Authors: Gemma Brooks
He followed me out to my modest little
silver Toyota and climbed into the passenger seat.
“I can’t promise that this tour is going
to knock your socks off,” I disclaimed. “But I’ll do my best.”
“I’ve never been anywhere like this
before,” he said. “I grew up in Los Angeles, so I’ve always lived in bigger
cities. This is nice. A little slow-paced for me but nice.”
“This is all I know,” I said as I turned
off Main Street. “So obviously you’ve seen the square.”
“Yep,” he said as he peered out the
window.
“There are four main roads in Rock River:
Main Street, First Street, Howard Street, and Orbacher Avenue,” I said. “Not
that I expect you to remember those.”
He laughed. “And I won’t.”
“Think of Rock River as a square made up
by those four roads,” I said. We drove south a little ways until we got to the
school. “This is the K through twelve.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You have all
those grades in one building?”
“Yep,” I said. “Weird, huh?”
“I probably had more kids than that in my
graduating class,” he replied.
“I can’t even imagine,” I replied. As we
approached one of the two stoplights in town, I couldn’t help but notice he was
staring at me. I wondered how long he’d been staring my way and if he was even
paying attention to my little tour in the first place.
“Do you want me to keep going?” I asked
as I turned towards him and bit my fingernail. “This is really boring. I know
it is. Don’t lie.”
He laughed as a sly grin formed on his
face. “It’s up to you.”
“I knew it,” I laughed. “It’s boring.
What do you want to do? Want me to take you back to your hotel? You must be
exhausted.”
He shrugged. “We can hang out at my hotel
if you want?”
He was totally inviting me up to his room
again. I thought about what happened Friday night and how Luke had responded,
and then I thought about how Luke hadn’t talked to me for three days.
“You don’t have to,” Hudson said. “I
don’t want you to feel weird about it or anything. It’d just be nice to have
some company, that’s all.”
Knowing he was just wanting someone to
talk to instantly took the pressure off me and forced my mind to stop feeling
weird about it.
“Yeah, I can come up for a bit,” I said.
I turned my blinker on and headed back towards his hotel.
“Great,” he replied as his face lit up.
***
In the shivering coldness of his hotel
room, I couldn’t help but rub my arms to keep warm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The cleaning
people jack the air up every time they come in here.”
He walked over to the thermostat and
bumped the heat on.
“Should warm up for you here in a
second,” he said as he turned and walked back over to where I sat on the edge
of his bed. “Do you want something to drink?”
“What do you have?” I asked.
“Why don’t we just raid the mini bar here
and see what we have?” he replied as he pulled out tiny bottle after tiny
bottle of alcohol. “What’s your poison? I don’t see any amaretto.”
He remembered.
“Vodka is fine,” I said.
“Grey Goose okay?” he asked. He walked
over to the mini fridge. “Orange juice? Coke? What do you want to mix it with?”
“Whatever,” I replied. “Orange juice is
fine.”
He pulled out a little plastic cup
wrapped in plastic and began mixing my drink.
“Here you are, Miss Brynn,” he said as he
handed me my cup. I wasted no time in washing it down. For some reason I was
even more nervous with him than I was Friday night.
He fixed a drink for himself before
strutting back towards me and sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. He sat
a safe distance from me, and I didn’t get any sort of weird vibes from him. I
didn’t feel like he was trying to seduce me or get in my pants. He really just
wanted my company.
“So how many more days do you have here?”
I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Uh, I think I leave Thursday,” he said.
“So one more day of shooting, two if they can get the permits cleared by
tomorrow.”
“Wow, that was quick,” I said.
“That’s the way it works,” he said.
“So what’s the next movie you’re doing?”
I asked.
He leaned back and smiled graciously. “You
really want to talk about me?”
I nodded. “My life is so boring.
Seriously. This is the most excitement I’ve had in a long time. You’re
fascinating to me. Your life is fascinating to me.”
For someone as famous as he was, I loved
that he didn’t like talking about himself. He was so humble and so not what I
expected him to be.
“The next project is a romantic comedy,”
he said. “I can’t say anything more than that because of the contract.”
“Ah, I see,” I replied. “I’m used to you
being in action movies and thrillers. What made you want to do a romantic
comedy?”
“Just something different,” he said. “My
manager thinks it’ll bust me out of this rut I’m in.”
“You’re in a rut?” I asked. I found it
hard to believe since he was featured so prominently in almost every issue of
Us Weekly.
He nodded as he sipped his drink and then
pursed his lips.
The drink he made me must have been on
the strong side because soon my entire face felt numb and my body felt hot. I
began to relax around him, and the alcohol felt good coursing through my body.
Without even thinking, I leaned back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
“You feeling it or something?” he asked
with a chuckle.
“Mm, hm,” I replied. I closed my eyes. I
was going to remember this moment the rest of my life, and I didn’t want to
forget a single detail.
When I finally opened my eyes, I realized
Hudson was lying right next to me, his head propped up by his arm, staring
deeply at me. I startled and jumped in a bit.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.
There was still a good foot or so between us, so he wasn’t trying anything. Not
yet.
“It’s okay,” I replied. I rolled onto my
side and propped my head on top of my bent arm as well, facing him.
He reached his hand over and tucked a
strand of loose hair behind my ear. My hair was still pulled into a work ponytail,
and I was sure I’d looked tired and drained from a long day of waitressing.
“That was bugging me,” he said.
I took my free hand and smoothed the rest
of my hair down, making sure it wasn’t hanging in my face.
“Do your feet still hurt?” he asked. “You
said earlier your feet hurt.”
“They always hurt after a shift,” I said.
“I’m used to it.”
He sat back up and leaned down to grab
one of my feet. He pulled my sneaker off then yanked off my sock and began rubbing
my tired, achy soles with his strong hands.
“Oh, thank you,” I said, shocked. “You
don’t have to do that.”
In the seven years I’d been with Luke, he
had never once offered to rub my feet. He worked such a physically demanding
job that it was always me rubbing his achy body. He never thought to repay the
favor, and I guess I never expected it.
Hudson reached over and grabbed my other
foot, repeating the same process. When he was finished, he laid back down next
to me, only this time he was a little closer. The gap between us had narrowed,
and we were so close I could feel his breath on my neck.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “They feel
much better now.”
He opened his mouth to say something but
then stopped.
“What?” I asked. “What were you going to
say?”
For the first time ever, he looked
sheepish. I’d never seen him lose his cool. He almost seemed nervous around me.
“Can I just say something?” he asked as
he rolled back over to face me, his eyes shifting back and forth into mine.
“Of course,” I said.
“Do you realize how beautiful you are?”
he asked.
“Wh-what?” I laughed nervously. He had
his pick of millions of adoring fans and any number of highly available and
undeniably gorgeous Hollywood actresses and here he was calling me beautiful.
“Seriously,” he continued. He raised his
eyebrows, and I knew he was being serious. “Like I don’t think you have any
idea how gorgeous you are.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think about my
looks much.”
“And I love that,” he said. “You’re like
a breath of fresh air compared to every living, breathing female I’ve ever
met.”
“Thanks?” I replied in the form of a
question. “I think?”
“There’s just something really refreshing
about you,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on it exactly. You’re just so
wholesome, so pretty, so innocent. I just want to pack you up in my suit case
and take you back to L.A. with me.”
I laughed at the vision he’d just put in
my head, but I was flattered. I couldn’t believe he was saying those things.
“Have you ever thought about leaving Rock
River?” Hudson asked. “There’s a life outside those four roads, you know.”
“I guess I haven’t thought about it
much,” I said. “I just figured I’d marry a nice guy and we’d live the farming
life outside of town and that would be that.”
Hudson scrunched his face. “You’re so
much better than this place.”
I twisted my face in response, confused.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re selling yourself short,” he said.
“You can’t stay here forever. You’re twenty-three and your life goal is to
marry a farmer and live here forever? How awful is that?”
“It just feels safe, I guess,” I replied.
“Comfortable. It’s what people do around here.”
“It’s awful,” he repeated himself. “You
need to see what else is out there.”
“If I left Rock River, I wouldn’t come
back to the same place,” I said. “Everyone either stays or goes. No one leaves
and comes back. I’d lose everything I have.”
“Would that really be so bad?” he asked
with a smirk. “What do you have here? Your job at the diner. Your Friday night
ritual of hanging out at the bar with your friends? What else?”
He had summed up my life in a nutshell.
There was no arguing with him about that.
“I’m just saying, it’s not so bad to be a
little adventurous,” he continued. “To think outside the box.”
I was pretty sure it was mostly due to
the alcohol, but I suddenly felt my eyes burning hot with tears. I knew Hudson
had good points, but a life outside of Rock River and a life without Luke in it
scared me to no end.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he sat up. He
reached over and rubbed my arm the way you’d comfort a good friend.
“You’re making me think about things I’ve
never had to think about before,” I said as I smiled through the tears. It had
to be the alcohol.
“That’s a good thing, right?” he replied,
still rubbing my arm.
I nodded as I wiped away my tears, my
eyes suddenly drying up.
“Don’t you want more, Brynn? More than
this?” he asked.
“When you don’t grow up with much, you
don’t grow up expecting much,” I said as I looked him square in the eyes. “My
dad died when I was young, and it was just me and my mom. She was an alcoholic,
still is, and all I had were my good grades, my friends, and my homecoming
queen crown.”
Hudson smiled endearingly. “You can’t
hold onto those things forever.”
“I’m starting to realize that now,” I
said as I rolled my eyes at myself for being so silly. “I can’t believe you got
me all worked up like this.”
I swatted his arm playfully, but he
reached up and grabbed it, holding onto it as he locked eyes with me again. His
hand against mine sent my heart pounding into overdrive. Everything I thought
mattered before suddenly didn’t matter as much anymore.
“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.
“I guess I’d never really thought about
it before,” I said. “Sure. I guess.”
“I just feel like there’s a reason we
met,” he said. “I can’t imagine leaving this place and never seeing you or
talking to you again.”
“What’s so special about me?” I poo-pooed
him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just feel
like I owe it to you to show you the world a little bit. To show you there’s
more to life than this.”
I heard heavy breathing and soon realized
it was my own. Then, as if some sort of animal had taken over me, I found
myself lunging for Hudson Smith. My lips, my hands, and my body covered his.
There was no stopping me.
“What’s this?” he said as he came up for
air.
“I don’t know,” I replied, gasping. I
wasn’t stopping.
His hands worked up the back of my shirt,
unhooking my bra, and I slipped off my t-shirt, flinging it across the room. My
fingers wrangled the buttons of his jeans as I worked to loosen his pants.