No Refunds No Exchanges: A Hudson Family Series- Book 4- Matt and Ali

by Chontelle Brison

  Happy to finally have someone other than my mother I started spending time with my Uncle Jack, whom I liked to call UJ, but decided to settle in the dorms. I had earned it with my scholarship after all.

  Uncle Jack was incredible. He looked like a balding Jackie Gleason, with his plump belly and friendly blue eyes. When he laughed his whole body shook and when he smiled his whole face lit up. He didn’t say much about the family in San Francisco or back in Ireland, and he didn’t have an Irish accent, but he was my hero.

  I was thrilled when he informed me he was opening the only Irish ran bar in Vegas, on the other end of the strip near the South Point Hotel and Casino. It wasn’t a coveted center strip position, but I felt he could make it work. What I was most enthusiastic about was that he was building two flats above the bar, one for me and one for himself. He included me as a permanent part of his life, and I couldn’t be happier.

  My mom, on the other hand, had been furious that the brother she had never spoken of, and I guess didn’t like, was in my life. Apparently, mom and Uncle Jack came from money, and when their parents died in a boating accident, they both had inherited money.

  My grandparents were both from Ireland but had moved to Northern California before mom was born. Only mom was already hooked on drugs when her inheritance check came through and spent hers. She pulled away from the family in California and followed some douchebag to Vegas so that she could become a showgirl.

  Yeah, always thinking big, I reflected bitterly. Now that Uncle Jack was in town mom was pissed that he wouldn’t give her money. Mostly he offered me money for textbooks, bought me a laptop for school and even got me a credit card. I never told mom about the credit card because I know she’d steal it from me.

  As soon as that apartment above the bar was built, I would finally have a home, somewhere where no one could kick me out. I couldn’t even count the times mom, and I had been kicked out of hotels we couldn’t pay for. Nothing was worse than a sheriff throwing your panties in a black rubbish bag, then throwing the bag in front of the door, to the room, you were being evicted out of. However, all that was the past! I had an Uncle, I was in college, and I had the hottest guy in the world kissing my neck like a man consumed.

  Obviously, I didn’t tell my mother these arrangements; she wanted me to go after her dream of being a showgirl. Not happening. When I was born my mother wanted me to have an active stage name so that I could follow in her, soon to be famous, footsteps. But it never happened, mom gave birth, named me Synclair and my douchebag dad took off.

  Full lips nibbling at my neck brought me back to present, of course, the brilliant man in my bed didn’t know any of this. He was aware that I lived in the dorms; I was here on scholarship, and I loved wet, sloppy kisses. In fact, I mused, he had never inquired about my family, and I was grateful. If he realized what a street rat I had been, he wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole. But here he was, stroking my face, looking like something was eating at him.

  Something about the expression on his face caused my heart to thump harder; something was clearly wrong. My instincts had saved my butt more than once in my life, and they were advising me that my perfect moment, my feeling that life was finally falling into place, was about to be demolished.

  Reece grabbed my shoulders and spun me until we were nearly nose to nose. Sighing he laid his forehead against mine. I realized my breathing was rough, and my heart shot into my throat when he pressed his soft, full lips to mine. It was the sweetest kiss I’d ever had, but it felt like goodbye and not the beginning of what I thought was going to be a forever kind of relationship.

  “You are so amazing, I just want to stay in this room forever, there is so much I need to tell you... I…” He was cut off when my dorm room door swung wide. Standing in the doorway were his three stupid friends, Ron, Ryan, and Keyvin. Fuck! I despised those guys, clearly I hadn’t locked the door, and the three stooges didn’t have the manners to freaking knock.

  “What the hell? Get out,” I shrieked at the three yahoos, none of whom were staring at my face. I followed their gazes to my chest and realized I was perilously close to revealing my nipples to Reece’s basketball friends.

  “Dammit guys, get out, I’ll see you in the cafeteria!” Reece bellowed blocking their view of me with his body.

  Pissed off beyond belief, I grabbed my boots and hurled them at his grinning friends. Laughing they closed the door.

  Feeling like I was missing something, I looked at Reece. He twisted his body back to me and for a minute, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the heat coming off of him. He was warm and safe, and I felt secure with him, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I was missing something. How did his friends know where he was? Why were they laughing like a joke had been told that I hadn’t been let in on? Hoping it was just my old trust issues and insecurities flaring up, I laid my head on his shoulder.

  His massive arms came around me, and I exhaled. This was good, this was Reece, I didn’t trust many people, but I could count on him. He had worked for months to get us to this place; he would never hurt me, I concluded.

  “Promise me something?” His tone sounded nervous and a little shaky. At that point, I would have promised him the world. I nodded against his shoulder. Reece pulled me closer, I could hear his heartbeat, and it sounded fast. “I have to go meet the guys for lunch, but I wanna talk to you later, promise you won’t leave your room or talk to anyone till I get back?”

  I pulled back to look at him; he looked worried. I didn’t have any clue as to what was going on. “If you want to break up with me, then just say it. If this was all about sex Reece, I can take it, just be straightforward with me, I hate surprises,” I choked out. I meant what I had said, if he were finished, now that we had done the deed, I would get over it, I would despise him, but I would survive. What I couldn’t handle would be him telling me this meant something that it didn’t.

  I struggled to pull out of his arms; I needed clothes, and I needed something to act as a barrier against the anxiety that was forming in my stomach.

  Unfortunately, It was like trying to push against steel. One large hand tipped my chin up at him. His green eyes glowed with something I couldn’t read.

  “It’s not over, I wanted you before, and I want you now. I just need to go wrap something up with my friends and then I want to talk about us; I want us to be real,” he kissed me and got up from my small, twin bed.

  “Okay, Reece,” I replied, still not sure about anything. “I’ll stay here and then we can talk about us,” I hoped I sounded more positive than I felt. He grinned at me and pulled on his jeans and sweater. Man, he was impressive, from the tussled black hair to the blue Vans that matched his navy sweatshirt. He kissed me on the forehead, grabbed his backpack and walked out. I was certain it was okay; we were going to talk about us being real. Wasn’t that what I wanted, for us to be real?

  Suddenly, I froze. Why would we need to talk about being real? Weren’t we already real? If not, what the hell were we?

  I elected to take a shower. Maybe he had misspoken. I quickly shampooed my hair and tried not to acknowledge the places that were still tender from last night. I struggled to forget his comments that seemed to be on replay in my mind. Real, real, real… My thoughts kept coming back to it. My mind kept seeing his friends busting in, the shocked looks on their faces to see us in bed together, their smirks and grins.

  I recalled the angry way he looked at them. What did he need to wrap up with them? Why did that come before our “talk”? I wanted to trust Reece, I did. I wanted to remain in my tiny dorm room consisting of a bathroom, twin-size bed, and a dresser, but I suddenly felt closed in.

  Something was wrong; I didn’t want to see it, but something was off, and I needed to discover what it was. Why did he want me not to talk to anyone till he got back? What would someone tell me that he didn’t want me to hear? I felt awful for questioning his motives, but I was finding it tougher and tougher to reject the red flags all around m
e. If I were mistaken, I would beg forgiveness, if I were right, I would rip Reece limb from limb like only a street rat could.

  He had never seen the street side of me, I was edgy sure, but he had no notion how much of a scrapper I could be. I craved to be better for him, someone worth his time, now I felt like maybe I had made a mistake. What if Reece was telling his friends he banged the loner chick in English Lit? What if they were all laughing right now?

  I didn’t think, I jumped out of the shower, toweled off and threw my unruly mane into a loose ponytail. My jeans, bra, shirt and shoes followed. I didn’t bother with make-up, what would be the point? The light freckles that peppered my nose weren’t going anywhere. I took a brief glance in the mirror. I wasn’t going to win any beauty contests today. Standing at 5 foot-nothing, I was clearly on the shorter side, throw in the boobs and hips and I obviously did not fit Seventeen Magazine’s waif thin model look.

  Forcing myself away from my reflection I grabbed my keys and went off to discover the truth.

  It didn’t take long to get to the cafeteria; it was in the Student Union in the middle of campus. I stepped up to the giant glass doors. I knew the table that Reece and his friends always sat at. It was near a large set of open windows. It being April and the weather moderate, I knew those windows would be wide open.

  Since it was Saturday, it wasn’t particularly busy in the cafeteria, and I could hear Reece’s friends’ laughter from where I stood by the door.

  Walking around to kneel by the cement wall under the open window, making certain I was crouched down enough so no one could see me from the inside, I talked myself out of a full-fledged panic attack.

  Why didn’t I just trust him? He had done nothing to make me not trust him. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. So I stood there in the warm Nevada sunshine and eavesdropped with my fingers crossed.

  “Man, I have to say I had my doubts.” That was Ron, the trust fund baby that lived off the leftover cheerleaders that Reece cast aside.

  “Seriously dude, I give you props, from what I saw today she has a serious rack underneath all those t-shirts.” That was Ryan. He was a blonde, California surfer type. He held his own in the getting females department, but his sentences usually started with, dude. I have to admit the thought of Ryan thinking about my boobs made me want to throw up. Just ewww.

  “Shut up,” I heard Reece say. He sounded furious, but about what?

  “Come on Reesy, take the money, you earned it, you won. Now you can dump that skank and come to the bonfire tonight with me.”

  I recognized that voice; I knew that plastic, Barbie bitch. She was in my English literature class with Reece; she was constantly throwing me dirty looks. Her nails were always perfectly French manicured, and her blonde Barbie hair and blue eyes were always perfectly done up. Fuck, I detested this chick. She just called the man, I thought was special, Reesy!

  Did she give him a pet fucking name? Honestly, I wanted to cut her, severely. I was so pissed off at Barbie that I almost missed the most significant element that came out of her mouth. Reece won? Won what? What was the game? And why was he now free to dump me?

  These were great questions, but before I could even wrap my mind around it, I was being pelted by water. Shit, the sprinklers. Who the hell sets off sprinklers at noon on a Saturday? I shrieked when the unrelenting stream hit me square in the face. Jumping up from my crouched position I came face to face with green eyes. I instantly glanced from Reece to the table in front of him. Five hundred dollars in crisp one-hundred-dollar bills lay in the center. His friends looked away.

  It didn’t take a genius to put this puzzle together. Running to the pavement to get out of the sprinklers, I was met by a wild-eyed, breathing hard, panicked looking Reece, his guilty looking friends, and a pompous looking Barbie.

  Reece reached for me; his eyes looked anxious. I evaded his hands and backed up. I knew I was soaked from head to foot. My wet clothes clung to me, and I began to shiver, but I couldn’t stop staring at Reece. I needed him to tell me it wasn’t true.

  “I just need you to answer my questions, with a simple yes or no Reece,” I took a deep breath. I could do this, just lock down the pain like always and execute. Forcing my breathing to slow down and even out, I was about to ask Reece my first question when Barbie broke in.

  “Reece doesn’t owe you any explanations; you were a bet. If he could get the girl with the crack whore momma into bed, he won five hundred bucks,” Barbie gloated.

  I saw red, and my vision dimmed as I shifted my attention to Barbie. So they all knew about my mom and my life? Fine, they wanted the street rat; I would give them all the street rat they could handle starting with Malibu Barbie.

  “Amber!” Reece growled.

  I put my hand up to silence him. I walked over to Barbie and smiled. That took the smug look right off her face. Instead, she looked puzzled.

  Before she could blink, I grasped a handful of that blonde hair and forced her head down while bringing my knee up. She cried out as her nose connected with my knee cap, but I wasn’t satisfied. This was what they wanted to see, right? With a hand still clutching her hair, I took my fist and smashed it into her stomach. While she was bent over sobbing, I whispered in her ear, “Yep, my mother is a crack whore, I did live in a hotel, and you have no idea what I’m capable of.” I drove her back towards the guys. Their jaws were dropped as they looked from me to Barbie.

  “You may need to take her to the wellness center before that bonfire, stud,” I said coolly. I was glad that I was able to keep my voice steady despite the chaos raging in my heart. At that moment, I knew I didn’t belong in college. I was the daughter of a wealthy woman turned crack whore; my father was an MIA douchebag, and the only person that cared was Uncle Jack.

  I had been an idiot to think that someone like Reece Hudson gave a shit. Apparently, my virginity had a price tag, and it was five hundred dollars. My stomach rolled when I thought about how three hours ago I thought Reece and I had a future; that someone cared about me. But that was ridiculous, and I blamed myself. Fairytales were for the Reece Hudsons and Barbie’s of the world, not street rats with crack whore moms.

  Large steel bands wrapped around me from behind, lifting me off the ground they hauled me against a rock-solid chest. I knew it was Reece. I needed to leave; I needed him not to touch me, I was going to break down and the fuck if I was going to cry in front of all of them. Arms that I had willingly gone to only hours ago, now caused me squirm to get away.

  “Synclair baby stop,” he whispered softly, not seeming to notice that I was getting him all wet. He spoke to me like someone would talk to an injured animal. But I wasn’t wounded, I was fine! Or at least I was going to be just fine as soon I could get out of his damn hold.

  “Let. Me. Go.” I ordered. I would have kicked him, but his six-foot-two frame against my five-foot body easily kept me up off the ground.

  “I think she broke my nose, Oh my god, I want her arrested, call security I was assaulted,” Barbie squawked. I had to grin; her face was a wreck with her mascara streaked down her face. Reece’s friends were putting ice from the lunchroom on her nose and trying to soothe the whiney bitch.

  “Come on Amber, it’s not broken, let’s just get you home and get you cleaned up,” Keyvin soothed.

  Amber a.k.a. Barbie was having none of it. By now we had attracted a nice crowd. I smirked at my handiwork. No, violence didn’t fix things, but there were occasions when you just had to smack a bitch.

  “Reece don’t let her leave,” Amber- Barbie ordered Reece while working to stem the blood pouring out of her nose. I wondered how long it would take for her to bleed to death from that. I laughed. If there were popcorn and soda available, I might just watch that show.

  “You’re a witness, and I am calling campus security,” she droned on in her standard high-pitched drama.

  “Don’t be dramatic Amber, and I have no intention of letting her go,” he told Amber-Barbie. Without
even letting my feet touch the ground he whirled me around and used his enormous hands on my arms to keep me in place.

  I let all the anger show in my eyes. I wanted him to see he didn’t hurt me, or couldn’t hurt me. I would let myself be crushed later when there wasn’t a crowd, when I could be alone.

  “What’s the matter, Hudson?” I knew he despised it when I called him by his last name. “Afraid if you let me go I’ll kick the shit out of the star athlete on game day?” It was all I had. I wasn’t lying, I was torn between hoping he let me go so I could run away and lick my wounds, and breaking his 3 point throwing arm so he couldn’t play in the game tonight.

  “Stop it Synclair; this isn’t you. I realize I hurt you, I can and will explain it. But you need to calm down,” he hissed, getting nose to nose with me.

  Now I was pissed off all over again! My anger was threatening to push to the surface again. Wait! Why was I fighting my anger here? There was no reason to hold back my street tendencies. I didn’t need to try to be worthy of him; I didn’t need to fit in here.

  Apparently, I was the fraud. These people were exactly who they always had been and would always be. I was the one struggling to avoid where I came from, or let’s face it, where I was still at. It was time I accepted who I was and stopped making apologies for my life.

  “That’s where you're mistaken, Hudson,” I growled in a low, menacing voice. “This is me, I am the daughter of a crack addict, she does sell herself for cash, and I’ve had more step daddies then you’ve had panties thrown at you during a game! I have never lived in a home, it has always been motels, this dorm is part of my scholarship, and it’s the first time I’ve had a roof over my head that didn’t depend on my mother’s boyfriend or how much she made from whoring the night before.”

  His eyes narrowed with concern, and then I saw pity. I hated pity, but I didn’t stop, I wanted him to know it all, for him to see all the ugly.