Starstruck - Book Three by Gemma Brooks Page B

face.
     
    “What are you smiling about?” I asked, curious.
     
    “Everything,” he said. He opened his mouth to elaborate more
and then stopped. “Just everything. I’m so happy, Brynn. You make me so happy.”
     
    “Okay,” I said. He was just drunk. I’d taken care of Luke a
million times before in his various stages of drunken stupor and he was a
million times worse. This was nothing.
     
    The limo dropped us off at Hudson’s house, and I escorted
him inside. A half hour in the car had done him a little bit of good, as he was
becoming more and more coherent.
     
    “Let’s go sit out by the pool,” I said. It was a clear,
starry night and I was all jacked up on adrenaline still. I wasn’t ready to
retire just yet.
     
    Hudson followed me outside where we pulled up chairs
together, and I finally kicked off my painfully gorgeous Louboutins.
     
    “Oh, my gosh,” I sighed. “They can breathe now.”
     
    “Here,” he said as he grabbed my feet and sat them in his
lap. His muscular hands began gently rubbing all the aches and pains away, just
like he had that night after my shift at the diner. He was always taking good
care of me and had from the very beginning.
     
    “That feels amazing,” I moaned. “Thank you.”
     
    “No, thank you,” he said. “I always hate going to those
things. Having you there by my side made it a little more bearable.”
     
    “You hate red carpet events?” I asked. “Isn’t that sort of a
huge part of your job?”
     
    “My love of acting has nothing to do with loving publicity
or being in the spotlight,” he said. “But at this point in my career, they kind
of have to go hand in hand.”
     
    I realized then that there was so much I didn’t know about
him. I’d always kept my questions to myself because I didn’t want him to think
of me as some fan girl.
     
    “How did you get into acting?” I asked.
     
    “I did a few commercials as a kid,” he said as he continued
working wonders on my poor toes. “Just went from there.”
     
    “I don’t remember you being a child actor,” I said.
     
    “I wasn’t,” he said. “Just commercials. Nothing you’d
probably remember. But the acting bug bit me young. I did a lot of community
theater, set up shop in L.A., waited tables for a while, and waited for my big
break.”
     
    “You waited tables?” I asked as I leaned over and slapped
his arm. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
     
    “That was a long time ago, Brynn,” he laughed. “It was such
a boring time in my life. It’s not even worth talking about. And it’s so damn
cliché.”
     
    “True,” I laughed.
     
    I sat quietly for a minute, admiring his ridiculous good
looks under the pale moon light that trickled through the trees above.
     
    “What?” he asked. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
     
    I smiled a Cheshire cat grin. “I’m just happy.”
     
    “Good,” he said. “You should be.”
     
    “It’s so funny,” I continued. “I had posters of you hanging
on my wall when I was in middle school and now I’m sitting here. With you.”
     
    “Way to make me feel old,” he teased.
     
    “Oh, stop,” I said. “It’s just crazy that I’m here with you
now. I never in a million years thought this was remotely even a possibility
for my life. It doesn’t even feel real.”
     
    My mind wandered back to Rock River for a second as I
thought about what I was missing out on. Luke was definitely down at the
Manhattan bar getting drunk off his ass, and Piper was probably somewhere nearby.
She never had anything better to do. Heck, the entire town was probably there.
Luke was probably cooling off after a long day in the field, and if I knew him
at all, he was probably working on his third or fourth beer by now. Had I never
met Hudson, I’d be right along there beside him.
     
    “Everything happens exactly the way it should,” Hudson said
in a moment of clarity. He moved my feet off his lap and stood up to stretch.
“Now,