Small Town Girl (12 page)

“I know,” he said as he stood up and
walked over to me. “I just hate letting you out of my sight.”

He pulled me up into a standing position
and kissed me deeply. My heart fluttered, and I felt like putty in his arms
once again. I didn’t want to leave him either, but I had to check on things
back home.

“You’re not going to see that Luke guy,
are you?” he whispered in my ear as his hands caressed my back.

“No,” I said. I was being truthful. I
hadn’t really thought much about Luke the last few weeks. I’d been too
distracted by Hudson and all the excitement that was suddenly appearing in my
life thanks to him. “I’m offended that you’d even ask me that.”

I swatted his chest playfully, but deep
down I truly was offended.

“Just checking,” he said as he nibbled my
ear. “You’re mine now. Not his. Remember that.”

Every so often, I’d catch glimpses of
Hudson’s possessive streak, and truthfully it turned me on.

“Has Luke tried to contact you or
anything?” he asked.

Why were we still talking about Luke?

“Not at all,” I said. “Piper doesn’t even
really call me that much. That’s kind of why I think it’s important that I go
see her.”

“If it makes you happy,” he said. “I just
want you to be happy. I’m not going to keep you away from your friends and family.
I’m not that kind of guy.”

“I never said you were,” I insisted. “I
just need one weekend at home, and then I’ll come straight back here and we can
pick up where we left off.”

“Promise?” he asked as he breathed
heavily into my ear and held me close.

“Promise,” I replied. I felt tiny and
powerless, both physically and emotionally, under his tight hold.

My kitten heels clicked on the hardwood
floors of the coffee shop in Rock River. Up ahead, Piper was leaning against
the counter, reading some sort of magazine. She was in her own little world,
not even bothering to look up when the bell on the door rang.

“Excuse me, miss,” I said. An ornery
half-smile crept upon my lips. “I’d like to order a coffee.”

She looked up, and a small part of me
hoped she’d run around the counter to me and throw her arms around me. I missed
her so much.

Instead, her eyes looked me up and down,
barely recognizing me at first.

“Oh, my god,” she said. “Brynn.”

I smiled and placed my hands on my hips.

“You look so…different,” she said as she
stared.

“New clothes,” I said. “You like them?”

“No, it’s not that,” she said. “You look
so…skeletal.”

“I’ve just been eating healthier out
there,” I lied. “Everything is organic this and free range that.”

She pursed her lips in disbelief, but I
refused to elaborate beyond the explanation I’d already given her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. I hated that
she wasn’t excited to see me.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just wasn’t
expecting to see you today.”

She kept staring at me with a blank expression,
and it was starting to bother me more and more.

“Can I order a drink and stay for a
while?” I asked with a smile. I just wanted things to be like old times.

“The usual?” she asked as she grabbed a
clear plastic cup.

“Actually, just a small iced coffee with
skim milk and sugar free vanilla syrup,” I said.

She stared at me like I was speaking a
foreign language for a few seconds before she began preparing my drink. I’d
given up the full fat, full whip, sugar-laced drinks weeks ago.

She sat the drink in front of me with a
straw and watched me carefully as I took small sips.

“Your face,” she said. “It’s so gaunt. It
looks so different. You look like a completely different person, Brynn.”

She shook her head. Piper clearly
disapproved of my new look.

“I’m just getting healthier, Piper,” I
retorted. “I’m sorry you don’t like that.”

She shrugged. “Just concerned. That’s
all. Did Hudson want you to lose weight?”

“No!” I snapped. “He has nothing to do
with any of this.”

“People don’t just drop all that weight
like that,” she said. “I don’t think you realize how dramatic of a weight loss
you have. You weren’t that big to begin with.”

I shrugged. “I know one thing, the
tabloids have stopped calling me Hudson’s fat ass, corn fed mystery girl.”

I laughed as I sipped my drink, but Piper
apparently didn’t think it was funny.

“The comments are not nearly as mean,” I
said. “Not anymore. That’s for sure.”

“Your hair. It’s different too,” she said
as she reached across and ran her fingers through a few strands. “It’s lighter.
Softer.”

“Thanks,” I said. “If you come out to LA
sometime, I’ll take you to Hudson’s people. He hooked me up.”

“So Hudson gave you this makeover?” she
asked.

“No, no,” I reiterated. “After the whole
tabloid thing a few weeks ago, I told him I didn’t feel like I fit in. He
introduced me to his stylist and some hair and makeup people and they gave me a
tiny little makeover.”

“So Hudson
did
give you this makeover,” she stated again.

“Whatever, Piper,” I said with a sigh.
She was really starting to get on my nerves. I couldn’t fathom why she’d be so
offended by my transformation. I was pretty proud of the way I looked
personally. “So how’s Luke?”

“Fine, I guess?” Piper asked. Her words
stung. “Why do you care? He finally admitted he liked you and you didn’t even
respond.”

“I care because I care,” I snipped. “I
don’t have to have a reason.”

“He’s doing okay,” she said. “He mostly
works in the fields all day and goes to the bars at night.”

My face cringed. “Sounds pretty
pathetic.”

“He’s still hurting, Brynn,” she said.
“What happened last month, I don’t think he ever saw that coming.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Neither did I.
No one could’ve predicted that.”

“Are you going to leave him alone while
you’re here?” she asked.

I crinkled my nose at her funny question.
“Why would you ask that?”

“It would just really upset him to see
you now,” she said as her eyes shifted down. “To see you looking so…different.”

“I kind of did want to see him while I
was here,” I said.

“But why?” Piper asked. “Haven’t you hurt
him enough? Leave the poor guy alone.”

I wanted to ask her whose side she was
on, but I was afraid of her answer.

“He was my best friend for a long time. I
miss him. I still want him in my life,” I said.

Piper stopped what she was doing and
looked up, her big, blue eyes locked with mine and the most serious expression
covered her face.

“Maybe he doesn’t want that,” she said.
“Maybe he’s written you off.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “It’s not my
fault Luke couldn’t have forgiven me any sooner. He waited until it was too
late.”

“So he forgave you?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, he said
he still loved me. I guess I assumed he forgave me too? That’s kind of why I
want to see him. I want to clear the air. Leave things on good terms. See if we
can still be in each other’s lives.”

“So you have someone to come back to when
it doesn’t work out with Hudson,” she snorted.

“That’s harsh, Piper,” I said.

She couldn’t even look at me.

“I should get going,” I said. “I’m only
in town until Sunday.”

I slid off the counter stool and clicked
my little kitten heels on out of the coffee shop. I didn’t know what her
problem was, but I knew I didn’t have to put up with it for another second.

***

I walked into the Manhattan bar that
Friday night dressed to the nines. My skinny jeans hugged every little curve I
had left, and I wore the lowest cut, shimmery tank top and the tallest high
heels I could find.

It wasn’t that
I wanted
start anything with Luke
,
I just wanted his attention
.
I wanted him to talk to me. I wanted to see if we could still be friends. And I
wanted him to be sorry he waited until it was too late before admitting how he
felt about me.

I stepped into the tiny bar as the
speakers blared in my ear with country music and the familiar faces of locals all
turned towards me wondering who the hell I was. I knew I didn’t look like I was
from Rock River anymore, but I didn’t care.

Perched on a bar stool sat Luke. He was
handsome and strapping in his green plaid shirt and dusty blue jeans as he
sipped a frosty mug of beer. I watched as he turned towards me, looked me up
and down, and then turned back away. I knew he knew it was
me
.

“Whoo hoo!” I heard a man yell.

Another man whistled.

“
Who
do we have
here?” a third man called out. “Miss Hollywood? Aren’t you that girl who ran
off with the actor?”

My cheeks blushed, though thankfully it
was so dark in there no one could tell. I ignored their
cat
calls
as best I could. My eyes focused on Luke as I approached the far
end of the bar and ordered a bottle of beer. I just wanted to fit in again. I
just wanted to feel like I was welcome back home still.

With my beer in hand, I mustered up the
courage to approach Luke. It was such an odd sensation to be afraid to talk to
him. He’d been in my life for as long as I could remember. And a month ago, I
would’ve said he was my world. Now the thought of talking to him nearly gave me
a panic attack.

“Luke,” I said as my heart pounded in my
ears. “Hi.”

He turned towards me, looked me up and
down again, and then turned back away on his stool. Just like that, he rebuffed
me.

“It’s Brynn,” I said. Maybe he didn’t
recognize me?

“I know,” he said as he took a sip from
his mug, still giving me the cold shoulder.

“How are you?” I asked. Maybe if I
pretended nothing was wrong, he’d warm up to me?

He ignored me. It was quite obvious that
it was intentional too. I slammed my brown bottle of beer on the counter next
to him and hightailed it out of there. I wasn’t going to put up with that from
Piper, and I certainly wasn’t going to put up with that from Luke. I never
realized what fair weather friends I had until then.

As my heels struggled to carry me across
the gravel parking lot, I couldn’t get to my car fast enough. I just wanted to
go home. I just wanted to forget about Luke and Piper for a second. I wanted to
go back to L.A. I wanted to see Hudson.

“Brynn!” I heard a man call out behind
me.

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned my
head to see Luke standing with his hands in his pockets by the door of the bar.

My shoulders
fell
as I stood frozen. I wasn’t going to walk back over to him. He could come to me
if he wanted to talk. I said nothing.

His boots scuffed the gravel beneath him
as he walked towards me. Cars whirred past us on the highway.

“What did you want tonight?” he asked.
“Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know, Luke,” I said as my arms
dropped to my side. “I guess I just think it’s weird that we’re not in each
other’s lives anymore.”

“That’s not my fault,” he said with a
cocky shrug.

My mouth dropped.

“I’ll admit that I left town,” I said.
“But you’re the one who waited until I was already gone to tell me how you
felt.”

“And you didn’t even respond!” he yelled,
his hands waving in the air above him. “How do you think that made me feel?”

“You shouldn’t have waited so long,” I said.
“Luke, I’ve loved you for years! And I know you knew. And now it’s too late.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. Now it’s
too late.”

“Everything okay out here?” a bar patron
on his way inside asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

Luke and I were a good ten feet apart. I
knew we weren’t getting any closer than that.

“I need to get going,” I said to Luke as
I accepted the fact that this wasn’t going anywhere.

He pinched his face as he spun around on
his heel and headed back inside. He wasn’t going to try to stop me.

I climbed in my car and tried to fight
the tears from falling. I was happy with Hudson, but I also didn’t understand
why Luke and I couldn’t still be friends. I didn’t understand why Piper
suddenly resented me. Rock River wasn’t the same Rock River it was a month ago.
Either I had changed too much or everyone else had. I wasn’t quite sure.

I headed over to my mom’s house to check
on her. When I walked in, I noticed the place was unusually clean. The
lingering cat odor was almost eliminated, and there were only a few beer
bottles along the sink instead of twenty.

“Mom?” I called out.

“In here,” she replied. “Brynn!”

She climbed up off the couch and ran to
me.

“Oh, my goodness!” she said as she
wrapped her arms around me. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve only been away a few weeks,” I
said.

“You’ve never been away this long
before,” she said. “And look at you.”

She grabbed my bony wrist and examined
it.

“You’re so skinny,” she said as she
stared at me with wrinkled, concerned eyes. For the first time in a long time,
she didn’t smell like booze.

“Look at you!” I said with a smile. “You
look great. The place is clean. What happened? What changed?”

A coy smile flashed across her mouth as
she shrugged her shoulders and turned to her left.

“Tom,” she called out. “Come out here. I
want you to meet my daughter, Brynn.”

“You met a man?” I asked. Now it was all
making sense. She would never clean up her act for me, despite my begging and
pleading with her for the past fifteen years, but now that she’d met someone,
she had all the motivation she needed.

A man came out of the back bedroom,
buckling his pants, and straightening his shirt. He was a little plump with
balding grayish-blond hair, and squinty blue eyes. He looked the way my dad
probably would’ve looked had he lived to be this old.

He walked up to me and extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Brynn. Your mother speaks very highly of you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I had to admit I was a
little leery of him, but then I remembered my mom had pretty much nothing to
her name except her little
two bedroom
house. He
couldn’t have been after her for money or anything like that. I told myself to
cut him some slack. He’d made her sober up for God’s sake. He shouldn’t been
awarded a medal.