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“I didn’t expect you to have all this, like, outdoorsy stuff,” Connor says, watching Hudson knot his laces, then double-knot them.
The parking lot is still half-asleep. Dirt a little damp with leftover mist, tires treading over it sound wet and muddy. Beyond the mostly empty lot, the forest rises immediately—cedars and douglas firs packed tight, dark and glossy from last night’s rain. Their tops disappear into the last tufts of low-hanging fog that linger like clouds that have decided the sky is simply too far for them today.
Hudson laughs under his breath. “They’re just hiking shoes, man.” He pats the side of Connor’s sneaker, a quiet, bossy little gesture, and Connor switches feet—drops one down, swings the other up to rest on Hudson’s thigh.
“Yeah, but you have two pairs,” Connor says. “And a backpack. And mace.”
“It's not mace—”
“Bear spray.”
“It’s a bear bell,” Hudson corrects, tugging the lace tight. “And it’s just part of the camping gear so I never take it off. There aren’t any bears around here.”
“Google says there are definitely black bears around Burnaby, like, all the time.” Connor turns his phone to show him.
Hudson finishes tying the shoe and bounces his foot on his knee. “Google’s been untrustworthy since they smeared AI all over it like shit on walls—”
Connor raises his eyebrows, silently mouthing shit on walls. Huh. That’s a new one.
“—also,” Hudson continues, unfazed, “those are all people with smelly unwrapped food and stuff. Which we aren’t bringing. So we’ll be fine.”
“I dunno, babydoll,” Connor says. “We’re bringing all this meat with us—” He leans forward, lifting his leg from Hudson’s lap just long enough to grip and shake the thickest part of Hudson’s thigh.
Hudson lets it happen for exactly the length of an eye roll before standing from the Jersey wall they'd been sitting on. Connor watches him rise—the sweatshirt hugs and slouches nicely around his torso, backwards cap snug, hiking pants doing extremely unfair things to his legs and ass. Hudson looks… competent. Gorpy, even. Connor really hadn’t seen that coming.
Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, he thinks. Some kind of instinctive emergency wardrobe of Under Armour and athleisure thermals that activates the moment nature clears its throat. Connor likes the outdoors fine, but his outfit today is mostly things he packed that he decided he wouldn’t mourn if they got sweaty, not really gear.
“You do have snacks in your bag though, right?” he asks.
“Nah. If I get hungry I'm just gonna eat you.”
“Wooow, okay,” Connor says. “Just gonna end my career like that in the Canadian wilderness. What is this, Yellowjackets?”
“Not enough lesbians around. Aw man, now I miss Sophie,” Hudson pouts, already back on his phone.
Connor pushes himself up from the low cement wall and steps in close, hooks his chin over Hudson’s shoulder to peer at the screen. A trail map glows faintly against the grey morning—switchbacks highlighted in yellow threading through deep green like veins.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Connor asks.
“Trying to make sure I don’t accidentally take us through the Grind,” Hudson says. “I haven’t been here in a minute.”
“What?” Connor says. “We’re avoiding something called the Grind?”
He barely gets his hands onto Hudson’s hips to roll against him before Hudson bats at them, half-hearted.
“Just because Chala’s not here doesn’t mean you can do whatever,” Hudson sniffs—but he doesn’t actually shrug Connor away, so Connor stays.
He shifts, rests his cheek instead of his chin. It gives him a better view of Hudson’s profile: the clean line of his jaw, the way concentration softens his mouth. The air smells clean in that sharp, damp way—wet bark, cold earth, the faint sweetness of sap. Hudson's deodorant, too. It’s early enough that the cold still lingers, the sun not quite brave enough yet to burn through the slow drifting chill between the trees.
Connor runs warm though. Especially like this. Especially when he can steal Hudson’s heat so easily.
“Hud,” he murmurs. “Can we switch hats?”
Hudson’s hand flies to the crown of his head, defensive. Connor grins—he absolutely was about to steal it.
“Why.”
“I like yours more.”
“They’re both mine.”
“Yeah, but the one you’re wearing is better,” Connor says. “It’s got the meshy breathable shit. You know my head gets real sweaty.”
“This is just making me want to share none of my hats with you.”
Connor snorts and lifts his head. “What are you gonna do, wear both at the same time?”
“I was thinking of leaving one in the car,” Hudson says, then smirks. “But I like the idea of Diary of a Wimpy Kid-ing it better.”
He moves faster than Connor expects—snatches the hat clean off his head. Connor squawks, swipes at him, misses. In one smooth motion, Hudson swaps them, plops his own hat down low over Connor’s eyes, tugging the brim so it blocks his vision.
“Here you go, big baby.”
Connor flips the hat around, clearing his sight just in time to catch Hudson smiling as he steps away from the jersey wall properly. And then—finally—the sun breaks through.
It's just a sliver, but it’s enough. Light spilling pale and warm through the trees, catching on wet needles, flashing off parked windshields and hoods wet with condensation. Connor feels the heat of it immediately, blooming across his face.
It’s fucking beautiful out here. They’re still in the parking lot, but the forest already feels immense. Shifting, intimidating in the way something this big feels like it might be aware of you. Connor closes his eyes, tilts his face fully into the sun, and wishes he could rub the clean air and vitamin D straight into his skin, grind it into his bones.
“I’m gonna go take a shit while you finish being a girl who is going to be okay,” Hudson says, already halfway turned away.
“Can you not say take a shit when I’m trying to have a beautiful moment communing with nature,” Connor says, eyes still closed.
"How are you communing with nature. This is just the parking lot."
"Shhh."
“Okay well what would you rather I say?” Hudson calls back. “I need to go potty?”
“Safeword,” Connor says. “I’m not interested in age play.”
Hudson snorts. “Okay, okay. I need to go see a man about a dog. BRB.”
Connor cracks one eye open. Hudson’s already pocketed his phone, doing that stupid dad-jog slash speed-walk toward the small shed-looking structure that must be the public park washroom.
“Can you bring me back some TP?” Connor calls after him. “I need to blow my nose.”
“Bold of you to assume there'll be any!” Hudson yells back, throwing him a demonic grin over his shoulder.
Connor shudders. “How will you—Never mind,” he mutters. “I don’t want to know.”
Connor sinks back onto the slab, palms braced against the cold cement on either side of himself, and tilts his face up to catch what sunlight he can. It’s thin and fleeting—already breaking apart as fog continues drifts lazily, dissipating slowly—but he takes it anyway, sips it slowly. The warmth fades almost as soon as it lands.
He watches an older couple pull into the lot a few spaces over. Their car doors thump shut softly, sound swallowed by the forest. They move with an easy, practiced rhythm: the woman unfolds her hiking poles, testing the tips against the earth; the man shoulders her backpack, then frowns at it like it’s personally offended him.
There’s a long minute where he struggles with the straps and buckles to secure it around his front, tugging and readjusting, clearly overthinking it. Connor almost stands as he then begins to fight with the spout of a water bag that sprouts from the cracked zipper in the back—halfway lifts off the slab, actually—ready to offer help. But then he catches the woman’s face. The fond, patient smile she wears as he fusses, her hands light on his wrists, letting him take his time.
Connor settles back down. Some moments don’t need interference.
They start toward the trail entrance just as Hudson reappears from the washrooms, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s been waiting for applause.
“Good news for you and more importantly for me,” Hudson announces, closing the distance. “Bathroom was stocked for once, I have a whole metre of negative-one-ply just for you.”
He holds out the neatly folded sheet like a prize, which Connor accepts solemnly despite how Hudson's hands smell a bit like a tap house from the hand sanitizer. He blows his nose, and immediately feels a non-fatal but deeply unfortunate amount of moisture soak through to his fingers.
“Nice,” Connor says. “Thank you. No shit on walls, then?”
Hudson stares at him for a beat, eyebrows pinched. Then it clicks, and he barks a laugh. “HA—nope. But there’s still hope for later.”
“Gross,” Connor says, but there’s warmth in it—too much, probably—because Hudson bites his lip and reaches out to fuck with Connor’s hat again, batting up the underside of the bill until it tilts crooked over his head
“Race you to the entrance—” Hudson suddenly lunges forward, breaking into a dramatic split-step while Connor's caught off guard.
“Wait!” Connor says, just a little whiny, and Hudson skids to a stop mid-stride, gravel crunching under his shoes.
“What.”
“I wanna get a pic before we start walking,” Connor says. “I know this shirt’s gonna get crazy sweat stains.”
Hudson exhales like he’s been deeply inconvenienced. “Okay, princess.”
But immediately, he lifts his hat to fix his hair anyway, smooths a hand over his sweatshirt, tugs it into place. Connor grins, because he’s dumb. Because Hudson is dumb. Because Connor is definitely the dumber one for noticing.
He's leaving in a couple of days. He doesn’t want to. The thought presses low and sharp in his gut, so he shoves it aside. He wanted a day—just one—of him and Hudson, and he’s getting it, following him into the green quiet that looks like something right out of a fairy tail. He's been very spoiled.
The sun spills out again as they reach the trail entrance, breaking through the gray folds like it's chosen to say hello to them specifically before they creep under the hemlock and maple. Connor lifts his phone, squinting against the light, and feels it when Hudson steps closer behind him, his heat at his back. He barely manages to keep his eyes open just long enough to snap a few pictures—hoping at least one of them will be good.
He forgets about it immediately when he lowers the phone and Hudson pats him on the chest and it hits like a jump-start straight to his heart.
“Lesgo, West Hollywood,” Hudson says. “Winnie the Pooh awaits us.”
Connor grins at the back of Hudson’s neck. Bang. “I’m so letting him eat you first.”