Copyright © 2026 Nuno R.F.C.R. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by applicable copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), actual events, or real locales is entirely coincidental.
Content note: This chapter contains depictions of domestic violence, homophobic abuse, and references to addiction. Some readers may find these scenes distressing. Reader discretion is advised.
"With My Whole Heart"
Hudson slid the plate across the counter.
It was simple food, nothing plated with tweezers, just a warm, honest kind of meal.
Liam sat on the high stool opposite him. He watched the plate arrive like it was a gift.
Hudson arched an eyebrow. "Okay. Be honest."
Liam picked up his fork, like he was about to deliver a verdict that would alter the course of history. He took a bite. Chewed thoughtfully. Stared into the middle distance with exaggerated concentration.
Hudson leaned forward, hands clasped, eyes wide. "Don't do that." Liam swallowed. Then his mouth twisted into a dramatic wince, as if he'd just bitten into regret. Hudson's jaw dropped. "Fuck. It's that bad?"
Liam sighed, tragically. "It's...terrible."
Hudson stared at him, wounded. "Liam." Liam's eyes flicked up, and he winked. Hudson's relief came out as a laugh that was half a gasp. He slapped Liam's arm hard enough that his fork clinked against the plate. "You're a fucking asshole," Hudson said, grinning.
Liam's smile spread, lazy and pleased. "I'm an honest critic."
"You are a liar," Hudson corrected, sliding onto the stool beside him with his own plate. He took a bite, chewed, and nodded solemnly to himself. "It's pretty good."
Liam stabbed another piece of the meal with his fork, turning it over like he was inspecting evidence. "Pretty good? That's how you describe your own cooking?"
Hudson shrugged, mouth full. He swallowed and gestured with his fork. "What do you want me to say? That it's the best thing I've ever made? That Gordon Ramsay would weep into his apron?"
"Would be more convincing than 'pretty good.'" Liam took another bite, slower this time, savoring it. "This is actually really solid. Like, restaurant solid."
Hudson's expression shifted, somewhere between pleased and suspicious. "You're not just saying that because you feel bad about the fake-out?"
"Nope." Liam set his fork down and leaned back on the stool, stretching his arms overhead. "Feel zero guilt about that. You should've seen your face."
"My face was betrayed."
"Your face was hilarious."
Hudson bumped his shoulder against Liam's. "Next time I do this, I'm adding ghost peppers. See how hilarious your face looks then."
Liam grinned, picking up his fork again. "Worth it."
They ate in comfortable silence for a moment, the kind that didn't need filling. Hudson watched Liam out of the corner of his vision, the way he ate like he had nowhere else to be, like the kitchen counter was exactly where he wanted to spend his evening.
Hudson cleared his throat. "So, uh...honest question. If you had to rate this, scale of one to ten, what are we talking?"
Liam chewed thoughtfully, dragging it out just enough to make Hudson squirm. "Solid eight."
"Eight?" Hudson turned to face him fully, mock-offended. "What's it missing? What would make it a ten?"
"Garlic bread."
Hudson blinked. "Garlic bread."
"Yeah." Liam nodded seriously. "Everything's better with garlic bread. That's just science."
"That's not science. That's your carb addiction talking."
"Tomato, tomahto."
Hudson laughed, shaking his head. He stabbed at his own plate, then paused. "Wait, if garlic bread makes it a ten, what about dessert? Does dessert factor into the rating system?"
Liam tilted his head, considering. "Depends. What kind of dessert are we talking about?"
"I don't know. Brownies? Ice cream?"
"Both."
"Both?"
"Yeah, like...brownie with ice cream on top. That's the dream." Liam's tone was completely earnest, like he'd just described world peace.
Hudson set his fork down and turned to him, brow furrowed in mock seriousness. "You want me to cook you dinner and make you a brownie sundae?"
"Not make. Just have on hand. For emergencies."
"What kind of emergency requires a brownie sundae?"
Liam gestured vaguely at the space between them. "This kind. The kind where I've been emotionally manipulated into thinking your food was terrible and need comfort dessert."
Hudson barked out a laugh. "You emotionally manipulated 'me'."
"Semantics."
"That's not semantics! That's the literal opposite of what happened!"
Liam's grin widened, unrepentant. "Agree to disagree."
Hudson frowned. "You're unbelievable."
"Been told that before." Liam twisted on his stool. "Usually right before someone admits I'm right."
Hudson ran water over his plate, glancing back over his shoulder. "You're not right. You're just stubborn."
"Stubbornly right."
"Stubbornly annoying."
Liam watched him. "This is good, Arizona. Like...award good."
Hudson lifted his fork like a microphone. "I would like to thank the academy. I would like to thank Milan. I would like to thank your underused kitchen."
"My kitchen has been used," Liam said.
Hudson turned slowly. "By who? Spirits?"
Liam's mouth twitched. "By...staff."
Hudson pointed at him with his fork. "Uber Eats doesn't qualify as staff."
Liam leaned in, voice soft with mock offense. "So I'm being bullied in my own home."
"You're being educated," Hudson said.
Liam took another bite and hummed. "This is dangerous."
Hudson's eyes narrowed. "What is?"
Liam's gaze dropped to Hudson's mouth for half a second, so quick Hudson almost missed it. "If you keep feeding me like this, I'm going to start thinking you're trying to keep me."
Hudson almost choked on his food. He coughed, laughed, then threw Liam a look. "I am absolutely not trying to keep you."
Liam's smile turned smug. "Sure."
Hudson shook his head, still smiling, and took another bite. The apartment felt different. Less like a showroom, more like a place where someone actually lived.
They ate for a moment, trading small remarks about the grocery woman, about Hudson's "peppery means tastes like Italy" theory, about how Liam's idea of "walking around" was apparently avoiding main streets like a fugitive.
Hudson kept talking, because Hudson always did, filling silences with bright little sparks. And Liam listened. He loved listening. But there was something quieter behind his eyes now, something that had been building since the cinema, since Hudson's head on his shoulder.
And eventually, in the gentle lull between bites, Liam shifted.
And tried to step closer.
"You know," Liam said carefully, eyes on his plate, "I keep thinking about what you said the other day."
Hudson's fork paused midair. "What did I say?"
Liam glanced at him briefly. "That you never thought you'd come here. That it felt...impossible."
Hudson's smile flickered, quick as a shadow. "Oh. Yeah." He took a bite too fast, like he needed something in his mouth. "I mean. It's Milan. People like me don't just...end up in Milan."
Liam's voice stayed soft. "Why not?"
Hudson let out a laugh that didn't quite match his eyes. "Because my life isn't the kind where people end up in Milan, Liam."
Liam set his fork down gently, like he didn't want metal to sound too loud. Hudson took another bite, chewing with focused determination, staring at the counter as if it had suddenly become fascinating. Liam didn't push yet. He waited. Let the quiet breathe. When Hudson still didn't look up, Liam tried again, cautious, respectful in a way that almost made it worse.
"You don't really talk about home," Liam said. "Arizona, I mean."
Hudson snorted lightly. "What is there to say? It's hot. Flat. Lots of cactuses."
Liam's mouth curved, but his eyes didn't. "That's not what I mean."
Hudson shrugged, still not looking at him. "It's just not that interesting."
Liam's gaze stayed on Hudson's hands. "It feels like it is."
Hudson's laugh came again, brighter now, sharper. "Liam, I promise you, my tragic origin story is not as exciting as you think."
"I'm not asking for exciting," Liam said quietly. "I'm asking for you."
Hudson's fork scraped faintly against the plate. He took a breath as if he were about to say something, then changed direction at the last second. "Well," Hudson said, going for breezy, "if we're doing the 'get to know you' portion of our European scandal tour, I'd like to know what kind of freaky little kid learns Italian fluently."
Liam smiled, even though the question dodged his. "Deflection."
Hudson looked up finally, eyes bright with forced playfulness. "Conversation."
Liam held his gaze. "Hudson."
Hudson's smile tightened. "What?"
Liam's voice was gentle, but it didn't let go. "What happened?"
The air shifted. The muscles in Hudson's shoulders drew in. His posture changed in the smallest ways, like a body preparing for impact. His eyes went careful. His mouth stayed curved, but it stopped reaching his cheeks.
"Nothing happened," Hudson said lightly. "I left. Lots of people leave."
Liam nodded, as if agreeing. "Yeah. They do." Hudson exhaled, relieved for a second, then Liam added softly. "But the way you left...it doesn't feel like you left because you wanted adventure."
Hudson's jaw worked. "You don't know that."
Liam's eyes stayed steady. "I don't. That's why I'm asking."
Hudson's laugh cut through the room, sudden and defensive. "Jesus. What is this, therapy with Doctor Hart? Am I supposed to lie on your expensive couch and tell you about my feelings?"
Liam's expression softened. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
Hudson nodded fast. "Great. Then we're good."
They ate for a few seconds in brittle quiet, forks moving, food disappearing, the room suddenly too big.
Liam tried one more time, softer still. "It's just...when you ran from me that day at the house..." Hudson's fork stopped so abruptly it made a small, sharp clink. Liam kept his voice low, careful. "It looked familiar. Like you'd done it before."
Hudson's eyes flashed. "Don't."
Liam blinked, surprised by the sudden edge. "Hudson, I'm not..."
Hudson pushed his stool back a fraction, not leaving yet, but ready. "Just drop it."
"Why?" Liam asked gently.
"Because I don't want to talk about," Hudson snapped, and the anger in his voice startled even him. It rose too fast, too hot, like something that had been under pressure for a long time. "Stop trying to figure me out."
Liam's eyes widened slightly. "That's not what I'm doing."
Hudson laughed again, but it sounded like it hurt. "Yes, it is."
Liam's voice stayed calm. "I'm trying to know you."
Hudson's chest rose and fell. He looked away, jaw tight, trying to swallow something down.
Liam leaned slightly closer, still gentle. "If you let me..."
And that was it.
Something in Hudson broke loose.
He jerked back from the counter so quickly his stool scraped loudly on the floor. His plate shifted. His breath went ragged, as if a trapdoor had opened under him and he was falling.
"Fuck, man!" Hudson barked, voice suddenly loud. His eyes shone with something furious and terrified. "Fine. You want to know?"
Liam stood too, instinctively, hands lifting slightly. "Hudson..."
Hudson's voice cracked straight through him. "My mom was a junkie and my dad beat the shit out of me and then kicked me out...are you fucking happy?"
The words hit the room like thrown glass.
Liam froze, face drained.
Hudson was already shaking, breathing hard, rage and shame tangled so tight it was impossible to separate them. His eyes went wide as if he couldn't believe he'd said it out loud, as if the truth tasted like blood in his mouth. He spun away from the counter with a strangled sound and stormed toward the bathroom, shoulders rigid, fists clenched.
Seconds later, the bathroom door slammed so hard the sound reverberated through the apartment.
"Fuck..." Liam whispered to himself.
The kitchen felt suddenly wrong. Liam stayed still for a few seconds, as if moving too quickly might make everything shatter more.
Then he slid off his stool.
He crossed the apartment slowly, not because he didn't want to reach Hudson, but because he did, too much, and he knew panic could spook something already wounded. He stopped in front of the bathroom door and lifted his hand.
Knocked once. Soft.
Nothing.
He knocked again, a little firmer. "Hudson?"
Silence answered him like a wall.
He tried the name again, quieter, like an offering. "Hudson."
From inside, Hudson's voice came out tight and raw. "Go away."
Liam closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Liam said, and the words were immediate, unpolished, no spin to them.
"Leave me alone, Liam," Hudson repeated, harsher this time, as if volume could make a boundary real.
Liam swallowed. His throat felt too small. "I can't."
Another silence.
Liam leaned forward until his forehead touched the door. He let out a breath, almost a laugh without humor. "You know," he murmured, voice low, "it's becoming a theme with us." No response. He kept his forehead there, eyes closed. "This whole 'ending up on opposite sides of a door'." A soft exhale. "I thought we were done with that phase."
For a moment, there was nothing but the echo of Hudson's outburst still bouncing around Liam's ribs.
Then Liam spoke again, carefully.
"I didn't mean to corner you," he said. His voice tightened, and he steadied it. "And I wasn't trying to upset you."
He paused, listening. Hudson stayed silent, but Liam could feel him there. The presence on the other side of the door, like a second heartbeat inside the walls.
Liam's hand rested flat against the wood. "I asked because I..." He stopped, searching for the right shape of truth. "Because I care. And because when you flinch, I feel it in my body like it's happening to me."
His breath shook slightly. He forced it to slow.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted. "I'm...not good at it."
He waited, letting the quiet stay quiet, letting Hudson have space to breathe without another question stabbing at him. No answer came. Liam's chest tightened. He turned, slowly, and slid down the door until he sat on the floor with his back against it.
He tipped his head back against the wood and spoke upward, as if Hudson might hear the steadiness in him better from this angle. "I know what it's like," Liam said quietly, and there was something in his voice that made the words heavier than comfort. "When the people who are supposed to protect you... don't."
He stared at his hands for a moment, fingers flexing. His voice stayed gentle, but it carried an old, familiar ache.
"I spent my whole life surrounded by adults," Liam continued. "They all had my back as long as I stayed useful." He let out a breath that sounded like a tired laugh. "And the second I wasn't...convenient... they'd smile and step aside and let me take the fault."
He turned his head slightly, cheek almost touching the door, as if he could close the distance with a shift of bone.
"And I know," he went on, "that when you grow up like that, opening up doesn't feel like relief. It feels like...handing someone the knife and telling them where to press." His voice broke very slightly on the last word. He steadied it. "I don't want to be that person to you," Liam said. "I don't want to be another set of hands you have to brace for."
Silence stretched.
Liam nodded once, almost as if agreeing with it. "Tell you what," he said. "You don't have to open the door." He swallowed. "If you're scared, then we can do it like this." He rested his head back again, eyes closing. "You can stay there."
A faint, pained exhale came from inside.
Liam's chest loosened by a fraction.
"I'm right here," Liam murmured. "You can take as long as you need."
He paused, then added, softer, almost shy in its vulnerability.
"Keep the door closed." A small breath. "But...open your heart to me."
The apartment held its breath.
Liam waited.
He stayed where he was, back against the bathroom door, palms loose on his thighs, eyes lowered. He didn't bargain with the quiet. He didn't try to fix it. He simply held it, the way you held a fragile thing with both hands and no sudden movements.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe it was less.
Then Liam heard it.
A soft shift.
Bare feet on tile.
The slightest scrape of fabric.
He didn't move. But his body registered everything the way a starved thing registered warmth.
Another movement, closer. The sound of a breath caught and released. Liam could almost see it: Hudson somewhere inside that bright bathroom, shoulders tight, eyes wet, trying to decide whether staying silent would be safer than being known.
The air on the other side changed. Liam felt it in his spine, an invisible pressure, like someone approaching a ledge.
Then the weight came.
Hudson slid down the door on the other side, slowly, carefully, until his back met it, mirroring Liam's posture. Wood and paint between them. Nothing else. Their bodies aligned like an answer.
Liam heard Hudson breathe. A raw inhale, shaky with restraint, as if breathing itself had become work. For a long moment Hudson said nothing. Liam let him have that. Liam's eyes closed, not to shut Hudson out, but to listen better, to become still enough that Hudson's words wouldn't feel chased.
Finally, Hudson spoke.
His voice came muffled through the door, but it wasn't small. It carried. It sounded like someone reaching into a deep drawer they'd kept locked for years and pulling something out with shaking hands.
"I just... didn't...fit," Hudson said, and the simple sentence landed like a stone. "Anywhere. Not at school. Not...in that house. It's like I was always the wrong shape."
He paused, breath rough. "And if you're different...if you're soft, or quiet, or..." A short, bitter laugh. "...if you're anything they don't understand, they treat you like you're a problem. Something they need to fix."
Liam's fingers curled lightly against the floor. He stayed silent.
Hudson's voice steadied slightly, as if saying it out loud was a kind of release, even through wood.
"My mom..." he began, and Liam heard the shift immediately, the way pain softened when love was still tangled in it. "She wasn't always like that, you know? She was...she was funny. When I was little she used to sing while she cooked, like she couldn't help it. She'd dance, too." Hudson exhaled, a sound that might have been a smile and might have been grief. "And then she hurt her back. Something at work. It was supposed to be temporary. Pills for a few weeks. A few months."
His breathing hitched. "And then it just...became her."
Silence stretched. Liam felt the impulse to speak, to offer a word, a touch, anything. He didn't. Hudson wasn't asking to be interrupted. Hudson was finally giving the truth a straight line.
"She'd try," Hudson continued, voice lower. "She'd get clean and...God, she would try so hard. She'd wake up early, make coffee, act like she was back. And I'd let myself believe it. Every time." A quiet, painful laugh slipped out.
He swallowed. "And then she'd disappear again. Or she'd be in the house, but...not really there. Just...eyes gone. She'd promise things, forget them. She'd cry and beg me not to hate her." His voice cracked on the word hate. He cleared his throat, forcing it back into shape. "And I never did. I couldn't. I loved her. I still..." He stopped, as if the present tense hurt too much.
Liam's eyes burned. He blinked them clear, jaw tightening.
Hudson breathed out slowly. "But...my dad... didn't see it as sickness. He saw it as weakness. Shame. He'd yell at her. He'd slam doors. He'd punch walls. Sometimes he'd leave for days and come back like nothing happened."
A pause. The air grew colder.
"And with me..." Hudson said, and his voice went tighter, defensive by instinct. "He was always waiting. Like he could feel there was something wrong with me before I even knew what it was."
Liam's throat tightened. He stared at the floor, but his body was rigid now, every muscle braced.
"I got good at being quiet," Hudson went on. "Good at disappearing. Good at making myself...acceptable. Straight enough. Man enough. Whatever the fuck that meant in his head." His breath shook. "I never brought anyone home. I never said anything. I learned how to laugh at the right jokes. How to act like I didn't care when he'd talk about 'fags' on TV."
He paused. Liam heard him shift against the door, like he was pressing himself harder into it to stay upright.
"And then one night he found out anyway."
Liam's eyes squeezed shut.
Hudson's voice grew distant, as if he had to step back from the memory to survive telling it.
"He saw something on my phone. That was it. And the look on his face..." Hudson exhaled, sharp. "I still see it sometimes. Like I'd vomited on him."
Liam's mouth went hard. His eyes wet with a rage so clean it felt like pain. Hudson's voice had already taken him back there, back to that kitchen.
"When he found the message," Hudson said, and the words came out steadier than they had any right to. "Something in him snapped." Hudson's breath rattled. "He just..." A sharp inhale. "He grabbed the phone first."
Liam's hands curled into fists against the tile.
Hudson continued, voice lower now. "Then, he shoved me into the counter. Hard. I remember the edge catching my hip."
Liam closed his eyes again. He forced himself to breathe quietly, so Hudson wouldn't hear his anger and stop.
"And then," Hudson said, and his voice tightened around the word, "he hit me."
A pause.
Short, brutal.
"It wasn't like...one slap. It was like he'd been holding it in for years." Hudson's breathing hitched. "He hit me, and I stumbled, and he followed, like he couldn't stand the idea of me staying upright."
Liam's throat burned.
Hudson's voice grew rawer, the calm beginning to fracture. "I fell against the table. I tried to get up. I tried to say something, but..." His laugh came out short, bitter. "Words never mattered in that house."
Liam's eyes opened.
"And then he..." Hudson stopped. The silence that followed felt like Hudson hitting something in his memory that still had sharp edges. "He grabbed the belt."
Liam's stomach turned.
Hudson went on, voice shaking. "I remember the sound of it coming out of the loops. The buckle hitting against something. The way he held it." His breath shuddered.
Liam's fists tightened. Tears came hot and sudden, spilling down his face.
Hudson's voice dipped, heavy with the effort of telling it. "I backed up. I tried to keep space. But the kitchen was small. The hallway was small. The whole house...it was like the walls were helping him."
Liam's eyes squeezed shut. He wanted to open the door, to pull Hudson out, to stop the past with his hands.
"He swung," Hudson said. "And I flinched and I put my arms up and it still caught me." A pause. "And then he shoved me again," Hudson whispered, and the whisper made it worse. "He shoved me so hard my feet slipped. I went down. And..." Hudson's breath broke. "My head hit the corner of the cabinet."
Liam went rigid. His whole body tensed as if it had happened in front of him. A sound pushed out of his throat, silent, strangled, his face twisting with rage so sharp it felt like grief.
Hudson kept talking, like he had to, like stopping would mean drowning.
"I remember the pain," Hudson said. "The...flash. The room tilting." He swallowed. "I put my hand up and when I pulled it back it was...it was warm."
Liam's breath hitched. A tear slid down his cheek and dropped. He didn't wipe it away. He couldn't.
Hudson's voice was smaller now, stripped of bravado. "He saw it. He saw it, but he still..." Hudson's voice shook with something like disbelief, even years later. "He still kept going."
Liam pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth, holding back a sound that would have cracked the whole apartment open.
"My mom came out," Hudson said. "She tried. She really tried. She was...she was swaying, barely awake, and she stepped between us." A pause. Hudson's breathing trembled. "But he pushed her aside like she was nothing."
Liam's face crumpled. Tears fell, furious and helpless.
Hudson continued, voice trembling harder now, as if the memory had finally grabbed him by the throat. "He stood over me and said things...things I can't..." He broke off, breathing ragged. "Said I was disgusting. Said I'd ruined him. He said...I wasn't his son."
Liam's jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
"And then," Hudson whispered, "he told me to get out." Hudson's voice softened into raw exhaustion. "I remember grabbing my backpack. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't zip it." He exhaled, broken.
Liam's tears blurred his vision. He kept his back against the door, silent, absorbing every syllable as if he could take some of Hudson's pain into himself and make it smaller.
But Hudson kept going. "I slept outside," he said simply. "Three nights. Behind the grocery store at first. Then at a bus station." Hudson's breath trembled. "The first night I thought...he'll come down. Or my mom will. Someone will." A pause. "The second night I realized nobody was coming. The third night I realized if I stayed there...if I stayed anywhere near that...something in me would rot. And I'd never leave. I'd just...turn into another person trapped in that place."
A subtle silence.
His voice got quieter, like the confession was running out of oxygen. "So I bought a bus ticket. I didn't even pick LA because it was some dream. I picked it because it was far." Hudson's voice softened to almost nothing. "And I told myself I was fine. I told myself I didn't care. I told myself...if I make jokes, if I work, if I keep moving, if I never stop...then it doesn't catch me."
A pause.
"And then I met you," he said again, softer than before. "And you made me stop."
A pause.
Hudson swallowed. Liam heard it, an audible, painful effort, like swallowing glass. "I keep thinking," he continued, "that I'm going to do something wrong. Like...I'm going to say the wrong thing, or get too quiet, or make one of my dumb jokes at the wrong time and you'll look at me and realize I'm not...what you thought." His breathing grew uneven, closer to tears. "Because people always do. They always get to a point where the cracks stop being cute."
Liam's jaw tightened. He stared at his hands, feeling helpless rage at a past he couldn't rewrite.
Hudson went on anyway, voice trembling with sincerity now that he'd stepped past the safest lies. "You have this whole life," he said. "And I'm just..." He exhaled sharply, frustrated with himself. "I'm just some guy who knows how to carry plates." He paused, embarrassed by his own vulnerability. "And I'm scared," Hudson admitted.
The words were simple.
"I'm scared you're going to wake up one day and..." He struggled, the sentence cracking in the middle. "And get tired of me."
Silence.
"And...I don't know what to do...with how badly I want you not to leave," he confessed.
The apartment held its breath again. On the bathroom side of the door, Hudson pressed the back of his head against the wood and closed his eyes. He waited for the thing he'd always gotten. A shift of weight. Footsteps walking away. Absence. Because that was what happened when you told the truth: people decided he was too complicated, too sad, too much work.
Hudson stared at the inside of his eyelids, willing himself not to panic, not to chase. He could already feel the shame rising, hot and humiliating, at having said any of it out loud.
And then, from the other side of the door, something happened.
Liam's voice began to sing.
Just a whisper of melody, deep and warm, like someone turning on a small lamp in a dark room. Hudson recognized it immediately: that quiet Sufjan Stevens kind of ache, the kind of song that sounded like it was made to be sung only when someone was trying not to break.
"I will love you
I will love you with my whole heart
I will love you with my whole heart
I will love you baby
Say you love me baby
(Say you love me baby)
Say you love me with your whole heart
(Say you love me with your whole heart)"
Liam barely voiced it at all. He let the tune carry the meaning. Soft, steady, a lullaby for someone who'd never been lulled.
Hudson's breath caught so sharply it hurt.
He clamped a hand over his mouth, instinctive, as if tears were a sound he had to hide. His shoulders shook once, twice, then the dam went. He cried silently, hand pressing hard against his lips to keep the sobs from spilling out.
But Liam kept going.
"And you're all I want
(I fell in love, I fell in love the moment that I met you)
And you're all I need
(I give my life, I give my love, promise I will protect you)
And you're all I've got
(I will not rest until I know the best is always with you)
And I still believe
(I confess the world's a mess but I will always love you)"
The melody seeped under Hudson's ribs and loosened something that had been knotted for years. It didn't erase the hurt, it didn't pretend it hadn't happened, but it did something stranger and rarer.
It stayed.
"I will save you
(I will save you)
I will save you from your sorrow
(I will save you from your sorrow)
I will love you baby
(I will love you baby)
Even if there's no tomorrow
(Even if there's no tomorrow)"
It stayed with him in the same way Liam's body had stayed against the door, in the same way Liam hadn't offered pity or advice or a neat conclusion. The song was a gentle insistence.
I'm still here.
I'm not afraid of you.
"Say you love me baby
Say you love me true
Say you love me baby
I go crazy, I love you
And you're all I want
And you're all I need
And you're all I want
And I still believe"
And then, through the tears, Hudson felt it. The tiniest, reluctant lift at the corner of his mouth. A smile, fragile as a cracked shell. Like his body didn't know how to hold joy and pain at once and was trying anyway. Because that was the truth blooming under the grief.
Liam loved him.
Not the easy version.
Not the funny version.
Not the version that stayed charming and light and safe.
Him.
Hudson took a shaky breath. Wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe, as if he could clean the past off his skin with terrycloth. He pressed his palm flat against the door and pushed himself up. His legs felt weak, like he'd run miles. He stood, took one breath, then another, and reached for the handle.
It turned easily.
The door opened.
The moment it did, Liam's balance shifted.
He toppled backward with a muffled, undignified 'oof' like a man who had been bracing himself against a wall that suddenly decided to stop existing.
Hudson let out a broken laugh through his tears, the sound cracked but real. "Oh shit," Hudson sniffed, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. "Are you okay?"
Liam blinked up at him from the floor. "No," he said hoarsely. "I've been murdered by emotional intimacy."
Hudson's laugh turned into another small sob. Liam's gaze softened, all humor sliding into tenderness. He didn't get up. He just looked at Hudson. Hudson lowered himself slowly, knees hitting tile, then he lay down beside Liam as if the floor was the only place his body knew how to be honest right now. He turned his face toward Liam, breath still trembling.
Liam's eyes flicked over him, checking, calming, staying. Hudson leaned in and kissed him. Liam exhaled into the kiss, relieved, broken open, smiling faintly against Hudson's lips. Hudson pulled back. Their foreheads hovered close, breaths tangled. Liam swallowed, gaze searching Hudson's face.
Then, quietly, he asked. "Where is it?"
Hudson blinked. His eyes glistened, lashes heavy with tears he'd tried to swallow back. He took a breath that trembled and turned his head slightly, exposing the line of his hair.
Wordlessly, Hudson reached for Liam's hand.
His fingers were gentle, careful, guiding. He lifted Liam's hand and brought it to his head, pressing Liam's fingertips to the scalp just left of his forehead, where the hair broke around a thin ridge beneath the skin.
Liam's touch was reverent. He brushed his fingers over the spot with almost no pressure. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping near his cheekbone. He stared at the place he couldn't see as if looking at it might make it make sense.
Hudson's throat worked. "It's not..." he started, then stopped. Because minimizing it felt like lying now.
Liam's eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them, they were fierce with tenderness. "You should never have to carry pain like that," he said. "Not you."
Hudson's mouth trembled.
A single tear slipped free and traced a clean line down his cheek, warm against his skin. Hudson didn't wipe it away. He just let it fall, as if the body finally understood it was allowed.
He nudged closer to Liam, drawn by the gravity of him, by the steadiness. Hudson's hand slid lower, almost instinctively, toward Liam's waist, toward the familiar place where desire lived and could be simpler than grief. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of Liam's shirt, then lower still, trailing down Liam's pants toward his crotch, a quiet attempt to shift the feeling into something he could control.
But Liam caught his wrist.
Not harsh.
Not scolding.
Just stopping him.
Hudson looked up, startled.
Liam took Hudson's hand in his warm palm, enclosing Hudson's fingers, and guided it upward until Hudson's hand rested flat against Liam's chest.
Over Liam's heart.
Liam looked at him, voice soft. "I was thinking..." He paused, searching Hudson's face for permission. "We just lay here."
The offer was small, almost nothing.
But it meant everything.
Hudson's smile wobbled through tears, fragile and grateful. He nodded slowly. "Okay," he whispered, like the word was new.
He moved closer, inch by inch, until he could press his face into Liam's chest. He tucked his head there. Liam's scent filled his lungs. Hudson exhaled, and the tension in his shoulders eased a fraction.
Liam cradled him.
One arm wrapped around Hudson's back, drawing him in. His fingers brushed up and down Hudson's spine in slow, soothing passes, tender, patient.
Hudson lay there, listening to the steady rhythm under his hand and cheek.
Liam's heart kept beating, unbothered by the past.
Unafraid of the truth.
Holding Hudson in the quiet.
*
Hudson woke first, tangled in sheets that still smelled faintly of last night's warmth, his face pressed to Liam's shoulder like a habit his body had claimed overnight. Liam lay on his back, hair mussed, eyes half-open, watching the ceiling with that rare, quiet calm that only existed when the outside world had been held at bay long enough to forget its teeth.
Hudson shifted, blinking, then smiled lazily. "Good morning."
Liam turned his head. His expression eased into something fond, still cautious, still learning, but undeniably there. "Morning, beautiful."
Hudson's cheeks warmed. He pretended it didn't. He leaned in and kissed Liam, slow and sweet, and for a second it felt like the universe had agreed to leave them alone.
They showered together because it seemed natural now. After all, Hudson liked rituals, and Liam liked anything that involved Hudson now. Water ran down their shoulders. Hudson kept stealing kisses with wet laughter. Liam kept pretending he was annoyed while pulling Hudson closer anyway. Steam fogged the mirror until the world became nothing but blurred outlines and skin and breath and the kind of ease Hudson hadn't known he could have.
They dressed, trading shirts and teasing smirks.
They left the apartment and walked down the street, the city alive but unbothered by them. Liam kept close, hand brushing Hudson's knuckles now and then, small touches.
They found a café with outdoor tables and a glass case full of pastries that looked criminally beautiful. Hudson stepped up first, determined to try his shot at Italian again. He asked for coffee with dreadful grammar and radiant charm. The barista smiled and answered him anyway. Liam watched, amused, relaxed.
Hudson glanced back at Liam, eyes sparkling. "Are you seeing this?"
Liam nodded faintly.
He pulled out his wallet.
It happened in the smallest way.
The card slid into the machine.
The barista tapped.
The screen flashed.
A pause.
The barista frowned politely and tried again.
Another beep.
Another pause.
He looked up, apologetic. “Mi dispiace...non funziona.”
Liam's face went blank.
Not surprised.
Not confused.
Blank, like a switch had been flipped, and a different Liam.
Hudson's smile faltered. "Maybe it's the machine?"
Liam didn't answer. He pulled out another card. Offered it without expression.
Declined.
A third card. Declined.
For a heartbeat, the café's sound drained away for Hudson.
Liam's jaw tightened once. He didn't look at Hudson. He didn't look at the barista. He stared at the little machine like it had spoken a language he'd always known was possible but had hoped would never address him directly.
Hudson reached into his pocket immediately. "I've got it."
Liam's head snapped slightly. "No."
"It's coffee," Hudson insisted, already pulling out a few bills. "Liam, it's..."
"No," Liam repeated, quieter now.
Hudson held the money out anyway, stubborn in the way only kind people could be. The barista took it with a soft, grateful nod and started preparing their drinks as if he hadn't just watched a beautiful man's entire reality tilt on a tiny plastic card.
Liam's phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Then it rang.
He stared at the screen like he already knew who it was before it even said a name. For a moment, his thumb hovered.
Then he answered.
"Yeah," Liam said, voice flat.
Hudson stood beside him on the sidewalk, coffee smell rising, and watched the color drain from Liam's face in almost imperceptible degrees.
Liam listened for a long time, eyes fixed on nothing.
"What do you mean, frozen?"
Another pause.
His mouth tightened. "No. That's..." He swallowed. "That's not her call."
Hudson couldn't hear the other voice clearly, but he caught a few words in the gaps: accounts, facility, bank, instructions, authorized signatory. Corporate language, cold and sterile, like a doctor describing a body part that had stopped working.
Liam's fingers flexed around the phone until his knuckles whitened. "Say it again," Liam said quietly, terrifyingly calm. "Slow."
He listened.
He went even stiller.
Then he spoke again. "So she held the loan-out disbursement."
Hudson's brow furrowed. Loan-out. He'd heard the term in passing, from tabloids and talk shows. The legal machinery of Hollywood: Liam's work and image routed through a company, money moving through channels that belonged to structures rather than people.
Liam's gaze drifted away, as if he were staring across an ocean he could already see swallowing him. "Okay," Liam said. "And the credit facility?" A pause, then Liam's eyes sharpened. "She triggered a covenant."
Hudson's stomach dropped. The words were too precise to be casual. Too technical to be bluff. Liam wasn't guessing. He knew this territory like a veteran knew a battlefield.
Liam breathed out once, harsh. "So the bank is calling it."
Hudson watched Liam's throat work, swallowing down something bitter.
A longer pause.
Then Liam's voice lowered, the edge of something feral flickering under the professionalism. "How the hell did she..." He stopped. Listened. His expression hardened into understanding. "POA," Liam said, almost to himself. "Or she's using the trustee."
Hudson's pulse thudded. He didn't fully understand, but he understood enough: this wasn't just a manager being petty. This was someone reaching into the legal skeleton of Liam's life, trusts, signatures, authorizations, control.
On the other end, the person kept talking. Liam's eyes went distant, calculating. "Don't come back?"
Hudson saw it then, the first crack in Liam's mask.
It wasn't fear.
It was the knowledge of consequence.
The awareness that the machine he'd been raised in had finally turned its teeth inward.
Liam's voice went softer. "What do you mean I'll lose the house." He listened, face tightening, and Hudson heard the faintest tremor in Liam's breath, the only sign that the ground had shifted under him. When Liam spoke again, it was clipped, cold, immediate. "Okay. Put legal on. Now."
Pause.
"And get me my corporate counsel. Not the one she likes. The one that hates her."
Hudson watched Liam pace, a few steps back and forth on the sidewalk, like the city had suddenly become too small for the war unfolding in his ear.
Liam continued, voice sharpening with each sentence. "File emergency papers. Injunction. Temporary restraining order. Whatever the fastest version is."
Hudson blinked. Injunction. TRO. Words that belonged in courtrooms and scandal, not a morning coffee run.
Liam listened again, then nodded once, almost violently. "I'm aware of the optics. I don't fucking care." Another pause. "I have to show up," Liam said. "In person. If I'm not physically there, she'll argue I'm unreachable. She'll consolidate control."
Hudson's chest tightened. The choice became visible in Liam's posture. There was no running from this.
Liam's voice dropped. "If the bank moves, it'll be a foreclosure notice. It'll be..." He stopped himself. Exhaled. "It'll be everything."
Hudson stood frozen beside him, holding two coffees that now felt ridiculous in his hands. He stared at Liam like he was watching someone get dragged underwater by invisible ropes.
Liam finally ended the call.
He stood still for a second, phone pressed to his palm, eyes fixed on the street as if he could force reality to rewind.
Hudson offered him a coffee with trembling fingers. "Here." Liam took it automatically, but he didn't drink. Hudson's voice came out small. "What happened?"
Liam looked at him then. And for a heartbeat, the mask slipped enough that Hudson saw what was underneath, not weakness, or panic, but something like grief that had been trained into silence.
"She froze me," Liam said quietly.
Hudson swallowed. "She can do that?"
Liam's mouth twisted. "Not legally. Not cleanly. But she can do it fast. Fast is all she needs." He stared at the coffee cup. "If she holds the loan-out disbursements, my income pipeline is choked. If she triggers covenants on the credit facility, the bank has the right to call the line. And if she's still listed as an authorized signatory somewhere...if she's got a trustee leaning her way...she can stall me long enough to let the machine do what it always does."
Hudson's hands tightened around his cup. "Which is...?"
Liam's eyes lifted, sharp. "Replace me."
The words hit Hudson hard. Replace you. Like Liam was a role, not a person.
Hudson's voice shook. "So what do we do?"
Liam stared at him for a long second. The old Liam, the man built by studios and handlers, would've said 'I do this alone'. Would've sent Hudson away for safety and speed and optics.
Instead, Liam stepped closer.
His hand found Hudson's, clamped tight.
"We go back," Liam said.
Hudson's stomach flipped. He nodded once. "Okay."
Liam's eyes softened, just a fraction. "Okay?"
Hudson swallowed, fear and love tangling into one pulse. "Okay."
They walked back to the apartment without speaking much. Milan looked the same, but the dream had collapsed somewhere between the café door and the sidewalk, and now every beautiful detail they'd experienced the last couple of days felt like it belonged to another life.
The moment they stepped inside the apartment, suitcases came flying out of the closets. Hudson stood over the open one, hands hovering like he didn't know what to put in first. He had never packed for war, only for escape. Liam, on the other hand, moved with chilling efficiency, phone in one hand, tapping messages to lawyers and assistants, pulling clothes with the other, his face composed in that cold professional way that was almost frightening now that Hudson knew what it cost.
Hudson watched him and felt something steady ignite in his chest.
Not panic.
Not this time.
Choice.
He picked up a shirt, folded it, set it in the suitcase. Then another. Then another. Half the suitcase filled, then half of the other. The room looked the same, but the air changed, charged, sharpened, braced.
Hudson finally spoke, voice quiet but firm. "You can't let her..."
Liam stopped for a second, eyes lifting to Hudson. "Yeah," Liam said. His voice was calm. His gaze wasn't. "I know."
Hudson's chest tightened. "Because if you do..."
Liam's mouth flattened. "She wins."
Hudson stepped closer. "And we can't let that happen, right?"
Liam's eyes held his. Something fierce lived there now, something not made by Marina, not owned by studios.
"Right," Liam said quietly.
(To be continued...)
Hudson and Liam’s story doesn’t end here. If you’re reading along, I’d love to hear from you.
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