Read Online Starstruck - Book Four by Gemma Brooks - Free Book Online

have
been playing games with me.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 11
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    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.”
     
    “It’s only two thirty,” I objected. “We’ve got the whole day
ahead of us. Let’s go do something. A hike. A drive. Anything.”
     
    “I’m tired, Brynn,” he said. He slid off the bar stool and
shuffled down the hall to his bedroom and closed the door.
     
    He hadn’t necessary chosen me over Ava. Not yet anyway. I
may have had his heart and his presence, but Ava had something else of his, and
I couldn’t quite figure it out.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 12
 
     
     
     
     
    “Hi, honey!” my mom said as I walked into her room. Her hair
was slicked back into a pony tail and her skin glistened with sweat. She looked
pale, sickly almost, but her face lit up like the Fourth of July the moment she
saw me.
     
    “Mom, are you okay?” I asked as I rushed to sit next to her
on the