“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“I’ll allow it,” Lilah chimes in, already pouring two beers for the brothers.
Hudson stares at me with bright, hopeful eyes, like a kid waiting for the neighbor to come out and play. “You said you were up for an adventure, right?”
And I know it’s now or never. If this really is our last night together, I don’t want to miss my chance at finding out what could be.
“Fuck it,” I say, picking up the glass in front of me and clinking it on the counter.
“To new adventures,” Hudson says, offering me a new challenge. One I’m eager to see through.
“To new adventures.”
2 Hudson
After Lilah called in reinforcements to make sure I’d be shit-faced by the time I left tonight, I was annoyed, especially since it’s the first time I’ll have my apartment to myself in weeks. But sitting crammed into the lone booth at Finn’s with Mira, her sultry hazel eyes catching mine from across the table, I’m perfectly content staying here until the sun comes up.
Her thick black eyeliner is sharp at the edges, and her lips are a deep, artificial red, stained by the cherries she’s been eating directly from the jar, and I want to lean across the table and taste them.
“Hudson, is that true?” Lilah says, breaking my daydream.
“What?” I ask, realizing I’ve entirely missed the conversation.
“Mira said you’ve never seenSurvivor,” Lilah clarifies.
“Why watch it on TV when I can just take my wilderness bag up to the mountains for the weekend,” I reply, my tongue heavy in my mouth as my words come out slower than I intend. I’ve never been a big drinker, just one or two beers on a night out, but tonight, thanks to Lilah, I’m a bit wrecked.
Considering Mira has matched me shot for shot, I expect her to be just as unsteady, but watching as she effortlessly keeps up with the quick changes in conversation I can’t help but wonder if Lilah started replacing her tequila with water at some point.
“I’ve never seen the appeal of camping,” Lilah says between bites of pizza. “I hate having to walk the ten steps to my own bathroom in the middle of the night. I can’t imagine trying to find a place to pee in the woods, in the complete darkness, with the animals and serial killers. It’s not fucking worth it.”
“I dunno,” Mira says, twirling one of her curls around her finger. “I like the idea of disconnecting. Isn’t that the dream, to throw your phone in the lake and go off the grid for a weekend?”
“You’d really want to spend an entire night in the wilderness? With no Netflix?” Lilah asks.
“With the right person, it could be nice,” she says, her attention shifting to me. “S’mores and stargazing. Sounds like it could be a fun adventure.”
Was that an invitation? A suggestion for me to ask her to go? I have to admit I’ve thought about it a million times. Bringing her to my favorite spots. Of setting up camp and teaching her how to start a fire. Of cuddling under the stars. Of waking up in the morning with the scent of firewood in her hair.
Heat rushes through my chest and down my body at the thought as I reach for one of the discarded pizza crusts in the center of the table and shove it in my mouth to keep from blurting out how I feel about her. A challenge that gets harder every time her leg brushes up against mine under the table.
“I bet Hudson would be more than willing to share his sleeping bag with you,” Lilah says, causing me to choke on my bite.
“How about a round of water?” Finn asks, patting me on the back. Unlike other proprietors who never come around, Finn lives upstairs and stops by almost nightly to check in on his crew.
I take a glass and swallow down half, glaring daggers at Lilah, who ignores my non-verbal threat while chatting up one of the smoke shop guys.
“Thanks, man,” I say gratefully. Because without Finn and his generosity, I’m not sure I would have survived these last couple of months. Unbeknown to anyone, I didn’t get paid to be here. I just needed a place to hide out from my problems, to be myself without having expectations thrust upon me, where I didn’t have to make everyone happy all of the time. Being the kid of a CEO, even a laid-back mountain man like my dad who believes in four-day work weeks, still comes with stressors, including taking over Elite Elevation when he retires. A job that I’ll be starting next week. A role I am nowhere near ready for. But no matter how many times he’s assured me that I’m qualified to step into his shoes, I still feel inadequate.
My father achieved so much by the time he was thirty. He’d bought a house, got married, had a kid, made a name for himself at the parks department, and turned a lowly website for outdoorsmen to swap gear, locate the best trails, and find other like-minded individuals to go on excursions with, into a multimillion-dollar company. And he did all this while still managing to cook healthy dinners, make sure I did my homework, and take me on monthly camping trips. So, the fact that I’m sitting here as a twenty-eight-year-old, second-guessing how to ask the girl I’ve been flirting with for months out on a proper date, goes to show how far from ready I am to take over a company.
“She’ll say yes,” Lilah assured me at the start of my shift, listening to me practice my opening line.
“How are you so sure?” I asked, wiping down glasses.
“Because that girl has been eye-fucking you since she started coming here.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shooing away the idea. Growing up with a full head of red hair and a face full of freckles made me very aware that I was not the most desirable of my classmates. Combined with a build that is more scrawnythan solid from years of long-distance hiking, and a wardrobe that consists of tattered graphic tees I purchased in high school and whatever free swag I get from work, I don’t fit the mold for anyone’s sexual fantasies.
