Always Closer

by Amelia Harlow

  I wasn’t sure if I was imaging it, but I kept hearing Hudson’s name come up from a nearby table of young attractive women. I made my way over, topping up their glasses with water as I listened in on their conversation.

  The woman with the largest breasts and lowest cut top said, ‘He’s such a player, I’m sure he thinks because he has all that money and a hot body, that he can do whatever he wants.’ She took a sip of her drink and continued, ‘He didn’t even try and get me off, and as soon as he finished fucking me, he asked me to leave!’

  I made my way around the table one by one, filling their glasses.

  ‘What a scumbag!’ said one of the women.

  ‘Well, I won’t be drinking Cooper Wines anymore!’ said another.

  ‘Oh well, good riddance. I just wish I hadn’t wasted last night when I could have partied on with everyone else instead! He wasn’t worth my time, I’d go as far as saying he was terrible in bed,’ said the big breasted woman.

  My heart sank and the sounds of the restaurant faded away as I got lost in my thoughts. Last night? Last night! They must have been talking about Hudson. Did he fool around with me and because he didn’t get to finish, he went and fucked someone else? I didn’t understand. It couldn’t be true. I wanted so desperately for that not to be true.

  I don’t know how long I had been standing and staring at the cutlery drawer, but I heard Jakes voice slowly seep into my ears.

  ‘Mae… Mae,’ he called, as if trying to rouse me from sleep, ‘you haven’t been out here that long and you look worse than I did, are you all right?’

  I placed both of my hands on the cutlery table to steady myself. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t feel well.’

  ‘Here.’ Jake reached his arm around me. ‘Lets sit you down inside yeah?’

  I nodded and I wandered in a daze beside him until we reached the air conditioned office out the back. I sat down in Bill’s brown leather chair and could feel my legs sticking to it. Jake passed me a cold glass of water and was crouched down in front of me, watching me like I was some sort of new species he had just discovered.

  ‘You might need a doctor. It could be heat stroke. Should I take you to the hospital? I’ll take you-’

  Before he could finish his sentence, I cut him off.

  ‘No. No I don’t need the hospital or a doctor, I’m fine.’

  I couldn’t think of anything worse than having another encounter with Gerry. Then that started me thinking about Alex, who had been in the back of my mind every day, and the sense of panic and anxiety began to creep in. Those thoughts plus the image of Hudson fucking the big breasted blonde made me so sick. It was all too much to take in.

  ‘I need to go home.’

  Jake nodded, ‘Cool, I’ll grab my car and we’ll go yeah?’

  ‘My car’s here too, I need to get it home,’ I said, as I leant forward with my head in my hands.

  ‘No worries, I’ll drive your car and someone here can tail us.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, thanks Jake.’

  I barely said a word on the way home. My head was leant up against the window as I tried to quieten my mind. I felt so stupid for asking Jake, but I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Did you see Hudson last night at all?’

  ‘Yeah a few times, briefly. Why?’

  I ignored his question, and continued on with another. ‘What about much later on, did you see him after ten? Was he around then?’

  He hesitated, ‘I’m not sure of the time, but later on he took a few of the bridesmaids into the barn because they wanted to see where the wine was made, or something dumb like that. The girls were so drunk, just throwing themselves at him. It was real funny to watch actually.’ Jake started laughing to himself. ‘One of them was just hanging off him and we were all having a laugh at how desperate she looked, but I guess she knew what she was doing, because it worked!’

  ‘What do you mean it worked?’ I asked casually.

  ‘Well…he took her inside the house, and I didn’t see him again so I’d say the lucky bastard scored!’

  I’d heard enough and he was going to keep rambling on about it so I cut him off.

  ‘Jake.’

  ‘What?’ He turned to look at me, briefly diverting his attention from the road.

  ‘Nothing, just please get me home. I need to lay down.’

  He nodded and didn’t say another word all the way home, and neither did I. If I dared to speak I’m sure I would have struggled to get the words out over that choking feeling in my throat.

  Jake and I got out of the car in silence. I thanked him when he handed me the keys and headed for the front door of the house.

  ‘Call if you need anything, yeah?’ he said.

  I turned around and nodded with a half hearted smile. The house was cool and came as a soothing relief. My face felt hot as I stood at the bathroom sink, pooling water into my hands and dipping my face into it. I didn’t know if my head was burning from the heat of the weather, or burning with anger and disgust, but either way it was not a nice feeling.

  I collapsed onto the bed and closed my eyes. I felt so stupid, and humiliated to have entertained the thought that Hudson might have cared about me. I couldn’t shake the feeling of anger, and I wanted to confront him about it, but there was really no point. I couldn’t take things any further with him after hearing what I’d heard today. I put my head down on my pillow and wanted to forget about everything.

  When I opened my eyes again, the sun was shooting a bright orange glow through my window as it made it’s way over the horizon. My stomach was grumbling like an angry animal as I had neglected it for most of the day, so I made my way into the kitchen to cook something. I pulled out almost every ingredient in the fridge and began to assemble something, not yet sure of what I was going to create. I didn’t realise my dad was home until he emerged from his bedroom, nose to the sky, sniffing his way over to the kitchen.

  ‘Care for some pumpkin risotto?’ I asked

  ‘Oh yes I would!’ His nose now buried in the pot. ‘Mmm! Smells delicious!’

  ‘It’s just about ready, go sit down and I’ll plate up,’ I said.

  We sat down on the back porch and began to eat. The summer air was a lot cooler now, and the breeze from the ocean freshened the evening. My dad was just about to put another bite in his mouth but lowered his fork back down to his plate.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked.

  He scratched under his chin and sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but you probably should know that Alex called again.’

  ‘You didn’t answer right?’

  ‘No no, of course not.’

  ‘Good, thanks.’

  ‘No problem. It’s just odd isn’t it?’ He said, pausing momentarily, ‘You’ve been gone a decent amount of time now, and he’s still looking for you. You’d think he’d have realised it’s over.’

  ‘That just the problem with Alex, he’s so controlling that it’s not over until he says it is.’

  My dad reassured me that everything would be okay, and that Alex would never find me here. No one even knew my dad was here, and last time anyone checked, I wasn’t speaking to him. There was some re-assurance in that. We finished our dinner and I went back to bed.

  I laid on top of the covers and picked up the phone I had neglected all day. There was a message from Hudson, and though I didn’t care to read it, my curiosity got the better of me. I opened up the message without my previous enthusiasm.

  *I can’t stop thinking about you. When do I get to see you again?* It read.

  In my head the response was “never” but I didn’t have the nerve to type that. As hurt and mad as I was, he didn’t really owe me anything, so I didn’t have a good enough reason to be as mad at him as I was. I thought it best to just ignore it and carry on getting my life back on track. Maybe it was a sign that I needed to move on from here. Dad was on the road to recovery, Gerry could still reveal I was here at any minute and now I didn’t have a
really good reason as to why I should stay. I opened up my laptop and started looking at other hospitals in nearby towns. If I was going to get my life back on track I needed to stop working in restaurants and attempt to piece together my career. It didn’t take long until the idea was looking incredibly overwhelming. I thought about how long I might have to keep running for. It was a terrible idea, but I did start to think maybe I could talk to Alex and let him know that I’m not a threat to him. He was concerned that I was going to reveal his secrets, name the people he did business with and cause trouble for him. As much as I would have liked to bring him down, even if he was charged with his crimes, there was just no way I could sit through the trials. I wanted to be as far from him as possible. I also knew that Alex was very clever, and almost everything I could use as evidence against him would have an incredible counter argument. He wasn’t worth more years of my life. If I could make him believe that, then I could get back to some sort of normality.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HUDSON COOPER

  Since Mae drove through the front gates, I wasn’t able to keep my eyes off of her. She always looked so hot, and that afternoon was no exception. I wanted to go and talk to her, but I thought she was still pissed at me for what happened the other day, so I just stole glances at here where I could. It was fairly easy because of the view I had from the top floor of the house, a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Every time I looked at her, I got closer to walking downstairs and talking to her, but it didn’t happen until I saw some guy checking her out near the bathrooms. He was having a good look at her while she bent over touching her shoe, and I didn’t like it, so I made my way downstairs. By the time I got to the ground I saw him put his hands on her, and when I saw her flinch away and that she wasn’t okay with it, I ran in. I would have loved to have decked that guy, but I’m sure she wouldn’t have been too happy with that, so I pushed back every urge and tried to handle it as calm as I could.

  Once the situation calmed down and he was kicked out, all of the anger left me, and I was just so glad that Mae was actually talking to me. She looked beautiful and I just wanted to be back on the beach with her, kissing her and feeling her body. I didn’t want any tension between us and I’d just hoped so much that she would forgive me for upsetting her. All I was trying to do was get her to open up to me, because I wanted to know more of her, but she just seemed to keep me at an arms length all the time. I reluctantly told her she could go home if she didn’t want to stick around after what had just happened. I was definitely surprised when she said she didn’t want to go and I was hoping it was maybe because she wanted to be around me a bit more that night.

  When I saw her go into the barn alone later, I thought it would be a good chance to talk to her again. I didn’t think I’d get so lucky as to seduce her. The entire experience of tasting her body, her pussy and all it’s sweetness was incredible. I loved the way she looked, leant back on the table and begging for me to please her. I was getting so hard for her and the anticipation kept building. I wanted her to pull me into her and ride my cock until she came again, but that thought was destroyed when someone walked into the barn and spoiled the rest of our fun. I think I hid my disappointment pretty well, but I couldn’t keep the thought of fucking her out of my head. Later that night after having a few drinks with the staff and finally packing everything down I could get away from everything and have some time alone with that thought. I fell back onto the bed and the visions of Mae’s wet pussy came into my mind along with those of her full breasts and hard nipples being caressed by my lips and tongue. It was driving me wild.

  I hadn’t heard from her in two days. I was wanting so much to get close to her again. It was the only thing that was on my mind. The only explanation I had for her not replying was maybe that my messages weren’t getting through again, so I picked up the phone and gave her a call. The phone eventually rung out and went to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message because I didn’t want to wait another week to find out it’s just another glitch in the network lines and have her wondering why I’m not calling. It’d probably be one of the worst times to not call. To get physically close to her like that and then not say a word for a few days would be a bad move. I’d never do that to her, and if I didn’t get my arse over to see her, there was every chance she would think I was just using her or something like that. I wanted to get to know her just as much as I wanted to touch her. It wasn’t like I just wanted her body, no way. As sexy as she was, there was something so captivating about her that drew me deeper below the surface.

  I spun the keys to the car around on my finger as I thought about going over to her house. I simply had to go. I caught them in the palm of my hand and headed to the car. The sun was hitting hard into my eyes on the drive over and it made me think back to the day we had together at the beach. I wanted more of those days with her, and I was sure that after the other night she’d be looking forward to some more fun with me too. The car rolled down the driveway, the sound of uneven rock rumbling beneath it. When I got to her place, she emerged from the house before I could even get to the front door. Her arms were folded and she wasn’t making any eye contact with me.

  ‘Hey,’ I called, as I walked towards her, closing the car door behind me without paying it any attention.

  I went to wrap my arms around her, but she stopped me.

  ‘Hey, no need to overreact,’ I joked, ‘it’s our phones again, I sent you through a few messages since Saturday night and I’m guessing you haven’t got them? I was-’ I couldn’t quite finish before she interrupted me.

  ‘You think this is me overreacting?’ she said, looking up at me with a straight face.

  I was so confused, and not sure where all the hostility was coming from.

  ‘I just don’t want you to touch me again,’ she said, as she shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘What? Why? What’s happened?’ I asked

  ‘It’s fine if you want to sleep with anyone and everyone, but had I known that’s how you were, I wouldn’t have let myself get this close to you.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I don’t get it.’ I stared into her eyes as if I were trying to reach the woman I thought I knew.

  ‘Hudson, come on. I know what happened after I left on Saturday night.’ She could barely look at me. ‘It’s fine I just don’t want to get closer to you if that’s how you are.’

  I could see she was hurting and I wanted to make it stop. ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  She didn’t respond to what I was saying and just kept staring past me.

  I continued, hoping to get to the bottom of this. ‘I spent the rest of the night having a few drinks with the people from your work. There wasn’t much left to do after you left, so I grabbed a few cases for the staff and we kicked back until everyone left. I feel like I spent most of the night with Jake, from your work, who trust me, I definitely didn’t sleep with…he’s not really my type,’ I laughed, trying to make a joke from it all.

  She looked at me as if something clicked in her mind, ‘Jake was drinking with you, so you were with him most of the night?’

  ‘Yeah I’m sure that’s his name. Lanky brown haired guy that was hanging around you earlier that day?’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of all this,’ she said, twisting her eyebrows together as if she were struggling to solve a puzzle.

  I folded my arms across my chest trying to hold my anger back. ‘Did Jake say something to you about me? I guess that would make some sense.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I saw the way he was looking at you on Saturday, following you around, I think he feels something for you. So maybe he’s trying to get me out of the picture. I mean he did talk about you a lot last night.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on. It wasn’t all Jake, he just confirmed the story I overheard. There were some women at the restaurant yesterday, one was saying that she “fucked” you at the wedding. They were all bad mouth
ing you and I asked Jake if he saw you around later that night because I didn’t want to believe you had done it. He told me he saw a woman throwing herself at you, and then you took her into the house.’

  ‘Okay, so I guess those two stories together sound pretty incriminating huh?’ I was so confused.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, with a single outward breath.

  ‘I can tell you though that didn’t happen. I wouldn’t do something like that, you should know that I’m not that kind of guy.’

  ‘I don’t think I know what kind of guy you are at all. I barely know you,’ she said.

  There was silence between us until I spoke again, ‘I’ve got to ask, was Jake around when those women were at the restaurant? Was he working too?’

  ‘Yeah he was there.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible he knew them, and got them to say that stuff?’

  I could see her trust in Jake wavering. I pushed on, ‘You can ask anyone else you know that was there on Saturday night, they’ll all say I was drinking with them, because I was. I think you should ask them and put your mind at ease.’

  Mae started to nod her head as if everything was beginning to make sense.

  ‘I definitely wasn’t “fucking” another woman.’ I said, putting the word “fucking” in quotation marks with my hands just like she had, to try and lighten the mood.

  ‘Mae.’ I took her hands in mine and she didn’t stop me. ‘You’ve been on my mind since the day I met you. I’m not interested in anyone else, and all I want is to get closer to you but you’ve got to start trusting me.’

  It was like all the dots finally connected, and she believed Jake and those women were lying.

  ‘I trust you,’ she said, ‘I don’t need to ask anyone else about it.’

  Her smile returned and lit up her beautiful face. I pulled her into my arms and felt her body against mine. We shared a soft kiss and a warm embrace. I was so relieved.