I hate to admit that he’s right. An engagement does lessen the blow of them walking in on us, though I don’t think that I’m going to recover from that anytime soon. The last thing that I ever wanted was for my parents to walk in on a screaming orgasm.
There’s no doubt that they heard me screaming Hudson’s name. Frankly, everyone on the property probably heard me screaming his name.
Regardless, my head is still spinning. What the actual hell just happened? I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Or the fact that my parents seemed…happy? Are they pretending cause they’re just as blindsided as I am? Or are they actually excited?
Have I really been so out of touch that announcing a huge and unexpected life change is actually a good thing in their eyes?
My parents have never pressured me to get married or given me any hints about wanting grandchildren. Any of the things that my friends’ parents have done. Were they just holding those things back?
The panic is bubbling up under my skin again. It’s like a physical, tangible itch.
Hudson grabs me from where I’ve started to pace and holds me still. Looks me in the eye. “Erin. I need you to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Are you?” he asks. “Cause right now it seems like you’re going back and forth between holding your breath and hyperventilating. Neither of which are great for you know…living.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why are they happy about it?”
Hudson pulls me in to his body and wraps his arms around me. He’s so tall that he can rest his chin on the top of my head. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”
“It takes two to have sex. I’m not exactly blameless.”
He makes a non-committal sound. “I’m the one that asked you to have a drink, knowing where it could lead. I’m the one that stayed over. I’m the one that made you scream loud enough to attract attention.”
I tilt my face up so that I can look him in the eye. “Is this a mess? Yes. But you don’t have to be a martyr about it. I knew having a drink could lead to this. Hell, I hoped that it would. I could have asked you to leave, and I didn’t. I wanted you here this morning. So you can’t take the blame for it. Except for the fiancée part. That’s all you.”
Hudson chuckles, the vibrations deep in his chest resonating through me. Standing here wrapped up in him makes all my panic melt away. That doesn’t exactly make sense, given the fact that he’s the reason I have to panic. But nothing can reach me here. All I feel is calm and warmth.
After a few minutes, I realize that I’ve laid my head on his chest, and he’s let me, just holding me.
I swallow, unsure of the emotions rising in my chest at that idea. Focus, Erin. We need a way out of this. I think through everything.
“Okay,” I say. “We do this for the rest of the weekend. All the pretending while we’re in front of my parents, and we keep it low key in front of their friends. And then later, once it’s over…a little ways down the line, something can go wrong and we can call off the wedding. I don’t know, maybe you think I’m too loud in bed.”
His laugh fills up the room. “Of all the reasons I would ever break off an engagement with someone, them being too loud when I’m pleasuring them would not be it.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I was pretty loud. You could say that I was scaring away Blue Mountain’s patrons.”
“If that were the case, then our patrons don’t have very good taste. Either that, or I’ll just have to take you out into the woods where I’m the only one that gets to hear you.”
I shudder and press my forehead into his chest. He pulls me even closer. We’re locked together, and I don’t want to let go. The anxiety in my chest now isn’t because of the fake engagement. It’s the idea that—
No. That thought isn’t going to happen. I cut it off before it fully forms. This is going to be hard enough.
“You up for all that? The pretending and the break-up and everything?”
“Of course,” Hudson says with a smile, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “After all, it was my idea.”
8
Hudson
“So,” Mr. O’Neill says, “what do you do here at Blue Mountain?”
At least about this, I don’t have to lie. We’re on safe ground. “I’m the Activities Director. I’m in charge of planning all the excursions and any events that we put together. I’m also on the lookout for anything that we can add. I split the actual leading of the excursions and classes with Leo. Except archery. That’s all Asher.”
“And you own all this?”
I smile. “We do. Made the last payment about a month ago. It’s ours outright now. A few square miles on this side of the river, so we actually have a lot more property than we’re using at the moment. On the other side of the river is all national forest, but we have a special license with the state for everything we do out there.”
Erin’s mother is looking at me. Assessing. “It’s very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“What are your future plans for this place?”
I clear my throat and take a drink of water. It’s a little bit of an interrogation, but given the way that we surprised them this morning, they definitely have the right. “We’re finally to a place where we’re happy with the number of excursions that we have, and the guest capacity. Right now we’re going to hold steady and ease into this kind of schedule. Obviously the warmer months are our busiest seasons. We’ve done really well, and we don’t want to grow too big too quickly.
“But eventually we’d like to build larger guest cabins further out on the property for larger groups and possibly hire full-time staff so that the three of us don’t have to be here all year round.”
Mr. O’Neill nods. “Sounds like you’ve got a decent business plan.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Erin is very quiet beside me. I know that she doesn’t want to say anything that’s going to contradict our story, and she’s still a little dazed from everything that happened.
“And how did you guys meet?”
This one I’ve definitely got. “Erin came up as a part of a class trip when we first got the horses over the summer. And we just…hit it off.”
Erin smiles at me then. I definitely don’t deserve the way that she’s looking at me, given that I’m the one that got us into this mess in the first place. But she’s still nervous. So I take her hand. Throughout breakfast, I’ve been touching her. Partially because I know that it will help sell the story to her parents. And partly because I want to.
I can’t help myself.
After last night and this morning…there’s no way to explain it. But I’ve never felt anything like it. Not to mention that this is probably the most words I’ve said at once in more than a year. I never used to be so quiet, but as things changed and I withdrew, I just spoke less and less.
But I didn’t realize that until now.