Page 57 of Pictures in Blue
Avery picks up Fiona. “Did you make all of these?” she asks, not trying to hide the surprise in her voice.
“Yes,” I answer.
“This is what you do?”
“Yes.” She levels me with a look I can only describe as exasperated. “I run an Etsy shop.” Her jaw drops as I suspected it would. Most people’s reactions are the same.
“Surprised?” I ask and she quickly closes her mouth and places Fiona back on the shelf with careful movements.
“Uh, no. Just, uh….,” she stutters, considering her words. “Yeah, surprised, I guess.”
“What did you think I do for a living?”
Most people guess my profession based on my looks. I have a muscular build and I have long hair, wear a lot of flannel, and people assume I work on a farm or do some kind of manual labor, which I guess is included in what I do with chopping wood for my projects, but there’s more to me than what people see. They just don’t stick around long enough to find out what it is I actually do.
“I don’t know what I expected,” she says, waving a hand to brush it off. “But it wasn’t something soooo….” She searches for a word.
“Attractive? Sexy? Manly? Irresistible?”
“Creative,” she finishes, not taking the bait. I give her a soft smile and silently thank her for seeing me.
“I mean, look at all of these,” she continues, turning back toward the shelves. “These are incredible, Hudson. How did you get into this?”
Opening the bag, I start laying out the food on the table, avoiding her gaze.
“I started carving when I was a kid. It was always something fun to do, just small things here and there, but I really enjoyed creating dogs. When our family dog passed away, I made one for my parents and my siblings. Sarah posted hers online and it gained a lot of traction. So she convinced me to open a shop, which I finally did shortly after she died and it grew from there. I eventually got enough orders and attention, I was able to use it as my full time income.”
“What did you do before?”
“I mostly helped my buddy Axel at his mechanic shop in town. I still do sometimes if his dad can’t handle the workload. He has chronic pain and can’t always help around the shop as much as he used to, so I step in whenever I’m needed. But mostly I do this,” I gesture at the shelves behind me.
“I enjoy working with my hands.” I give her a sly smile and a blush creeps up her collarbone, spreading to her neck and filling her cheeks. “C’mon,” I motion to the food now spread out on the table. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
We eat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes until the dogs realize we have food and surround us, waiting for anything to drop from the table.
She tilts her chin down at them. “What are their names?” she asks.
“There’s Bernard and Judy, the two who accosted you when you got here,” I point to the two closest to her. Judy has slim features and softer fur than the rest of them, while Bernard is more lanky.
“And then there’s Buddy,” I point to the largest one next to me. He’s also the oldest and has a little gray on his snout. He’s been moving slower these days and I’ve been feeling like these past few months are some of his last. I give in and throw him a few fries from my pile and he quickly grabs them before the others do.
“And the other two?” She gestures to the two sleeping at the back of the barn, oblivious to the food she brought in.
“Those two came from the same litter and are thick as thieves. I couldn’t stand the idea of separating them.” Her features soften before she continues to eat her burger and sneaks a few fries to Judy and Bernard when she thinks I’m not looking. “They’re Hermes and Patch.”
I can see her trying to figure out the connection of their names. No one has ever caught the reference and I’m curious to see if she will.
She bursts into laughter around her bite of burger and covers her mouth.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re just not what I expected, Hudson.”
“And what did you expect?”
“Well,” she says behind her hand. “For starters, I did not expect you to name your dogs after elves.”
“What can I say? I really love Christmas movies.”
