All In | ✓

Twenty-eight

"Jaxon, let's talk." Eli grabs Jaxon's wrist and drags him upstairs, ignoring his exclamations of protest.

Once I can't hear their voices anymore I walk into my bedroom and flip on the light, signaling Hudson that someone's there.

"Which one of you dinguses is it this time?" he asks loudly, not bothering to take his headphones off.

"It's Jack, not that you can tell yet."

"Hello?"

I walk over and pull his headphones off, tossing them onto the desk. "We need to talk."

"If you want me to leave I'll be out of here as-"

"I'm not asking you to leave," I interrupt. "We need to talk about Jaxon."

"I don't want to talk about his secret crush or whatever," Hudson mumbles, looking away from me. "Not in the mood."

"You're jealous of them because you like him." I lean against the desk. "I'm here to tell you you should ask him out."

"He doesn't want to be anything more than friends with me." Hudson looks back at me. "He's straight. You know that."

"Mneh." I shrug. "What if he isn't?"

"Have you seen him at all? Listened to him talk? He's straight."

"And yet when he was protesting you two being in a relationship, he didn't say he was straight," I point out. "He said he liked girls."

"He meant he was straight."

"If that's what he meant he would've said he wasn't gay or he's straight. You know Jaxon better than anyone."

"And I know that he didn't mean that he wasn't straight!" Hudson's on the verge of jumping out of the chair. "You saw him when we were going to play Twister! He was so averse to the idea of touching another guy that he didn't want to play!"

"And that's where you're wrong."

Hudson leans back in his chair and tilts his head. "What do you mean, I'm wrong?"

"Jaxon has no hesitation when he goes to touch you," I explain. "He'll hug you, cuddle you, touch you. If you offered your hand to him he'd hold it. It's not that he doesn't want to touch another guy."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know."

Hudson snorts and rolls his eyes. "You clearly don't know him well enough."

"I know him enough to know that he likes you!" I insist. "He's on the brink of being in love with you and you need to do something about it."

"Alright." Hudson starts spinning slowly. "Let's say you're correct about this. How would I go about doing it?"

"I am so glad you asked." I grin and push myself away from the desk.

Hudson listens for the full few minutes I talk. Once I finish explaining the plan, he sighs and nods.

"It's sound," he murmurs. "If I was a girl, it'd work."

"You're not a girl and you don't need to be! Jaxon likes you. I swear."

"Okay." Hudson looks away from me. "Alright."

"Does this mean you'll do it?"

Hudson nods and looks back at me. I grin and walk out of the room, meeting up with Eli at the bottom of the stairs.

"Did it work?" he asks quietly. I nod, and he nods back. "I got it too."

"Yes!" We high-five and laugh. Jaxon pads down the stairs and nudges Eli's shoulder.