Chapter 2
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 seen Survivor,” 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 scrawny than 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.
“Stop selling yourself short,” Lilah argued, her voice stern.
“I just can’t tell if I’m reading into it. Maybe she’s just friendly with everyone.”
Lilah snorted. “Mira never smiled before you started working here. And now she giggles all the time. It’s weird.”
“She does not,” I argue.
“Ugh,” Lilah groans, done with me. “It’s simple. She likes you. You like her. Ask her out, or better yet, ask her to go home with you?”
“You really think I’m cooler than I am, don’t you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. I don’t think you’re cool at all.”
“Thanks for that,” I said, pulling out my phone to see what time Mira was coming in tonight.
The day I gave her my number I turned my phone off silent for the first time since I bought it, not wanting to risk missing her text.
I was halfway up Roan Mountain when it came in, slipping off the trail to take advantage of the limited cell service.
I expected a vague “hello” or “what’s up,” even a good-hearted dig at my weekend plans since Mira had made her lack of camping experience well known, but the message on the screen wasn’t a message at all.
It was a photo. A selfie of her holding a purple blazing star stalk, one of the variety of flowers I’d explained were in bloom this time of year.
Her cheeks were pink as she smiled into the lens, exposing the leather straps of her camera harness against her shoulders.
And I loved that she’d stopped to send this to me even though she was at work.
That day, instead of hiking to the peak, I spent the rest of my daylight hours getting to know her better, making camp where I wouldn’t lose contact.
Although she kept up a protective armor at the bar, her texts were more uninhibited. Honest. And I felt as if I’d finally earned my way into her inner circle of trust, a privilege I never wanted to lose.
“Have you told her you’re leaving yet?” Lilah asked, slicing limes for that evening’s bar service.
“About the trip? Or from Finn’s?”
“Either. Both,” she said, knowing that this week was the end of a chapter for me, one I’d been ready to turn the page on for quite some time now.
I shook my head. “I feel like my particular brand of family drama is a lot to dump on someone. Especially when I haven’t bought her dinner yet.”
“Mmm. You’ve bought her plenty of dinners,” Lilah offered, having taken advantage of my DoorDash account herself a time or two.
“You know what I mean.”
“What’s that thing therapists say? Relationships are built on a foundation of trust? You’ll never know if you can be together if you don’t tell her the truth.”
It wasn’t like I was trying to keep things from her, but once people find out who I am, things always get weird, especially with potential suitors.
Explaining that I’m the son of a CEO has opened the door to questions I don’t love answering, like what my net worth is or if I own multiple properties.
It’s as if who I am as a person takes a backseat to what I can offer them, so I tend to omit that part of my life.
I’ve enjoyed being Hudson the bartender rather than Hudson the nepo-baby.
“You’re right,” I sighed, opening another bag of limes.
“I usually am,” she grinned, mixing another batch of basil and rosemary syrup for our cocktail of the month. “So tonight then?”
“Tonight.”
But as I sit here, staring at the clock, knowing that we only have a few minutes left before Finn is sure to kick us out, I’m still nervous.
“Do it!” Lilah mouths to me, nudging my shoulder, as Mira listens to one of the brothers regaling her about the financial security of investing in Pokémon cards.
I’m not sure if it’s Lilah staring me down, or the regret I’ll feel if I don’t make my move, but I find myself reaching for Mira’s hand across the table, stealing her attention.
This isn’t the first time we’ve touched, but tonight the exchange is charged, and when her thumb grazes along my skin a flame ignites inside of me.
I resist the urge to interlace my fingers with hers as her copper eyes glow under the fluorescents, the color mesmerizing like chalcopyrite in stone.
“Did you need something, or were you overcome with the urge to hold my hand?” she asks, as I find my words.
“I was wondering if you might want to—”
But before I can finish my question, Finn cuts me off.
“Closing time,” he says, shooing us out of the booth. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”