Chapter 5
The problem with a quiet boy is that people mistake silence for emptiness.
The problem with a loud girl is that people assume she notices everything.
I noticed almost nothing.
Not at first.
Not when Hudson Hale—real Hudson Hale—started circling my life.
He was impossible to miss. Tall, sharp-faced, lazy confidence pouring off him like cologne. The kind of guy who had probably never walked into a room without being watched.
The first time he approached me, I was leaving campus.
“Hey,” he said easily, falling into step beside me. “I’m Hudson Hale. Can we be friends?”
I blinked.
The name hit me like a tiny electric shock.
He caught my expression and smiled wider, like he thought the reaction was about him.
Beside him, a group of his friends hooted from a distance.
I recovered fast. I had been pretty since puberty. I knew how to handle random men introducing themselves with that tone.
“Hi,” I said politely. “I’m Chloe Mercer. Nice to meet you.”
Then, because Adrian was waiting for me off campus, I gave him a small nod and kept walking.
The guys behind him started yelling nonsense immediately.
“Ooooh, she ran away!”
“Hale finally got shut down!”
Hudson just laughed like it did not matter.
It should have ended there.
It did not.
That evening Adrian’s car was waiting by the gate.
The second I got in, I reached over and squished his cheeks with both hands.
“You don’t have to get here so early,” I told him. “Sitting outside waiting for me is boring.”
He let me manhandle his face without complaint.
Then he said, with perfect seriousness, “Not seeing you is boring.”
I stared at him.
Then grinned so hard my cheeks hurt.
“Oh,” I said. “So you do know how to flirt.”
He took me to an apartment near campus.
The moment we walked in, something about the place tugged at me.
The sofa color.
The floor lamp.
The built-in fireplace.
The ridiculous little details.
Every bit of it looked like things I had once mentioned I liked in late-night conversations and then forgotten.
I turned slowly.
He was standing there, watching me.
“This is for you,” he said.
On the table sat a folder.
Inside was the deed.
I almost dropped it.
“Absolutely not,” I said at once. “No. No, no, no. I’m living in the dorms. I’m only here for a year. You cannot meet me in person and immediately try to give me real estate.”
He lowered his eyes.
“The dorm is small,” he said after a pause.
“It is not.”
“The bathroom is smaller than this one.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
That was technically true.
He went very still when I did not answer.
Not angry.
Not pushy.
Just… quiet in a way that felt suddenly wounded.
Like a giant dog trying not to look like it had been left outside in the rain.
I pointed at him.
“Fine. I can stay here for now. Temporarily. But you are not putting this apartment in my name. Do you understand me?”
His mouth lifted a little.
A tiny, careful smile.
“Okay,” he said.
I should have known then.
A man does not build a home out of your passing comments unless he has been loving you for a very long time.