Small Town Girl (26 page)

We pulled out of her driveway and sped as
fast as possible to the Pacific Coast Highway.

“That was so freaking bizarre,” I mused
as I stared out the window at the ocean besides us. “All of it. Has she always
been that dramatic?”

“Not always,” he said.

“I see,” I said. “So who dumped whom?
Just out of curiosity.”

He bit his lip, as if he didn’t want to
answer but he knew he had to.

“She dumped me actually,” he said. He
almost seemed embarrassed about it.

“So you were holding onto crazy all that
time?” I asked.

“I was trying to help her get better,” he
said. “I thought I could bring the old Ava back. The Ava I first met. By the
time I realized it was a lost cause, she’d cheated on me with one of her
co-stars and it was over.”

“And now you have me,” I said. I wanted
to remind him that he had moved on to greener pastures. I didn’t have an ounce
of the kind of crazy that Ava had in me.

“Yes,” he said as he turned to me and
smiled. He reached for my hand and our fingers interlaced.

Cozying deep into the smooth leather of
the passenger seat, I refused to let Ava have any more of my perfect day. I got
to see my mom. I saw Hudson stand up for me in front of Ava. And now I was
watching the sunset over the ocean. Ava didn’t get to steal any more of my day
than she already had.

***

Saturday night Hudson made us
reservations at a hot new restaurant in town called Ava y Rosa. It was some
kind of Spanish-Italian fusion cuisine, and he’d heard nothing but amazing
things about the food but tables were booked out for weeks in advance. Hudson,
of course, pulled some strings and got us in right away.

I soaked for a solid hour in his big
bathtub surrounded by millions of subtly scented bubbles. I sipped champagne
and listened to music from my iPod. It had been far too long since Hudson and I
had had a proper date, and the past week had been rough on our relationship.

I took my sweet time getting ready,
slathering expensive lotions and creams over every inch of my body. I wanted to
be as smooth and soft as possible when we made love that night. Just the
thought of sex with him got me hot with anticipation.

As I inhaled the scents of luxury and
elegance, Hudson’s reflection appeared in the mirror behind me.

“Hey,” I said as he came up behind me and
wrapped his hands around my hips. I pulled my towel tighter around me. “Save
this for later, okay?”

“I don’t know if I can wait,” he
whispered in my ear while he nibbled it.

“I can’t wait to go out tonight,” I said.
Alec had helped me pick out the perfect date night outfit earlier that day, and
I’d just had my hair done that morning, so it worked out perfectly. I figured
there would be paparazzi out there, and this time I was going to be more than
prepared for their glaring flashes and off handed comments.

“I can’t wait to get you back home,” he
replied.

I smiled as I watched our reflections in
the mirror. In many ways, I hardly recognized myself, but in so many other ways,
I loved the woman I was becoming. She was fearless, adventurous, and beginning
to let go of the ideals she’d once clung to out of sheer comfort and fear of
the unknown.

“Reservations are in an hour,” he said.
“I just came in to remind you.”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” I teased.
“If you want me to look good, it takes time.”

“You always look amazing, Brynn,” he
smirked as he looked me up and down before exiting the bathroom.

I hurried up, did my makeup, and got
dressed, donning a black jumper with an insanely deep, plunging neckline. I
slipped on a pair of diamond stud earrings and spritzed on some gardenia
perfume. After searching high and low for the perfect pair of red-bottomed
shoes, I was finally ready.

“There she is,” Hudson said as I walked
out to the kitchen. He’d been standing there for a while, waiting, and talking
to Flor.

Flor looked me up and down and said
nothing, only offering a polite smile.

“Ready?” he asked as he extended his hand
and helped me into his car. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to walking in
five inch
heels.

The restaurant scene was hopping. There
were throngs of patrons, tourists, VIPs, and wanna-bes all standing outside the
building or coming and going. Two spotlights lit up the earth above us as their
beams crossed against the backdrop of the night sky.

We valet parked and hurried inside,
quickly ushered to our table in a dark corner away from most of the action.
Hudson always knew how to get the best seats in the house.

The place was dark and a single candle in
a simple crystal glass lit the space between us, illuminating Hudson’s
devilishly handsome face.

“You look beautiful tonight, Brynn,” he
said. “I can’t stop staring at you.”

I blushed, though I was sure he couldn’t
see it in the dim lighting of the restaurant.

“Thanks,” I smiled. “You look quite
handsome yourself.”

His eyes twinkled as they locked onto
mine,
like he was envisioning some sort of play-by-play he
had planned for me later that night.

Our server came to take our drink orders,
and Hudson ordered us a bottle of some kind of red wine I’d never heard of
before.

“Will you excuse me?” I asked him. The
champagne from my bath earlier was beginning to fill my bladder and I couldn’t
fight it off any longer. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”

“Of course,” he said. He stood up from
his chair when I stood up.
A true gentleman.

With my clutch in hand, I navigated my
way to the ladies’ room for a little relief. But the moment the door swung
open, I was faced with the last person I expected to see.

As we nearly collided, she quickly took a
step back and placed her hands firmly on her hips.

“What are you doing here?” Ava asked, as
if I was intruding on her turf.

“I’m on a date with Hudson,” I replied,
not that it was any of her business.

She stared me up and down with a mean
girl smirk on her face.

“That’s funny,” she said. “I told him I
was coming here tonight.”

She’s just trying to get into my head, I
told myself. Don’t listen to her.

“Whatever, Ava,” I said as I tried to
push past her, but she wouldn’t get out of the way. She stood with her feet
cemented firmly in place.

“You know what’s funny to me?” she said,
her eyes piercing into mine. “You’re so fucking dumb that you don’t see what’s
going on. We’re actors, sweetie.
That little scene at my
place the other day?
An act. I’m not suicidal. Not even close. It’s all
an act to give Hudson an excuse to spend time with me.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said to her. I
could feel my lip quivering and prayed she didn’t notice she was starting to
get to me.

“Well that’s too bad,” she smirked. “If
you want to live in la-la-land with Hudson and believe everything he says, then
go for it. Just know you’re not the only girl he’s fucking.”

“You’re delusional, Ava,” I sighed. She
still wasn’t going to let me pass behind her, and the urge to go had suddenly
left me. I spun around and headed straight back to the table where Hudson was
sitting and waiting patiently for my return.

“What’s wrong?” he said the moment he saw
how distraught I was.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Now.”

His eyes scrunched. He didn’t understand.
He looked around the room as if to search for some sign of chaos or paparazzi
or something that would’ve ruined our perfect little date night, but the
patrons around us were in their own little worlds, enjoying their quiet,
romantic dinners the way we should’ve have been.

I didn’t have time to give him an
explanation. I wanted out of there. It was only going to be a matter of time
before Ava found another way to get under my skin. At any moment she was probably
going to saunter past our table and make a snide remark or throw a sexy glance
over at Hudson. I didn’t have to put up with that. I refused.

Hudson chased behind as I practically ran
out of the restaurant.

“Brynn,” he called out. “Are you going to
tell me what’s going on?”

I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t want to
talk until we got in the car. Who knew what the people around us would hear and
who was desperate enough to sell a story to a tabloid for a few bucks.

“Can you just get the car?” I begged.

Hudson approached the valet and returned
to me, massaging his hands on my bare shoulders.

“What is it?” he asked again.

I opened my mouth to simply say the word
“Ava”, but before I had the chance, she came sauntering out the front door of
the restaurant. Surrounded by a posse of mean girls, she walked right up to us.

“Well, well, well,” she said as her gaze
honed in on Hudson. “Funny seeing you here.”

Hudson rolled his eyes. “Ava, why are you
doing this?”

“I should ask you the same,” she snipped.
“You knew I was coming here tonight.”

“That is not true at all,” he said. He
didn’t try to hide the anger in his voice.

The next several seconds were a blur
filled with the flash of paparazzi cameras that seemed to come out of nowhere
and the feeling of Hudson’s hand on the small of my back, ushering me to his
car the moment the valet driver pulled it up.

As soon as we were safe inside the
confines of his Range Rover, we sped off for safer ground.

“What did she say to you?” he asked.

“What didn’t she say?” I replied as I
stared blankly ahead at the millions of stoplights that were upon us. “She was
just saying stuff. Ava stuff. Just trying to get to me again.”

“Like what?” he pried.

“That her suicide attempt was an act,” I
said. “That you’re using it as a reason to see her. That you two were acting at
her place the other day.”

“Brynn,” Hudson seethed. He reached over
for my hand. “You know none of that is true, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. But like Alec told me,
people lie all the time to get what they want.

“If I really wanted to be with Ava, I
would be with Ava,” he added.

“I know,” I said.

We traveled past iconic streets, touristy
areas, and downtown scenes. Everyone was out having fun. Everyone was out
living it up except us. My stomach rumbled as we passed by restaurant after
restaurant. We couldn’t go to another nice place because everywhere required
reservations, at least for the more secluded tables. We couldn’t go to a
McDonalds’ or a diner either. It would cause too much of a scene. The night was
a bust.

“Ava is not your responsibility,” I told
him as we walked into his house. “From now on you need to ignore her. Let her
go.”

“Brynn,” he said. He closed his eyes.
“It’s not that simple.”

“No, but it is!” I practically yelled.
“It’s really that simple.”

“She needs help,” he said. “Serious
mental help.”

“Again, she’s not your responsibility,” I
said. My mom wasn’t his responsibility either. I felt like a hypocrite in that
second and the irony was not lost on me.

He sat down on the bar stool that rested
by the marble island looking defeated. The poor guy was just trying to do the
right thing, yet he couldn’t win. He couldn’t win with Ava. He couldn’t win
with me.

“Hudson,” I said as I climbed onto his
lap and wrapped my arm around the back of his neck. “I am crazy about you. I
want this to work. But you’ve got to cut Ava loose. I really hate saying this,
but it’s her or me.”

His eyes moved to meet mine and he looked
as if he’d just heard the words he dreaded the most. Fear coursed through my
veins as I waited for his reaction, but he said nothing. He gently pushed me
off his lap and headed down the hall to go to bed.

Saturday morning I sat quietly poolside,
sipping some hot English breakfast tea and noshing on some scrambled egg whites
with spinach and feta. The sound of the birds chirping in the trees and the
smell of the lush greenery that surrounded the backyard helped center me and
gave me an overwhelming sense of calm.

I loved my new life. Every day felt like
vacation in paradise. I loved being with Hudson and I hated giving him an
ultimatum, but I was going to fight for what I wanted. I may have been just
some country girl from the Midwest, but that didn’t mean that Ava got to stomp
all over me.

“Hey,” I heard Hudson say as the sliding
door opened behind me.

“Hi,” I said, cautiously, as I tried to
gauge his mood. He seemed to be in better spirits as he took a seat next to me
with a steaming cup of black coffee.

“It’s nice out,” he said, making small
talk.

“Very,” I replied.

I hated the tension between us, but I was
beyond thrilled that he was making an effort.

“Have you given any more thought to what
I said last night?” I asked, addressing the elephant in the room.

He took a sip from his mug and then
pursed his lips before staring deep into my eyes.

“It’s you,” he said. “It’ll always be
you.”

My lips curled into the biggest smile as
I leaned over and kissed his coffee-flavored lips.

“Thank you,” I cooed. I kissed him again.
I couldn’t stop.

Half of my problem was fixed, now I had
to figure out a way to get Ava out of our lives for good.

“I’ll be right back,” Hudson said as he
stood up. I couldn’t help but notice he’d left his phone sitting right next to
his mug on the table.

With watchful eyes and a tiny bit of
crazy in me, I grabbed it the moment he was out of sight and searched for Ava’s
number. I
air-dropped
it to my phone and sat his phone
down before he had time to come back and catch me red handed. It was a little
risky, and maybe a little irrational, but I was going to call her. I wanted to
meet with her, woman to woman, and put an end to her nonsense once and for all.
I didn’t see any harm in having an adult conversation with her.

The slider opened once again and Hudson
returned. I thanked my lucky stars he didn’t see what I’d just done. It was so
unlike me, but it was necessary. It was just something I had to do.

“So what’s your plan today?” I asked him.
He looked so damn sexy with his bedhead. I could’ve jumped him right then and
there.

“My trainer’s coming over in a little
bit,” he said. “Should be here any minute actually.
Nothing
after that.
You?”

I shrugged. “I feel like getting out. I
might go do some shopping or something. Maybe I’ll call Alec and see if he
wants to go.”

I raked my fingers through my hair and
tucked it back behind my ears. Hudson watched me as if I were some sort of
mesmerizing creature. He loved me even when I had unkempt hair and without an
ounce of makeup. I loved that about him. I loved everything about him really,
which was why I had to talk to Ava.

“Oh, looks like he’s here,” Hudson said
as his phone vibrated on the table. He stood up and kissed my forehead before
heading inside.

I waited until Hudson and his trainer
were deep in the midst of their session before heading to a quiet spot in a
seldom used
room in his house. My fingers shakily dialed
Ava. I blocked my number, not wanting her to know it, and astonishingly she
still answered.

“Ava,” I said. “It’s Brynn.”

“Brynn?” she said with an evil laugh.
“Oh, God. What do you want?”

“I want to meet with you,” I said. “I
want us to have a civilized, woman to woman conversation.”

She was quiet, probably calculating which
words she could use to get under my skin in that moment.

“Okay,” she said, much to my surprise.
“If that’s what you want.”

“I’m serious, Ava,” I said, trying to
keep my voice stern. “Completely civilized. No
name calling
.
No lies. No games. Woman to woman.”

“Okay,” Ava snickered. I didn’t quite
believe her, but I had to take a chance.

“I’ll reserve a private tea room at the
Grandeur Hotel for one o’clock,” I said.

“How chi chi of you,” she said with
rampant sarcasm in her voice.

“See you then,” I said before hanging up.

I wanted to throw up a little, but I
swallowed my fear and stood up. I wasn’t going to allow her crazy antics to run
my life anymore.

***

Under the guise of a late lunch with
Alec, I drove to the Grandeur Hotel to meet with Ava. My hands gripped firmly
on the steering wheel as I drove. I was a girl on a mission. I was determined
to put an end to Ava and her scheming, and I was prepared to go head to head
with her.

I pulled up to the valet and climbed of
my Mercedes. My linen pants blowing in the light breeze as the ruffles on my
pale pink, silk blouse danced about. With an air of newfound confidence, I
pulled off my sunglasses and handed my keys to the attendant before heading
inside. With each step, my heart raced. And with each step, I reminded myself
that I had the upper hand. I had Hudson.

“Hello,” I said to a pleasant front desk
clerk who greeted me with a smile. “I’m Brynn Dawson. I reserved the
tea room
for one o’clock. Can you point me in the right
direction?”

The front desk clerk pointed down a
hallway. “It’s the fourth room on the left. There’s a sign out front that says
Ballmer Tea Room. It’s all yours.”

“Thank you,” I smiled graciously. I was
determined to maintain my composure. I wanted to be the spitting image of
elegance and grace under fire. I wasn’t going to let Ava get to me. Not this
time.

Ava was already seated by the time I
walked in. I erroneously assumed someone like her would’ve been at least twenty
or thirty minutes late, if only just to mess with me.

“Ava,” I said as I walked over to the
table. She stood up and kissed my cheek, but I knew the gesture wasn’t genuine.
She was onto
me and my game,
but I didn’t care.

We sat down across from one another, her
icy, platinum blonde hair pulled back into a low bun and shimmering diamond
earrings dangling from her perfect little ear lobes. She wore a navy blazer
over a gauzy tank top,
skin tight
jeans, and sky high
heels. Her red lips were bold and her impossibly long eyelashes were even
bolder.

“So,” she began. “You called this meeting
because?”

She stared hard at me from across the
table, unflinching, unaffected, and unwavering. I did my best to match her
demeanor as best I could, but it was hard. She was good. She was really good.

“First off,” I said. “Thanks for coming.
I thought after everything that had gone on, that it would be good for us to
meet privately.”

“Wait,” she said. “So Hudson doesn’t know
you’re here with me?”

Her lips curled into a salacious grin for
two seconds.

“He does,” I lied. “He’s okay with it.”

“Wow,” she mused. “Okay. Go on.”

“Hudson and I are extremely happy
together,” I said. “I’m just here, asking you woman to woman, to move on. If he
wanted to be with you, he’d be with you. I gave him an ultimatum last night. I
told him it was you or
me
. He picked me, Ava.”

Her eyes burned into mine as her pouty
red lips pursed. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or if she was accepting my
words as some sort of challenge.

“It’s time for you to move on, Ava,” I
told her again. “Hudson has.”

“But he hasn’t,” she said with a straight
face. “You just think he has because he’s a good fucking liar.”

She sipped her tea like she was some
proper lady, her eye contact ever breaking mine.

“Why do you keep pursuing someone who has
absolutely no interest in you whatsoever?” I asked. “You’re beautiful. You can
have any guy in this town that you want. Why Hudson? Why not just move on?”

Ava rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to tell
you, sweetie, you hardly know Hudson.”

“I know him well enough to know that I’m
crazy about him, and I’m going to fight for him. For us,” I said.

“You don’t understand how he operates,”
she said. A smart-mouthed half-smirk covered her face. “He’s going to get bored
with you. He’s going to romance you and promise you the world and buy you
diamonds and take you on lavish trips. He’s going to make you feel like you’re
the only girl in the entire world. He’s going to say all the right things and
if you ever question him, his explanations will make so much sense that you’ll
wonder why you ever second-guessed him. He’s going to come across like some
broken little bird but at the same time he’ll dominate you in the bedroom and
make you feel like his dirty little slut, and you’ll love every minute of it.
And when he’s not busy saving the world, he’ll stare at you like you’re the
prettiest thing he’s ever seen. And when something better comes along, he’ll
drop you like a sack of potatoes.”

I stared at her, speechless. She had
described him to a T. She had practically described my relationship Hudson to a
T.

“I just want what he promised me,” she
said as she raised her eyebrows matter-of-factly and took a sip from her
tea cup
. I almost asked her why she cheated on him if she
loved him so much, but I decided she wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t getting through
to her anyway.

“Stay away from us, Ava,” I said as
grabbed my purse and stood up to leave. I watched her face for any signs of a
smirk or evil grin or an indication that she was just attempting to get under
my skin once again, but I found nothing. For the first time, Ava actually
looked human. She looked hurt, and I was almost inclined to believe that for
once she might not have been playing games with me.

***

I returned to Hudson’s house with a bit
of a guilty conscious. I had to confess. I had to tell him what I’d just done
before Ava had a chance to.

“Hello?” I called out as I walked in and
laid my keys and purse on the island. “Hudson? I’m home.”

He came out from around the corner with a
questionable look on his face, his phone in his hand. I was clearly a day late
and a dollar short.

“You met with Ava?” he asked. His
expression was nothing short of betrayed.

I took a deep breath and squared my
shoulders. “I did. I was actually just coming to tell you about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “So tell me.”

I wanted to call him out for still
communicating with her, but at that moment I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I
had to do some damage control.

“I just wanted to talk to her, woman to
woman,” I said. “We kept things civil. It didn’t get too crazy. I think I got
my point across. That’s that.”

“That simple, eh?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” I said, though I was still
feeling a little unnerved by her ridiculously spot on description of him and
our relationship.

“I just wish you would’ve told me
beforehand,” he said. “I don’t like secrets, Brynn.”

I took a step closer to him and placed my
hand over his chest. “I just didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”

He said nothing, but his heavy breathing
told me he was still struggling with his decision to completely abandon Ava in
her supposed time of need.

“You said you picked me,” I reminded him.
“So what does it matter if I told Ava to get out of our life?”

“I do pick you,” he sighed. “But you have
to understand, Ava needs help. She has severe mental and substance abuse
problems. She has no one. She’s so crazy that no one will put up with her
except her posse of girls, and even then, those girls don’t give two shits
about her. They just want status and all the things that come along with being
in Ava’s inner circle. They’re a bunch of enablers.”

“Hudson,” I said, placing my other hand
on his other shoulder and forcing him to look at me. “You don’t have to save
the world.”

“I’m not trying to save the world,” he
replied. “I couldn’t save my mom. But if I can save just one other person in
her memory, it would be worth it.”

He looked distraught, and suddenly I was
left feeling like some sort of monster. I didn’t mean to hurt him like that. I
was just trying to salvage our relationship so we could take things to the next
level and move on from Ava-gate. That’s all I wanted.

“I’m sorry I went behind your back,” I
apologized. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“Okay,” he said, his eyes looking down at
the ground.

“Hudson, hey,” I said, shaking his
shoulders and trying to get him to look at me. He refused.

I leaned in and pressed my lips against
his, but my kiss went unmet.

“I’m going to go lay down for a bit,” he
said. “I’m tired.”