When the tournament wrapped, the three of us walked back to the car together. Avery chattered about her wins while Serena stayed quiet. I opened the passenger door for her out of habit. She paused, then slid in without comment.
The drive home was more relaxed than the drive there.
At the house, Avery bounded inside to change, leaving Serena and me standing in the driveway.
“I brought something for you.” I reached into the glove compartment to pull out a carefully wrapped package. “It’s not flashy. Just something that reminded me of us.”
She took it and carefully undid the wrapping paper. Inside was a worn copy of the script from the chick flick we’d filmedtogether. It was the original annotated version with both our notes scribbled in the margins.
Serena’s fingers traced her own handwriting on the first page. The note I’d scribbled during our first table read when I’d told her I was only doing the movie because my mom begged me. Her eyes glistened.
“You kept this?” she whispered.
“Of course I did.” I flipped toward the middle of the script. “This was the scene where I first realized I was falling for you. Not the character. I wanted you to have this to help you remember that the guy who fell for you is still here. He just got lost for a while trying to be loyal to the wrong person.”
“It’s a beautiful gesture, Hudson.” She closed the script and cradled it against her chest. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” I took one careful step closer. “I’m going to keep showing up until I’ve proven you can believe me.”
I could see the war in her eyes—the part of her that wanted to believe me fighting against the memory of every time I’d chosen wrong.
“You showed up for Avery today. That’s a step in the right direction.”
It wasn’t forgiveness. But it wasn’t a door slammed in my face either.
She turned toward the house, then paused. “Avery has another tournament in six weeks. If you’re serious about showing up, you could help again.”
“I’ll be there.”
She gave me a faint smile. “I guess we’ll see.”
“You will.”
I poured as much sincerity into my voice as I could, and it must’ve worked because she searched my face before suggesting, “Maybe we shouldn’t wait that long until we see each other again.”
“Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
She turned to walk into her house. Pausing in the doorway, she looked over her shoulder at me. “You did so well today, I think I’ll let you figure that out.”
I still had a long way to go, but she was giving me a chance to prove myself. That was more than I expected. Or deserved.
17
SERENA
Hudson took his cue from me over the next few weeks, keeping things light between us. He respected my boundaries without planning anything too romantic. Not because I wanted to be cruel. I needed the time to learn to trust him again, which he seemed to understand and accept.
We had coffee a couple of times. He brought over treats for Avery and me, always choosing our favorite items from each place he stopped on the way to my house. He even coached Avery for a speech she had to deliver in class, and she took his constructive criticism better than she ever had mine. Maybe because it was harder to hear from the person you were closest to in the world. Either way, she got the highest score out of all the students.
When she came home from school that day, my sister gave me the final push I needed.
Plopping down onto the couch next to me, she asked, “When are you going to let him take you out on a real date?”
“I’m confused. You’re the one who threatened to burn his stuff.” I squinted at her. “But then you finagled things so we’dsee each other at your tournament, and now you’re trying to get me to give him even more of a chance?”
“I want you to be happy, and the only time you really light up lately is when he’s around.”
Her simple answer made me realize I was more ready to take the next step with him than I had thought. I never stopped loving Hudson, and the past month had shown me how determined he was not to mess up again. He was more present when we were together, even compared to how he’d been before Maddie started to cause trouble. And more vocal about his feelings.
