Let's Get Lost

Drunkball started with an opening round meant to prepare the players for the game ahead. One player would chug a beer while the other players each rolled one die. They’d add up the rolls until the drinker slammed the beer can upside down on the table; then the next person in line would become the chugger, and they’d repeat. Whoever accumulated the lowest score before his beer was finished would get to choose an element first.

Aside from establishing an order of play and matching up a player with the element he/she would be in charge of making up rules for, the opening round also helped to create an establishing buzz. And it loosened muscles to avoid the risk of strains, sprains, or any other injury that might occur during physical challenges.

As ref, Hudson had the privilege of adding any rule at any time, and he had fun with it, making his friends speak in accents or only be allowed to move via cartwheels. He loved the manifestation of Leila’s enjoyment—how she reached out her hand and gripped his forearm, once pulling herself into his chest and laughing directly over his heart.

“New rule!” Leila shouted, about forty minutes into the game. They were standing near the playset, catching their breath from a physical challenge that involved juggling dice while going through the obstacle course. Her hair was now dry, although her clothes weren’t, her cheeks slightly flushed from the alcohol and the running. “Any time one of you three looks anywhere below my neck, you have to chug the rest of your beer.” She paused for dramatic effect, during which Scott lowered his sight to her breasts and drank happily. “And then Hudson gets to slap you.”

“Bullshit!” Scott said. “I didn’t hear the entire rule.”

John looked to Hudson. “Ref, ruling?”

Richie interjected, “Wait, why does he get to check you out?”

“Because, first of all, he hasn’t been ogling me as if I’m a thirty-second porn clip on the Internet.”

“Are you saying I’ve been doing that?” Richie asked, trying to sound indignant despite compromising his credibility instantly as he snuck a glance.

“Ah! You did it, too. Chug the beer and get slapped by Hudson!” She laughed, then came over to Hudson and grabbed his arm, pulling him toward Richie and Scott. “Secondly,” she added, lining the two of them up and lifting their beers for them so that they’d get to drinking, “I quite like your friend here. In case you hadn’t noticed, when you lot showed up, I was getting ready to show him just how much. So, for interrupting us, he gets to slap you.”

Leila went back to Hudson and took a sip of her beer, stumbling a little. Then she slipped her fingers in between his. “So, ref, what’s your ruling?”

Hudson looked at his friends. Scott and Richie were obediently chugging the rest of the beer in their cans, and John was smiling confidently at Hudson, nodding at him. Leila’s fingers interlaced with his, her thumb rubbing lightly against his. “I’ll allow it.”

Just when he was raising his arm to slap his friends, a noise broke through the trees. They all turned toward it and paused, trying to determine if it had been a figment of their imaginations or maybe just some small animal. Then they heard it again, this time distinct: a voice. John rushed to the shed and shut off the generator. The island fell into darkness again. The five of them held their breath, their eyes adjusting to the dark. Hudson felt Leila step closer to him, her side pressed against his.

Then the beam of a flashlight came shining in through the trees on the far side of the field, opposite from where they’d come in from. No one moved yet. “You think it’s cops?” Richie asked in a whisper.

No one said anything. They held still until another flashlight came on, then another.

“To the boat!” Scott said a little too loudly, and they took off running for the trees, laughing with the thrill of a chase.

Hudson and Leila fell behind during the run. They ran hand in hand, trying to lead each other away from rocks on the ground and low-hanging branches. Hudson wanted to call out to his friends that the boat was a bad idea. But they had gained ground, and he didn’t want to shout, so he tried to pick up the pace. Leila stifled her laughter behind him as she struggled to keep up. Just when he thought that they’d lost sight of the guys, they ran into John.

“We’ll distract them,” John said quietly. “It doesn’t matter if we get caught, but I’m not letting you risk your scholarship by getting arrested for trespassing. You lay low.” Then he ran back through the woods before Hudson could object.

“Shit,” Hudson said, looking around, trying to determine in which direction to go. But before he could decide, Leila pulled on his arm, bringing them both tumbling down onto the ground. He worried that she might have gotten hurt, and he called out her name to see if she was okay. Then he felt her press close to him and put a finger to his mouth.

“Shh. We’ll be safe here.”

6 (#ulink_a483ac44-dff3-555c-bafd-da07abeb87d6)

HUDSON LISTENED FOR noises beyond his own pounding heart. They were lying on the ground, his back pressed against the cool earth. Leila was tight against him, her skin warm and her breathing slow and deep and smelling of an alcoholic sweetness. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her hand still in his.

They’d taken cover where some fallen trees had landed on a little hill, creating a nook that, as it turned out, was just big enough to hide two people. They’d heard the guys get into the boat, the splash of the oars as they rowed away. Some moments later there’d been some unintelligible, muffled shouting. More than three voices, definitely. He and Leila had decided to stay hidden for a while, and that was fifteen minutes earlier. Now Hudson had been lying next to her for long enough to forget the danger and briefly hope that his life could continue simply the way it was. That tomorrow would be a day just like today, with the garage and Leila. Dinner with his dad in their backyard, nothing urgent to say to each other. He wished that could be every day.

Thinking about his dad stirred in Hudson a deep pang of shame and regret that he’d snuck out of the house, been deceptive. Then Leila squeezed his hand, and all his reservations disappeared.

Grass and leaves damp from the humidity clung to his arms. A barn owl screeched somewhere on the island. She looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to keep you out this late. I think I’m good to swim back across now. Let’s get you home.”

“No,” he said. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He put his arm on her back, his fingers coming to rest at the base of her neck, massaging gently.

She smiled and shuffled closer to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. “You’re not worried about the interview?”

“No. I’ll make it on time. Right now I just want to stay here with you.”

Leila curled up against him, her head on his chest, one leg over his lap. When he put his arm around her and they settled into each other, the comfort was so overwhelming that he thought he might fall asleep on the spot. He kept his eyes on the stars until they brought to mind the Northern Lights, at which point he looked down at Leila.

He’d never really done this before, just being close to someone. But this was something people never had to learn, never had to study for. Or, no, that wasn’t quite right. This was like fixing an engine. All you needed was to find the right parts and put them together, watch them click into place.

He ran his arm up and down her back, slipping his hand beneath her shirt, exploring her skin with his fingers. It was more as if her skin were leading his fingers around, as if he had no option but to trace the lines of her shoulder blades, to follow the lace of her bra down the strap toward the clasp. His hand lingered there for a second, then, beckoned by her skin, it moved to the open expanse of her lower back, the faint dimples there, the soft curve of her hip. He rested his hand right there, the tip of his fingers at the edge of her shorts.

How long this went on for, Hudson couldn’t tell. He pictured his cell phone in Leila’s car, imagined his father calling over and over. But having Leila there instantly quelled his anxieties. She’d run her fingers through the hair by his temples, massaging his scalp. Or she’d shift her leg, and he’d feel the warmth of each other’s skin go to new, fresh places. As long as she was there and not driving north and away from him, he was happy.

“Tell me a story,” she said, the words spoken right into his chest, so he could feel her lips pulling away from and sticking a little to his skin.

“What kind of story?”

“I don’t know. Anything. A bedtime story.”

He was about to say that he didn’t know any stories, but instead he said simply what he was feeling. “This is the greatest night of my life, I think.” He paused and let the Mississippi air fill in the background noise as he gathered his thoughts. “Up until now my greatest moment was last year, when this old car my dad and I were restoring finally started. Or the time when I was five, at the park. I don’t remember much from the memory except for the fact that I had fallen and was in pain. Then, out of nowhere, my dad came in and picked me up, almost as if I were weightless. I remember how happy and relieved I was.

“But this,” he said, emphasizing by pressing Leila closer to him, if such a thing was possible. He could feel her skin filling in the gaps between his ribs, the hollows his hip bones created. “This is the highest peak I’ve ever reached.”

He let some time pass, focusing on nothing but her in his arms. Then he leaned his neck toward her and kissed the top of her head. He kissed her softly, not because he wanted anything, but because he could no longer keep the kiss to himself. Without a word, she turned to him, and before he could think to do anything else, her lips were on his.

They kissed madly, like people who’d been waiting for it much longer than they had. Their bodies seemed to understand each other; their lips parted at the same time, their tongues moved in sync, their hands knew exactly when to grasp on to one another and when to explore elsewhere. Hudson wasn’t sure whether it felt better to touch her or be touched by her, and he didn’t care to decide.

He was vaguely aware of the night sky, the plentiful stars, the sound of the river and whatever life it contained. They rolled on the earth, and Hudson was aware of the ground only in that it was outside of them, that it was colder than the two of them, conscious of the occasional pebble or scratch of grass. Aside from those minute details, his world was entirely Leila.

* * *

When they finally stopped kissing, Leila curled herself against him, her head on his chest, one leg stretched across his lap. Hudson was certain that he was grinning like an idiot, but he didn’t care anymore.

“Can I ask you a question?” She spoke softly. Not a whisper, exactly, but the kind of tone Hudson had always imagined people used when there was someone in bed with them. Close, intimate, the words not having to work hard to reach the other person.

“Sure.”

She hesitated and brought up her hand to his jawbone, running her fingers from his chin to the spot behind his ear. “Why do you want to be a doctor?”

The question surprised him, not just because of the moment but because he couldn’t actually remember anyone ever asking him before. “Um, I don’t know,” he said. “I just do.” A mosquito buzzed past his ear, and he halfheartedly swatted at it. “I think I’ve been working for it long enough to forget the moment I made up my mind.”

“Well, if you remember, let me know,” she said, moving her hand to his chest and kissing his breastbone, then propping herself up on one elbow and studying his face. After a while she said, “You don’t regret coming here with me?”

“Not even a little,” he said. “I’m really glad I met you, and there is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

She smiled that smile of hers, the smile that he knew he’d be comparing other smiles to for the rest of his life. Then she kissed him, slow and deep, not as hungry as before but just as rich. “Good,” she said, and she repositioned herself, her face buried against his neck. Every now and then he’d feel the tickle of a hurried kiss on his skin, and he’d think of it as a kiss she couldn’t keep to herself.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” she said. “I sort of can’t believe I did, this early on my trip. I was expecting something great to happen. Just not this.”