Page 51 of Pictures in Blue
It has me paranoid and focusing my eyes on the ground around us. I have had poison ivy exactly once in my life from exploring the woods in our backyard, and I remember being absolutely miserable for days after. No amount of calamine lotion or aloe vera could soothe my skin and I made it my number one rule of exploring in the woods. Never come into contact with poison ivy ever again.
“You doing okay back there?” Hudson asks, adjusting his hands. “You’re fidgeting.”
“Uh, yeah,” I continue to look around for red vines with three leaves. A mantra in my head.Red vine, three leaves.Like Donkey from Shrek,blue flower, red thorns.
I laugh at my train of thought and question how it can go from thinking of Hudson’s hands on the most intimate parts of my body to thinking of a fictional talking donkey. The human brain, specifically mine, is a marvel.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. I’m bored up here, so spill.” I have a slight suspicion he is trying to avoid thoughts similar to mine.
“Is poison ivy a weed?” I ask.
“What?”
“Is poison ivy a weed?” I repeat. “Or is it a plant?”
“Any particular reason you’re asking about poison ivy?”
“No,” I say, adjusting my grip around his neck. “I am just curious.”
“Curious?”
“Yes.”Exasperated by the fact he’s not answering my question. “You know, inquisitive, interested?”
“I know what curious means,” he sighs.
“Well, you were acting like you didn’t, so I wasn’t sure. I don’t know you. You could be the typical burly man with nothing behind your handsome features and defined jaw.”
“You think my features are handsome?” He drawls.
“You know, for someone whojustentered into an agreement to stay away from one another, you flirt an awful lot.”
“Hey, flirting wasn’t part of the agreement. Andyou’rethe one plastered to my back.”
“Through no choice of my own!”
“You have a choice.”
“Sure, limping my way back sounds like a fantastic idea,” the sarcasm drips from my lips.
He chuckles and zig zags his way through the trees and around the branches in the way of our path. The silence stretches between us, but this time it isn’t an uncomfortable, tension-filled silence. It’s…nice. The wind whistles through the trees and the leaves rustle every once in a while from whatever creature is scurrying by. Sounds of the forest and the nearby creek are comforting and calming in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
And suddenly, I find myself wishing we never left the waterfall. Wishing that the peace I feel now in the woods with Hudson could last through my stay, even though the end is inevitable. I’m leaving soon and starting anything with Hudson is just asking for more heartbreak. But the thought of staying away from him leaves an empty feeling in my stomach. A hunger that can’t be satisfied unless he is near me.
I let out a long sigh and resign myself to the fact that Hudson and I are going to have to figure out a way to honor what I decided. Just friends. We can do just friends as long as he stays on his side of town and I stay on mine.
Right?
Right.
By the timewe make it back to the inn, it’s a little past noon. The lunch crowd fills the dining room, and when we cross the threshold, me still on Hudson’s back, a hush falls over the room. I’ve never seen a crowd of people fall silent so fast outside of the stillness that follows people in the theater when a movie starts. But these people have a reason. I can only imagine what it looks like from their perspective.
Hudson shirtless, me hanging from his backwearinghis shirt, both of us covered in dirt and mud from the hike back where we obviously spent the night together.
Whydidn’t we go back to his house to change first? I should have put my damp clothes back on. I didn’t think through the ramifications of coming here, inthistown, in our current state. To make matters worse, both CordieandFran are at the front desk, their smiles stretching wide across their faces. Both of them channeling the Cheshire Cat; mischievous, cunning, plotting.
