“So I’ve been told.” He met my glowering eyes. “Fine. How do we play this game of yours?”
The triumph wiped out my irritation. “We’ll take turns. On your turn you can either ask a question or tell a fact about yourself. Your choice. Nothing too heavy. Basic stuff. I’ll go first. I don’t like mushrooms.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t like mushrooms? What is wrong with you?”
“They’re gross. They taste like rotten olives.”
“They taste nothing like olives.”
“They taste like rotten olives. I can’t stand them.” I made a face to show my disgust, but inside I was ecstatic that he was taking an interest in what I had shared. I hadn’t been sure he would. Especially with such a benign subject as food tastes.
Hudson shook his head, seemingly bewildered by my confession. “That’s a terrible inconvenience. That has to hinder your fine dining experiences.”
“Tell me about it.” For some reason, mushrooms seemed to be in a great deal of fancy recipes. “Imagine my horror when my senior prom date made dinner for me and it was chicken Marsala.”
His eye twitched, almost unnoticeably. “Your senior prom date? Was this a serious relationship?” His voice had also tensed slightly.
I narrowed my eyes. Was he jealous? “Are you asking that question for your turn?”
“Uh, yes, I suppose I am.”
He was jealous. Of a high school prom date. I was flattered. “It was a serious relationship for me. Not for Joe.”
“Joe sounds terrible.” But his smile returned.
“Thank you. He was.” Hudson pulled onto the Interstate, and I put my sunglasses in my purse. “My turn.” I sat back, chewing my lip. I’d eased us into the game, but now I wanted some answers. Something good. “Why do you never call people by their nicknames?”
He groaned. “Because nicknames are so gaudy. Call a person by their given name. That’s why they have it.”
I rolled my eyes. He was so formal. Sometimes I wasn’t sure I even liked the guy. That was part of the reason I had wanted to play this game. I had to know if my attraction went beyond the physical.
And I really wanted him to call me by my nickname. “But nicknames show a degree of familiarity.”
“You tell everyone to call you Laynie. Even people you’ve just met.”
Because answering to Alayna was weird. The only people who had really called me Alayna were my parents. “Maybe I feel familiar with everyone I meet.” I made an effort to say my next words casually, as if the fact didn’t really bother me. “And you call Celia by a nickname.”
“Really?” He knew it bothered me. I hadn’t covered well enough. “She’s the only person on earth, Alayna. I’ve known her my whole life. I didn’t even know her name was really Celia until I was almost ten.”
I crossed my legs, pleased when he glanced as I did so, and swung my foot with irritation. “If you are trying to convince people you care more about me than Celia, then you should have a nickname for me. It will establish endearment.” And I really wanted his endearment.
“Calling me ‘H’ shows endearment?”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I lifted my h*ps so I could pull it out, and Hudson eyed me as I did so. “It does. I don’t go for the real lovey-dovey words like sweetie and honey. But Hudson is way too formal.”
“I like formal.”
“I like cherry-flavored blow pops. It doesn’t make them appropriate for every situation.”
“Blow pops?”
“Yeah…blow pops.” I planned to respond with a sexy comeback, but was distracted by reading the text on my phone. It was from Brian asking me to call him. I’d ignored all of the texts he’d sent over the last week, and wasn’t about to start answering now. I threw my phone into my lap, frustrated. He didn’t know I’d found a solution to my money issues and still expected me to give in to his terms. Not happening.
“You didn’t like ‘baby’?” Hudson’s question pulled me back to the car.
My answer held the tension I meant for Brian. “Not so much.” Only because it was unoriginal and insincere. It wasn’t a name Hudson had picked specifically for me.
“I’m sticking with Alayna.”
I turned to him and glared. “Come on. You could call me ‘precious’ every now and then in front of other people.”
“No way,” he murmured.
“Why? You call me that sometimes already.”
His voice rumbled low and quiet and serious. “That’s private.”
I shivered. Even if his tone hadn’t indicated the matter was settled, I would have dropped it. His answer was perfect—sensual and even a little romantic. Not like I was getting my hopes up romantic, just sort of sweet.
Hmm. Hudson never failed to surprise me. I shook my head. “It’s your turn.”
My phone buzzed again. Another text from Brian. This time saying he was coming to see me first thing the next day. And I wouldn’t be there. Guess the laugh was on him. I grinned as I turned off my phone and stuffed it back into my pocket.
When my focus returned to Hudson, he was eyeing me, his brow cocked. “Who keeps texting you?”
Something about his jealousy made me want to purr. “Is that your question?”
“It is.”
I considered making something up, something that would really provoke envy from the man, but the game was meant to be about honest answers. “My brother. He’s an ass**le.”
“Like I’m an ass**le?” he asked, recalling what I’d said to him minutes before.
“Worse. He’s an ass**le who doesn’t know it.”
Hudson grinned. “And you’re ignoring Brian?”
He knew Brian’s name. It made me realize that he already knew I had a brother. I wondered what else Hudson knew about Brian. And my parents. My whole life.
Well, if he wanted to know anything more about Brian he’d have to wait until his turn. “You already asked your question. It’s my turn. I lost my virginity when I was sixteen.”
I meant it to be a shocker, still irritated about Brian’s constant texts and Hudson’s knowledge of things he shouldn’t know about me until I told him. “Sixteen? Fuck, Alayna. I don’t think I want to know that.”
“Sorry.” I smiled.
He shook his head, his eyes narrow. “I seriously doubt this is going to come up in conversation with my family.”