“Wait, no, that’s not it, he said to say ‘Answer your damn phone, Archer.’”
I almost smirk; Hudson.
“A hundred dollars, huh? Just to get me outside?”
Hudson is leaning against the side of a bright red Porsche convertible, his white oxford shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his sleeves rolled up, uncharacteristically showing off his tattoos. He grins and shrugs; “Eh, its the only cash I had in my wallet. Answer your damn phone next time.”
“What do you want, Hudson.” Ok so part of me is thrilled that he’s shown up here like this at four in the morning like something out of a John Hughes movie; especially looking like that with his hair pushed back and that cocky grin and those tattoos peeking out down his forearms. The other part of me though - the sensible part of me - is wary of this for those exact reasons.
“I want to show you something, get in.”
I raise my eyebrows skeptically; “Have you been drinking or something?”
“What? No, I don-” He frowns and shakes his head; “No, Reagan, I haven’t.”
I cock my head towards the red convertible; “What happened to the white one?”
“I got bored. Look, just get in ok?”
“Hudson, it’s four o’clock in the morning,” I’ve been at college for all of a month, and the work is already seriously piling up. I roll my eyes at him; “I need to sleep.”
“No, what you need to do is get in the car.”
He’s so insistent and so earnest about it that something wants me to say yes when I know I shouldn’t, and suddenly, I’m caving.
“Let me just go change my-”
“Nah, PJ’s are fine.” He winks at me; “c’mon Archer, quit being a diva and get in the car.”
Hudson, predictably, drives like an insane person, and we’re roaring over the George Washington bridge in less time than I thought was physically possible. He whips us around a van and veers off onto the Palisades Parkway, and then we’re tearing away from the city and up the west bank of the Hudson River. We aren’t talking, but the stereo is playing an old Grateful Dead record, and I almost grin at how not expected this choice of music is for the Armani-suited wild man Hudson.
He smirks as if reading my mind; “I’m a man of odd taste, Ms. Archer.”
“What, like drunk bimbos and sports cars?” I smirk, unable to help but get that cheap shot in; “Yeah, so outside the lines for rich young finance guys in New York.”
“I was going to say like night drives and girls in pajamas, actually.”
I feel myself blushing as I turn and look out the window at the inky black of the river we’re following. I don’t know what this is that we’re doing out here, but I’m suddenly very curious to see where it goes.
Hudson swerves off the main parkway, and then we’re speeding up; up a twisting, winding, and wooded road. The elevation climbs, and Hudson drives faster and higher, taking bend after bend with screeching tires until I’m holding onto the edges of my seat with white knuckles and gasping as the trees rush past us.
And then suddenly, the darkness of the trees gives way, the sky opens up, and and we’re squealing to a stop. I can still feel my heart hammering from the drive, but I gasp as I look around the parking lot lookout where we’ve stopped. I can see the lights of the whole city from here, down along the black ribbon of the Hudson River, and its incredible.
“I just thought you’d want to see the whole Hudson.” He says quietly from the seat next to me.
I turn and see that he’s staring out at the view himself, and I grin; “Please tell me that’s a pickup line you’ve used before.”
He laughs, his whole face breaking into a wide smile; “Not on a first date, Ray.”
“Oh, is this a first date?” I smirk.
“Is it?” He shrugs; “First date and I already get to see what you sleep in; not bad I’d sa-”
I smack him on the arm with a laugh and he turns to grin at me; “No, Ray, it’s not a line; just something I wanted to show you.”
We both turn back to the view for another minute of silence. I open my mouth to ask it but then stop myself, before changing my mind again; “You show this to a lot of girls?”
A song ends on the album, and in the absolute silence of the car, he turns to me, his sharp eyes glinting in the light from the dash; “None, actually.”
The music starts up again as we both sit back in our seats and just stare off into the predawn as civil twilight crests over the city; and its wonderful.
P R E S E N T
OK, so being around Hudson is hard. Ugh, I need to get my mind out of the gutter; it’s difficult I should say, being around him. Mostly because the only thing I can think about at all is that cock of his I saw when I stumbled into the bathroom. I mean, it’s not enough that he’s rich, cocky, muscled and criminally attractive; the guy has to have an big dick too?