede him through it. “Consider it full-service. You get company and a show.”

“I really like your rendition of‘Start Me Up,’” she tells him with a laugh. “Though Grace and I think you’d do a bang-up job with‘Wannabe.’”

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