Found in You(102)

But it hadn’t been my keeping secrets that put us on opposite sides. It had been his jealousy and my refusal to take over the club. Either he’d always truly meant to give me The Sky Launch, or he was manipulating the situation with David to make me believe that. Both were possible. I’d probably never know for sure which one. Maybe he didn’t know himself.

One thing was certain, I wasn’t letting David get fired, whatever the reason. One day, perhaps, I’d be ready and want to take over the management of The Sky Launch, but not now. Not so soon. Not only a month after graduating with my MBA.

And I wouldn’t do that to a manager as good as David. It wasn’t right.

I brought myself to my feet and stretched. The discussion wasn’t over, but I could put it on pause for the night if Hudson could. And I didn’t intend to mope around about it. It was unhealthy and could quickly turn to obsession if I wasn’t careful. Which meant I had to find something to occupy myself.

I looked at my watch and was surprised to find it was after six. Guess I was skipping group therapy since I’d already missed it. I didn’t have the energy for exercise, so that was out. There was a TV in the living room, but I preferred movies to shows and I hadn’t yet come across any DVDs. Hudson probably had everything on a movie drive somewhere. I wasn’t about to ask where. I’d already finished The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Actually, what I should do was work on the library. Another slew of packages had arrived on Friday and the room was crammed with unopened boxes. I should have unpacked them over the weekend, but I’d been too content to lie around naked with Hudson, doing nothing but each other. I’d put it off too long. So what if Hudson was already working in there at his desk. We were grown-ups. We could share the space.

Though the library was big, the room felt confined with the tension still lingering between us. Hudson sat at his desk, focused intently on his computer screen. It was as if he didn’t even know I was in the room. But he did. Of course, he did. He could seem so single-minded, so compartmentalized, but he was always aware of me in every way, as I was always aware of him. I simply wasn’t as good at hiding it as he was.

I took a deep breath and knelt at the stack of boxes furthest from him. Soon, I was wrapped up in the task of unloading and alphabetizing, enjoying the thrill of each newly discovered book title. He’d purchased so many great ones. Classics and contemporaries. Many I’d read, many I wanted to read, many I wanted to reread.

It was after I opened the box with the DVDs that I realized it. Not right away. At first, I was surprised to find the contents were movies rather than books, but I simply started on another section of the shelves and began unloading, not paying too much attention to the titles until I pulled out Midnight Cowboy—the movie Hudson and I had watched while we were in the Hamptons. He’d pulled up the list of AFI’s Greatest Movies, a list I was slowly working my way through, and he’d told me to choose one I hadn’t seen. I chose Midnight Cowboy.

Seeing it in the box, it hit me. I looked over the titles I’d shelved to be sure, and yep, it was true. Each and every movie was on the AFI list. And the books—I ran to look over the books, paying more attention this time. The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, Catch-22, Beloved—they were all titles from The Greatest Books list. I’d told Hudson I wanted to read them all before I died. And here he’d bought them for me. Each and every one.

I was suddenly overcome with emotion. It was a strange thing to move me, but it did. Before he’d decided to commit to me, before he’d asked me to come to his penthouse, let alone move in with him, he’d purchased a library full of books and movies tailored specifically to my interests.