“Are you finally ready?” He rolled his eyes at me and I shoved him.

“You’re an ass.” I laughed as we walked towards the front door.

“Watch who you’re talking to.” He grabbed me around the waist and pushed me against the wall. “I’m dangerous, you know.”

“Uh huh.” I giggled. “You’re the most dangerous twenty-year-old in the world.”

“And you think you’re the smartest eighteen-year-old.”

“Well, you know. I’m a eighteen-year-old rebel.”

“Well, rebel, want to go for a swim before breakfast?”

“At the beach?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and stared into my eyes. “Or are you worried about your hair?”

“What’s there to worry about?” I laughed. “It’s going to look like a frizzy mess in a few minutes anyways.”

“Oh, Riley.” He laughed, and then we both paused as we heard a sound.

“Hudson? Hudson, are you awake?” Clara called out, and I felt a surge of disappointment wash through my stomach. That was it then. Clara was now up.

“Shh.” Hudson placed a finger against my lips. “Let’s go.” He let me go and we walked quietly to the door, exiting quickly. We ran to his car in giggles, and I jumped in, feeling high on life.

“Why didn’t you answer her?” I asked him as he started the ignition.

“I wanted to spend a morning with my favorite girl uninterrupted,” he answered with a quick grin, and I sat back, feeling happier than I had in a long time.

“Then what are we waiting for?” I reached forward and turned on the radio. The Beach Boys’ high voices came vibrating out of the speakers, and I sang along to the music.

“So tell me. How are college applications going?” Hudson gave me a quick look before pulling onto the main road.

“Eh, still trying to decide where I want to go.” I shrugged and looked out the window. “And what I want to study.”

“What are you thinking?”

“English or journalism.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Maybe become an English teacher or a journalist.” I laughed and turned to him. “What about you? You graduate soon. What are you going to do?”

“I have no clue,” he sighed. “Mom and Dad keep telling me to go to law school, but I have no interest in being an attorney.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a boring job.”

“Maybe I’ll just travel the world and then decide.”

“Travel the world?” I looked away, not wanting him to see how disappointed that made me. I didn’t want him to travel the world.

“Yeah. It’s something Clara and I have been thinking about.” He frowned and then accelerated.

“Oh, Clara is going as well?” My disappointment became jealousy, and I looked out the window, nibbling on my lower lip.

“She’s thinking of taking a year off before med school, but she’s not sure.” He shrugged.

“So you guys are serious?”

“I can’t really answer that question. We don’t see each other that much, what with all her studying and her part-time job.”

“She has a job?”

He nodded. “She helps to support her mom.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, she’s a good girl.”

I looked over at him as he pulled off of the highway. “You really love her, huh?”

“I don’t know.” He gave me a quick look. “What’s love, really?”

“Does she make your heart race when you look at her? Does your stomach do flip-flops? Can you breathe when she’s not around?”

“What are these questions, Riley? Have you been reading too many romance novels again?”

“I don’t read romance novels,” I lied. They were my dirty little secret. I devoured about two romance novels a week, and all I could think about when I read them was me and Hudson riding off into the sunset.

“Well, then you need to stop watching chick flicks. Sometimes being with someone isn’t about all that sappy stuff,” he snapped. “Sometimes you’re with someone because the alternative is not acceptable.”

I stared at him with wide eyes. “You really don’t want to be alone, do you?”

“What are you talking about?” he sighed.

“You just said if you weren’t with Clara you’d be alone and that wouldn’t be acceptable.”

He shook his head in frustration. “I said no such thing.”

“That’s what I thought you meant.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” He pulled into the parking lot of a diner and stared at me. “You’re eighteen, Riley. You have the rest of your life to worry about love and all that nonsense. Don’t get caught up in it now.”

“I’m not caught up in anything.” My face went red as I got out of the car. “Asshole,” I whispered under my breath.

“I heard that.” He laughed and grabbed me from behind. I shrieked as he had caught me unaware, and he started tickling me.

“Hudson!” I squealed as his fingers worked their way under my arms. “Stop it!” I tried to escape his hold, but he pulled me closer towards him.

“What’s the magic word, Riley?”

“Please!” I pouted slowly as I stared up into his eyes.

“No.” He grinned down at me, his hazel eyes mocking me as his lips moved dangerously close.

“Open sesame.”

“What?” He laughed and tightened his grip on me.

“Hudson, let go of me.” I tried to push him away, but all I could feel was his solid muscle underneath my fingertips.

“Not until you say the magic word.”

“I don’t know what the magic word is.” I shook my head and he laughed.

“I’m not letting you go until you get it right.”

“But I’m hungry,” I groaned and batted my eyelashes up at him.

“I suggest you start guessing or you may starve.”

“Oh yeah?” I whispered as a thought entered my mind.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll see about that.” I giggled, and then took a deep breath.

My brain was screaming at me for my stupid idea. Don’t do it, Riley! Don’t do it! But I couldn’t stop myself. I stood on tiptoes, leaning slightly forward, and kissed Hudson. I could see the shock in his eyes as our lips made contact. His lips tasted sweeter than I remembered, and I gasped as his tongue entered my mouth slowly.

“Hudson.” My eyes widened as I felt his hands running down my back.

“You wanna sin, Riley? Then you gotta do it right.” He laughed against my lips and then pulled me into his arms as he kissed me harder.

I closed my eyes then and blocked out every other thought and feeling other than the touch of his lips against mine.

Hudson

Present Day

“A million dollars, dude. You can dirty up your pretty face for a million dollars.” Luke punched me in the shoulders as he continued his fast talking. “And I’ll be your manager.”

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head and laughed.

Luke was my best friend, but I would be a fool to listen to anything he said. He always had a new scheme to make money, and I had learned the hard way when we were teens that what he said didn’t ever come true.

“Come on. What do you have to lose?”

“Every fight.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a fighter, Luke.”

“You’re not a lover either.” He grinned at me with his million-watt smile.

“I’m not a girl.” I laughed. “Batting your baby blues at me isn’t going to get me to agree.”

“You do this. I’ll get you as much ass as you want.”

“I can get my own ass.” I stood up and stretched. “Anyways, I gotta go.”

“C’mon, Hudson,” Luke pouted and threw his beer can into the trash as if he were Kobe Bryant going for the winning shot in the last game of the NBA finals. “We need this.”

“I don’t need this.” I shook my head. “And you just need to get a job.”

“Don’t nag. You’re not my mother.”

“Thank God.”

“The economy’s shit. You know that.” He shrugged. “When it gets better, I’ll get a job.”

“And until then, you’ll live off your momma?”

“I don’t wanna live off my momma. I want you to enter this damn fight and win a million dollars. Dude, do you know what we can do with a million dollars?”