Page 102 of Pictures in Blue
That gets my attention. I sit back up. “Who?”
“That information is only for women who are showered, dressed and ready to go in the next ten minutes.” He turns and leaves the doorway. I hear his boots clunk down the stairs.
“Ten minutes?” I yell after him. “That’s hardly enough time!”
“You had twenty when I came in to wake you. Not my fault, Reid!” He yells back.
I take the quickest shower of my life and dress in the clothes I threw in the corner the other day. More leggings and just to taunt him, his favorite flannel, but with a tank top underneath this time. Wherever we are going or whoever we are seeing, I’m sure they would appreciate me not showing up half naked.
I tie my hair up in a red polka-dotted ribbon and skip downstairs. Hudson is waiting by the front door with what looks to be a tie hanging from his right hand. He holds it up and it is indeed a tie. One that is decorated with multicolored Christmas lights and a blue background.
“Why are you handing me a Christmas tie?”
“Blindfold, sweetheart.”
“I thought you said no sex? Are we living out some sort of fantasy of yours, Waters?”
“Only in your dreams, Reid. C’mon, turn around,” he motions in a circle with his finger. I listen and he ties the makeshift blindfold over my eyes until I can only see darkness.
He does what everyone does when they blindfold someone and steps back, waving his hand a few inches from my face. At least, that’s what I imagine him doing. “How many fingers am I holding up?
“Well, Hudson, I don’t know if you noticed, but I am blindfolded, therefore, I cannot see how many fingers you are currently holding up in front of my face.”
“Alright, good. Let’s go.”
I hear him walk in front of me and onto the front porch before he stops, remembering I am temporarily blind. His hand curls around my bicep and guides me down the steps and into his truck.
Once he buckles me in, he closes the door and makes his way to the driver’s side. There are a million possibilities swimming through my head, waves of ideas flooding back and forth, dangerous waves in a hurricane I don’t know if I am ready to face.
I hear the truck pull away and Hudson rests his hand on my thigh, a comforting anchor in the chaotic storm. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Is this the part where you take me to the woods to murder me?”
His laugh fills the cab of the truck. “If I wanted to do that, I would have done it ages ago when we went hiking. Much more remote. Easier cleanup too with the bears.”
“That answer came way too easily to you.”
“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it, Sunshine.”
“Oh, I can take it, Mountain Man.”
“And you take it well,” he says and I tighten my legs together. He feels my reaction under his hand and starts rubbing soft lines on my leg, back and forth. Higher and higher, until the truck comes to a stop.
“Not fair,” I whine.
“Very fair,” he says before he jumps out of the truck and back to my side to help me out.
“Can I take the blindfold off now?”
“Not yet.”
He guides me a few feet forward and I hear a familiar jingle above the door he opens.
“Why did you have to blindfold me to go to Fran’s?” I ask.
“Because we aren’t at Fran’s.”
