Chapter Twelve
KALLEN
When I reach Portside Wharf, it’s already crowded with people checking out shops and cafés. A quarter past eight on a Sunday morning seems like a foreign time for me to be out of bed.
Walking to the waterfront, I open my phone to the last message from Hudson: look for the boat with the blue anchor sign. Fortunately, the sign in question isn’t difficult to find. Neither is Hudson, turns out, who’s leaning against a wooden plank wearing cream pants and a white linen shirt.
He looks up, smiling. ‘Hello. I was just about to text you.’ He lifts himself from the plank and approaches me, his arms open for a hug, which I embrace. He’s just as attractive as his photos, if not more. Lucky me.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Is it usually this busy on a Sunday? I hardly ever come up here.’
Hudson waggles his eyebrows. ‘Oh yeah. Weekends are hectic up here sometimes.’
After discovering a fishy smell from one of the boats, I spin around to the wharf, discovering there are several boats with blue anchor signs. ‘So, which one is ours?’
Hudson points to a ferry towards the end of the dock.
‘That b aby is the one we’re jumping aboard.
Basically, the tour company that runs trips around Moreton Island is selling the boat and shutting down the tour operations as they’re moving overseas.
So we’re handling the sale of the boats for them, which means perks like this: going on the tour for free. ’
I chuckle. ‘Sounds like our jobs aren’t so different after all.’
Hudson gestures for us to start walking closer to the pier. ‘Sounds like it. I mean, I sell physical things and you sell…experiences, through content.’
I wave my left hand around as I say, ‘They’re pretty much the same thing, right?’
He stifles a smirk. ‘More or less.’
We board the boat, taking the open-air seats on the back deck, under the shade of a blue and white striped umbrella.
‘How was the rest of your week?’ Hudson asks.
Immediately, I think of Dan in the bathroom last night and how he’s already getting more praise after working at Untold Media for a week than I have for the past two years. What a bastard, and an excruciatingly handsome one at that.
‘Aside from some work dramas, it was okay,’ I say. In retrospect, a flicker of truth. ‘How about yours?’
Hudson lets out a laugh. ‘It was good. Made a few big sales this week.’ He beams and I’m not sure if it’s the sun hitting his skin or if he’s blushing. He slips off his sunglasses, gazes straight into my eyes and says, ‘I’ve been looking forward to today.’
I shrug as my mouth forms a smile. ‘First date in a while that I can’t thank a dating app for.’
He giggles. ‘Same actually.’
Our lustful eye contact is broken by a waiter standing next to us holding a tray of shot glasses filled with pink-ish liquid.
‘Smoothie shot?’ the waiter offers.
I inspect one of the shot glasses. ‘Oh so, non-alcoholic?’
The waiter nods. ‘Yes. Non-alcoholic. But I can get you an alcoholic beverage if you do wish.’
After Hudson takes a smoothie shot, I do the same. ‘Oh no, no alcohol for me, thanks.’
When the server walks away, Hudson and I cheers our smoothie shots and sip them back. Orange, mango, and coconut flavours linger on my tongue.
As we set our glasses down, Hudson’s hand brushes against mine for a slight moment before I pull away, my smile stretching further.
The ferry begins to cruise along the river and Hudson gets stuck in a conversation with one of the deck hands, who he clearly knows from the connection between the tour company and his team of boat sellers.
While they talk about the tour company being no more in a matter of weeks, I grip the side of the boat, my eyes drifting back to Brisbane in the distance behind us.
Hudson soon appears behind me, which sends shivers down my spine. ‘So how did you get into writing for Untold Media? Did you study writing?’ he asks me after we pass the Port of Brisbane and all its shipping containers .
‘I did yeah,’ I respond, gripping the railing of the boat. ‘Studied journalism at Griffith.’
‘Cool!’ Hudson pipes up. ‘I studied journalism there for a semester before switching to business.’
My eyes bulge. ‘Right!’ Turns out Hudson and I, for a brief moment in time, were doing the same degree at the same university.
‘Small world,’ he says, shoulder brushing against mine. He accepts another smoothie shot from the waiter, who’s doing the rounds again. He also grabs one for me.
‘Small world,’ I reiterate, stifling a smirk while we ding our smoothie shots together.
Half an hour later, the boat docks at Moreton Island.
That same small world Hudson and I spoke of earlier now has us finding a secluded area on the beach, right under some trees.
Both of us lay on towels, and his tongue wanders around my mouth, his leg rubbing against mine as he crawls on top of me, droplets of sand hitting my face as our lips collide.
Hardness protrudes through my swim shorts as he grinds against me, splaying my legs apart and nestling between them.
It makes me a touch uncomfortable, at the same time horny.
As he rubs through my swim shorts, the latter takes over.
In between kisses, he huffs, ‘You’re so sexy.’
And I reply with, ‘You are too.’
A minute of kissing later, Hudson moves his mouth downward, letting his lips roam over my nipples, belly, then the hair above my groin. He looks left, right, up and down to see if anyone can spot us, gives me a hungry, knowing look, pulls my shorts down slightly, then swallows me.
As he starts to suck, I gasp, tilting my head back.
Though, as great as Hudson is at blowjobs, why am I imagining it’s Dan down there, of all people?
My coworker, who seems to now be haunting me on the weekend with his good looks.
I imagine his round butt in the tight chinos he wears to work.
His eyes, which resemble what the ocean would look like today if it were sunny.
That beefy chest trying to rip through his shirt.
And his hands, fingers doing much more than tapping on laptop keys.
Oh, fuck.
After finishing in each other’s mouths, Hudson and I head to the restaurant at Tangalooma for lunch and drinks, both of us in a post-ejaculation daze I’d only ever known to fill with a movie after sex, or a stiff night cap.
On the way back to Brisbane, as the boat glides under Gateway Bridge, Hudson says, ‘I had a great time today,’ and I beam, ‘Me too.’
We agree on a second date and go our separate ways.
On my Uber ride home, I reflect on the day with Hudson. His windswept hair, his lips on my body. This whole avoid dates at all costs era of mine is nowhere to be seen.
As satisfying as today was, however, it still feels like something is missing.