18. Hudson
There’snothing quite as terrifying as a looming deadline, and the soul-deep knowledge that you’re not going to make it.
Hudson had worked so hard for this. Not specifically the show, but everything leading up to it. He had worked hours that he shouldn’t have, he had sacrificed more of his health than he cared to admit, and now that everything he wanted was finally there in his grasp, he couldn’t get his shit together enough to get it done.
He spent the whole day spiraling. Well, he spent several days spiraling. And every time Alana came home from work, excited about her upcoming surgery, he felt like he was failing her. Like he wasn’t living up to his part of the bargain.
“Are you okay?” she finally asked.
“I’m fine.”
Alana laughed. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“And yet we managed to convince the doctor.”
“Lying to a random medical professional is one thing, but you can’t lie to me.”
Which was funny. He absolutely could lie to her. He had lied to her. Every time he looked at her and pretended their marriage was still just as fake as it always had been, that his feelings hadn’t changed, and that he wasn’t increasingly more in love with her with every passing day.
And so he lied. But it was for both of their goods. Telling her about his feelings for her would have only made everything worse, especially when he knew that she didn’t feel the same way. He had promised her a year of marriage, though at this point, now that the surgery was scheduled, it was more for his sake than hers. He was going to keep his inconvenient feelings to himself, because nothing was more awkward than telling someone that you love them, knowing full well they don’t reciprocate.
Not to mention, it probably would make her extremely uncomfortable to know that, and then have to tell him that she didn’t feel the same way. If there was one thing that Hudson had learned since moving in with Alana, was that part of loving her was trying as best you could to keep her from getting hurt in any way. Watching her go through her period had ripped his heart out of his chest and shredded it, and he would give anything to make sure that she never had to go through any sort of pain again. Not just physical pain, but emotional pain, too.
“Not to be naggy or anything, and also because I am definitely not the artsy one in this relationship, so I don’t know how this works, but is this how things normally go?”
“You mean the part that I’ve just been staring at walls forever and nothing’s happening?” Hudson shrugged. “I mean, ideally, no. But sometimes it feels like it might be, that I can’t finish a piece until I’ve spent at least a certain number of hours, panicking because any and all of my creativity seems to have left me and it will never come back again and that I’m actually a fraud that somehow tricked people into believing that I can make art, and now they’re all going to find out it’s not true. Which, I dunno. Happens at some point during every piece I make. It just seems to be dragging on for a lot longer this time around than usual.”
“Ugh, that sucks.”
“It does,” Hudson agreed. “And sometimes inspiration just doesn’t show up, which, okay, that’s an existential argument for another time, but I don’t have time right now to wait for it to arrive. I have deadlines, and they are looming.”
Alana hummed as she thought. “Well, the good thing about now is that you can leave.”
Hudson’s heart dropped. “What?”
“For like, a few days. Not forever. We said a year, Hudson, and I’m not backing out on that. I promise.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Hudson lied.
“You don’t have the cafe job anymore, and the rest of your work you can do whenever and wherever. Minus the shipping of things to people, and that’s only once a month, right? And you do better making art and stuff when you’re off communing with nature or just not near other people. Why don’t you go to one of those little cabins that you like going to? It’s been a long time since you did that.”
It had been a while since Hudson had done that. Getting married and then moving in with his wife kind of threw a wrench at a bunch of his plans. Though, to be fair, the marriage and wife thing had worked out a hell of a lot better than his potential plans that had fallen through.
“Maybe,” he said.
“It would be good for you. And I can survive without you for a couple of days. Couldn’t hurt to try.”
“Wow,” Hudson deadpanned, “I feel loved and cherished.”
“Always,” Alana replied. “But really. It makes me sad to see you like this. It’s better when you’re making art.”
“For whom?” Hudson asked.
Alana laughed. “If you’re going to spiral into an existential crisis right now, honey, I think we’re going to need some provisions.”
“I’ve never included provisions. Was I supposed to?”
“Well, that just means you’ve been doing them wrong,” Alana said, looking appalled. “What do you mean, you never... you just raw-dogged your way through them?”
“I wouldn’t necessarily put it that way, but I guess so?”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you married me,” Alana said. “For that alone. I mean, I don’t think we have the same kind of crises, considering mine don’t tend to be about art things I’m making, but at the end of the day, an existential crisis is an existential crisis, right? And every crisis, at the very least, should come with a fucking snack. How are you supposed to resolve said situation if you’re not properly fed and hydrated?”
Hudson laughed. “Do you think that’s what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time? I haven’t been properly feeding myself when it comes to crises?”
Alana shrugged. “Far be it for me to know how one does or does not work when it comes to spiraling about creative endeavors. I mean, it’s not really like I have any experience with them. But you should take care of yourself at least.”
Hudson raised an eyebrow. “Look who’s talking, Miss I Went Into Work Even Though I Was Still In Excruciating Pain.”
“Are you ever going to get over that?” Alana asked. “Because you know it’s going to happen again next month.”
“I hate that for you.”
“Very much same. But then I’m going to get surgery, and after that, I’ll never have to deal with that again. I’ll just be able to go into work, and not have to be scared that one day my period is gonna start in the office and I’ll need an ambulance escort home because I’ll be in too much pain to get home otherwise.”
“Wait, has that ever actually happened?”
“No, but it’s been close. But soon it’s not going to be something I have to worry about.”
“Part of me feels like I should make a plaque or statue or something just for that.”
“How about we wait until the actual surgery happens before you start erecting statues in the honor of my soon to be removed reproductive system.”
“It would be a figurative statue,” Hudson said, “And not a real one. I don’t think I’m the person to be making actual statues for fallen uteruses. Uteri? You know what I mean.”
“I do. And maybe you’ll think of something when you’re not here,” Alana said gently. “I know you told me that you think better when you’re like, I don’t know, in the middle of the woods, communing with nature and like, ripping trees apart with your bare hands.”
“Ripping trees apart?”
“Listen, I’m not judging your process. I am, however, a little bit judging the martyr complex going on.”
“The what?”
“The fact that you still have to pack up all your Patreon orders! And they need to be in the mail soon so you can have them to your patrons before the end of the month.”
“Why do you know that?”
“Hudson, I didn’t meet you yesterday.”
“Well, yeah, but still.”
Alana sighed. “I do in fact pay attention to the group chat. Usually. Does JP usually help you with packing?”
“No, I do them by myself,” he replied.
“And how many patrons do you have?”
“...A bunch?” Enough to actually pay his bills, but not enough to cover his medications if he’d have private healthcare.
“Great, so a lot. Which, good for you!” Alana beamed. “A girl boss, one might say.”
“One might,” Hudson agreed.
“And one who fucking needs to learn how to delegate. And don’t tell me you haven’t because you don’t want to inconvenience people.”
Hudson didn’t respond. She wasn’t wrong.
“You can’t Little Red Hen your way through all of this.”
“She asked for help, Lana, and the other animals said no. I think you’re mixing stories, but I don’t know which other one you’re adding in.”
“Neither do I.” Alana shrugged. She stood up from the couch. “Okay. Food and then we’re having a packing party.”
Hudson’s phone buzzed. JP. ‘Jaz is having writer’s block. We’re coming upstairs to bother you.’
‘Sure,’ Hudson replied. ‘Alana bullied me into letting her help me with Patreon things.’
‘I LOVE YOUR WIFE,’ JP responded.
Same, Hudson didn’t respond.
“I brought supplemental dinner,” JP said as he and Jazmine walked into the apartment.
“Oh, perfect, we were just about to eat,” Alana said.
“Ophelia’s going to come by in a little, if that’s okay?” Jazmine said, taking the glasses that Hudson handed her to set the table. “She’s dropping off some nail stuff for me.”
“Yeah, she texted me to let me know,” Alana replied, stretching to get the plates from the cabinet, her shirt riding up just a bit. “She already ate dinner, so we don’t have to wait.”
“This is kind of like college again,” JP said as they all found seats around the dining room table that was mostly cleared off. “Except now we eat dinner at slightly more reasonable hours.”
And one of us is married, Hudson didn’t say.
“And probably less questionable alcohol choices,” Alana said. “Well, on JP’s behalf.”
“Nah, I didn’t really drink much,” JP said. “That shit is nasty. So instead I smoked weed and made sure to stay out of any activities that would involve drug testing.”
“No organized sports for you?” Alana teased, leaning into Hudson just a little bit. “I cannot imagine why.”
“Fuck you,” JP replied with a grin. “You think we didn’t have organized sports teams in art school?”
“First of all, no, I do not, and second, even if you did…”
“JP was the quarterback in high school,” Jazmine said with a wicked grin.
“You filthy liar,” Alana exclaimed. “He was not!”
“Swear on every song I’ve ever written,” Jazmine replied. “I’m surprised his high school yearbook pictures haven’t leaked yet.”
“God forbid,” JP said, crossing himself.
“I forgot about that part,” Hudson said, laughing. “There were a few football scouts that would bother him our freshman year. One of them called JP his great white whale.”
“Why’d you turn down a football scholarship?” Alana asked. “You could have taken art classes and music classes in regular people colleges.”
“But then I would have to keep playing football,” JP sighed, suddenly a lot more serious than he usually was. “And there are only so many concussions you can get before shit gets dicey, you know? And so many bones you can break and meniscuses you can tear. And and and.”
Alana nodded thoughtfully. “Is that how you and Hudson bonded? Over medical shit?”
“Nah, we bonded over our love for Pajama Sam,” Hudson said.
“You know, I don’t even know if you’re lying.”
“That’s the best part,” JP replied, and he and Hudson high fived.
The doorbell rang, and Jazmine went to let in Ophelia. “Pajama Sam?” Alana asked, leaning into Hudson.
“We met on the medieval filming set,” Hudson whispered back. “They’d tapped JP to do the sound.”
Alana snorted with laughter. “Seriously?”
“Hudson, stop telling your wife all my secrets,” JP said, plucking a piece of broccoli off Hudson’s plate.
“She already knew about that secret,” Alana said. “And that’s a much better origin story, anyway.”
“This is true, but we save it only for special occasions.” JP paused. “So, like, if you would have had a real wedding reception, I would have mentioned it in my best man speech.”
“You liar,” Hudson said, laughing, trying not to fixate on the ‘real wedding reception’ thing, because then he’d go back to the part where he would be consistently playing the what if game, and that was a bitch that was not going to help anything. “We swore we’d both lie at best man speeches.”
“We did,” JP agreed. “But I also planned to make up a third origin story for us and not run it by you before the speech.”
“You are an evil evil man.” Alana said, laughing.
“It’s part of my charm,” JP said. “Someone’s gonna mention that in some Grammy speech at some point.”
“How can we finagle our way into getting a job where we could announce awards that you might win?” Alana wondered. “We should look into that.”
“Ask Jess, maybe she’d know.”
“Jess?” Alana asked.
JP’s grin was evil again. “Your sister-in-law, Alana.”
Alana blinked. “What? Oh. Wait, really? Why would your sister know, Hudson?”
Jaz and Ophelia joined them at the table, both looking a little flushed, but that wasn’t Hudson’s business. But if Alana mentioned it later, he absolutely was going to talk about it, too. “Where is Jessie? Your mom mentioned she was on location somewhere, but didn’t say where.”
“Montana,” Hudson replied. He turned to Alana. “She’s an intimacy coordinator. So, I don’t think she’d actually know. But she might know someone who knows someone who would know.”
“Wait, where in Montana? Maybe she’s near Shannon.”
“Babe, just because they’re both in the same state, it doesn’t mean they’re going to meet each other.”
“It’s Montana, though. How many people live there, even?”
“It’s a banana, Michael,” Hudson replied.
Alana snickered. “See, this is why people hate New Yorkers.”
“It’s not great for our PR,” Hudson agreed.
“Always nice to have an out when people start shit-talking New York,” Jazmine said with a grin. “Then I flutter my eyelashes and remind people I’m from Upstate New York, which is a whole different state.”
“And sometimes I pretend to have never gone anywhere north of the Catskills,” JP said. “Just to be annoying.”
Ophelia shook her head in bemusement. “Y’all are ridiculous.”
“Okay, Miss Oklahoma,” Alana said.
“It was the Oklahoma Cinderella Pageant. Which is not nearly as fancy.”
“It’s fancy enough,” Jazmine said. “I always wanted to do pageants as a kid but my mom never let me.”
“You’re not missing that much,” Ophelia said. “Less therapy for you now.”
“Just different therapy.”
Okay, there was definitely something going on, and Hudson was going to ask Alana about it later. Later, after they finished packing all the orders for him, and after everyone else had gone home.
Packing playlist courtesy of JP and Jazmine, and an assembly line courtesy of Alana meant that the process went a hell of a lot faster than it ever had. Which made sense, but sometimes taking the step to actually delegate shit was unnecessarily complicated.
“Honey, we have this covered,” Alana said after a few minutes. “And you’ve already hand-signed everything you were going to sign. I’m sure you have other things you have to do now.”
“He has social media posting to schedule,” Jazmine tattled, as she pressed a packing label onto an envelope. “That’s normally what he does after packing up.”
“Snitch.”
“For your own good!” Jazmine sang. “Ooh. JP. We should think about that.”
“Which part?”
“Snitching for your own good,” Jazmine said. “I dunno, there might be something there.”
“And this is why we bother Hudson,” JP said. “Because then we can write songs.”
“What’s it like to be someone’s muse?” Alana asked him.
Like she wouldn’t know.
Hudson shrugged. “Weird?”
“A lot less naked than I thought it would be,” Ophelia added.
“And we’ll keep it that way when it comes to Hudson, please and thank you,” Jaz said with a grin. “Maybe one day you’ll take some of the residuals.”
“I didn’t write any of the songs,” Hudson protested, as if they hadn’t already had this argument dozens of times. “Do you think I’d try to pay anyone who I decided was my muse for a piece of art?”
“Literally, one hundred and fifty percent yes,” Jaz replied, and fuck, it wasn’t like she was wrong. And it also wasn’t like she didn’t know in her bones how much of his art was inspired by the people currently in the living room.
“This is why you didn’t go to law school,” JP said.
“Nah, I didn’t go to law school because I don’t like arguing,” Hudson said. “And my parents aren’t even mad about it.”
JP rolled his eyes. “Not all of us can be the perpetual apples of the eyes of their parents.”
Alana reached out a hand for a high-five. “Hell yeah for the disappointment children.”
“John, your parents don’t even know what you do,” Hudson pointed out as he pulled out his iPad so he could schedule the next batch of social media posts. (Jaz, damn her, was correct.) “They think you’re a piano teacher.”
“I mean, I am. And they kind of know what I do? Mostly because people have started asking them about me and they have to pretend to care.”
“Same!” Alana exclaimed. “You sure we don’t have the same parents?”
“Unless your parents are a grumpy, uber-conservative gay couple who live on a small farm in Buttfuck, New York, who are also deeply into Jesus decor, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, no, mine are grumpy and deeply unhappy extremely heterosexual folks who live in Westchester and would burn down their own home before hanging up a singular cross on any wall,” Alana responded cheerfully. “Jaz, do your parents also suck?”
“They’re mostly just confused,” she replied easily. “Not as bad as JP’s, not as good as Hudson’s.”
“You really won the lottery when it comes to in-laws,” JP said with a grin. “Apparently you haven’t done as well, Huds.”
Hudson shrugged, hoping nobody realized the little thrill and the immediate crash that came with any mention of his and Alana’s marriage. “It’s okay. The wife makes up for it.”
Alana blushed, and then laughed. “What a kiss-ass.”
Hudson smirked, was about to say something about how well she was aware of that, but then realized that JP didn’t need anymore ammo.