Page 100 of Roughing It

Shaw_Babe: Once again you’re out here showboating and making the world think you’re better than me. You always did. But remember, Blake Lee, you came from nothing and you’re still nothing. No amount of expensive clothes will change it. You might’ve hidden that part of yourself from your city friends and this new man you’ve snookered, but your mamma knows. Blood always outs.

Shaw_Babe: I need $5000. Send it, or I start posting.

And there it is.

A soft knock on the door has me fumbling my phone and shoving it into my pocket.

“Blakely? You alright?”

I swing the door open and crash into Hudson, needing his arms around me. His grounding scent and warmth. The security he provides.

“Sorry. Needed a minute.”

Together, we walk to the booth and slip back in. Bo and Gray have the decency not to ask where I disappeared to or why I was gone so long.

“So, Blakely, what’s next for you when you leave here?” Bo has no idea how loaded his question is.

I weigh my words. “Maybe it’s being out here,” a flutter courses through me when Hudson’s grip on my thigh tightens and rises, “but I’m starting to think when this is over, I may take a sabbatical from social media.” Hudson’s teasing touches falter, and his eyes burn into the side of my head.

“No way. You’ve gotta be making damn good money. Ouch, fucking hell, Hudson, stop kicking me!”

The first giggle slips out. Maybe it’s the offended look on Bo’s face, the glower on Hudson’s, the bullshit with my mom, the stress of coming into town, the weight of being down to eleven days, but I crack. Laughs, loud, obnoxious, andunrelenting, shake my body until tears stain my cheeks and my sides ache.

All three Brooks men stare at me, matching open-mouthed expressions on their handsome faces. You’d think I grew a second head, but it just makes me cackle harder. The sounds bubble around me, too loud to not be drawing attention, but I can’t stop. Before long, Bo and Gray join, and eventually, the infectious giddiness is even too much for Hudson. He laughs out loud. Twice.

Finally, I calm myself enough to steer the conversation away from me and onto the brothers. I want to find out more about them, to know them.

As lunch goes on, I drink in their easy dynamic. They obviously care for one another, enjoy one another, love one another. Even Hudson has a half grin when he thinks no one is paying attention.

Gray shares stories about camping trips gone wrong, including one from when they were young and Hudson forgot to stake the tent. When they got to the campsite, it was upside down and thirty yards away. I learn that Bo accidentally packed butter spray instead of bug spray one trip, and they didn’t figure it out until they’d doused themselves in it. And that on one of the few trips their mother joined them on, her hammock ripped, and she landed flat on her back but never dropped her smore.

I listen to it all, absorbing as much as I can. I love hearing about Hudson. I love hearing about his life and his business. I love that these arehispeople, and he’s sharing them with me. I lov… really like him.

Hours later, we climb into the Jeep to head home. The cabin.A place that is more home than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.

As I ponder that intrusive little thought, I study Hudson’s handsome profile.

“Why areyou staring at me?”

Busted. “Can’t a girl stare at her boyfriend for no reason?” I freeze at thebfword, but when the edges of his lips turn up, a rush of happiness floods my body.

“Did you mean what you said at lunch today? Are you thinking about giving up social media and the influencer life when this is over?”

Do I mean it? “I meant it when I said it.”

“But?”

“But…” The headlights flicker over the trees, casting eerie shadows around us. “It’s easy to say when things are going wrong.”

He glances over at me before focusing back on the road. “Is this about what happened earlier today and at lunch?”

“Yeah.” I reach out, holding his hand, and press his palm to my lips. “A year from now, if I ask myself why I quit—if was because it was hard or I was having a bad day, or for… some other reason—I need to be able to answer honestly. And I don’t want the answer to be because it was a bad day. If I walk away from my job, Austin, all of it, I need it to be for something better. Something real. Something lasting.”

In the dim cabin of the Jeep, an unreadable emotion flashes across his face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. Maybe I imagined it.

But it looked a lot like love.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

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