1
SERENA
Istared out the window of the private jet I flew all the way across the country just to pick up a cake. If that didn’t say I’d made it in Hollywood, I wasn’t sure what did.
It was kind of ridiculous, but the only thing my baby sister specifically said she wanted for her sixteenth birthday was a cake from Hale & Honey Bakery in Westbridge, Connecticut. The owner was the IT baker for celebrities right now, and having one of Tessa’s famous creations at her party would go a long way in helping Avery enjoy her big day.
Luckily, Tessa was as sweet as her desserts because the ball was dropped on ordering the cake, but she’d been willing to squeeze the order in for me.
My phone buzzed on the armrest, pulling me from my thoughts. A photo of Hudson’s face lit the screen, with that devilish half-smile that made my knees weak. He’d used it to his full advantage to get me to agree to go out with him while we filmed a movie together a few years ago.
I’d made a rule when I came to Hollywood that I’d never date someone I worked with, but he’d been impossible to resist. His reddish-brown hair had just enough curl to make my fingers itchto toy with it, and his deep brown eyes felt like they were always on me. Back then, at least, but not so much anymore.
I stared at it for a moment, my thumb hovering. I half wanted to let the call go to voicemail, but that wouldn’t help anything. So I swiped to answer.
“Hey, honey. You free tonight? My evening call time got pushed back, so I have the whole night off. Thought we could grab dinner at that little Italian place you like. Just us.”
It really sucked that the person who was at the root of the friction between us was the reason I couldn’t accept. “I won’t be back in town for another three hours.”
“Back in town?” he echoed.
“Yeah, and then I’ll have to battle rush hour traffic to get home from Van Nuys,” I explained. “So it’ll be too late before I’d be ready to go out for dinner.”
“What’s going on, Serena?”
I leaned my head against the cool window, watching the wing slice through the clouds. “I flew out to Connecticut this morning, and I’m about halfway back now.”
There was a pause, and I could picture him rubbing the back of his neck the way he did when he was confused. “Why are you up there?”
Avery’s cake sat buckled into the seat across the aisle. With three tiers, it was almost like having another passenger on the plane. A very pretty one with contrasting buttercream frosting on the bottom layer, stenciled and hand-painted decorations on the others, and white chocolate flowers dyed lilac with sugar pearls on top. Tessa had outdone herself. “I went to Hale & Honey myself.”
Hudson exhaled. “Babe, you should’ve told me. I would have come with you.”
That would’ve defeated the purpose of me getting on the plane. I’d needed some time away to breathe, and unfortunately,I wouldn’t have been able to do that if Hudson had been with me. “I figured you’d be busy on set today.”
“If I’d known you were going, I could’ve sent you on my jet,” he grumbled. “There was no need for you to pay for a chartered flight.”
When I booked the plane, I knew I could’ve called Hudson to borrow his instead. And maybe I should have, since it was his best friend who’d created the problem I needed to fix. But I’d been too irritated to ask for his help. “I had to move fast to make sure the cake got here in time for the party tomorrow night.”
He sighed. “Maddie feels awful about the mix-up. You know that, right?”
I knew no such thing because his best friend hadn’t even bothered to apologize for her mistake. At least, not to me. I had no doubt she’d been full of contrition when she told Hudson her side of the story, though.
“A mix-up would be ordering chocolate instead of vanilla. This was her doing the exact opposite of what I asked.” I rolled my eyes as I pictured the vanilla sheet cake with no customization from a random bakery near the Galleria that we’d almost ended up with. “I was very specific about what Avery wanted.”
“She’s still figuring out how things work here.” His voice dropped into the soothing tone he used when he wanted to calm me down. “LA is a lot different from Indiana. She’s trying to help, babe. Cut her some slack.”
I’d heard this excuse too many times and wasn’t sure how many more it would take before I was completely over his explanations. “She’s been here for months, Hudson. If she hasn’t adjusted to it yet, maybe she’d be happier back in Indiana.”
I didn’t bother reminding him her visit was supposed to have only been for two weeks because I’d already pointed that outwhen we had this same argument right after I found out about the cake.
“She’s had a rough go of it. You know that.”
I’d been sympathetic toward Maddie when she arrived in LA, but that quickly changed when I realized she was going out of her way to cause problems between Hudson and me. The worst part was that he refused to see what she was doing.
“And I’ve had a rough go of making sure my sister doesn’t feel like an afterthought in her own life.”
He went quiet for a moment, and his tone was softer when he finally spoke again. “I’m sorry the cake got messed up. But it’s fixed now, right? Avery’s gonna love it.”
