“She called me, something about snooping in your phone for my number. Doesn’t matter at this point, I’m here now. With you.” He takes a deep breath, his chest expanding, making the material across his shoulders and torso go tight. I never even got to taste and touch him like I wanted to, like we were going to before everything went to shit. I never got to do anything I wanted to do before he betrayed my trust and humiliated me. I’m so happy that I never told him that I loved him. Once those words are said, they can’t be taken back.
Hunter keeps talking and I drag my eyes away from his body to look him in the face.
“I want you to know that I’ve been cut out of my mother’s will.”
Well, there’s a fucking white flag.
My mouth hangs open. “What the fuck?” I slam my fists on the table, watch his eyes open wide, his eyebrows high-five his hairline. “You do not lead with that fucking little fact three weeks after you cheated on me with her, MacLaine,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
Oh, he doesn’t like that I called him by his family name. His body gets tight, and he narrows his eyes at me, like I’m the one that caused all the problems here. I flash my teeth in a predator’s smile, but he just keeps looking at me with those gorgeous blue eyes like he can read my soul, like he can see through my mask and look at the well of pain I’ve carried with me all this time.
I have an awful feeling that he can make me better. But I don’t want to be one of those girls, going back to the object of their pain, staying because he makes them happy for fleeting moments. Christ, he’s the first man who’s ever paid attention to me, what else did I expect? Of course I’m one of those girls.
Hunter pulls in a breath through his nose, his chest expanding. I’m deaf and blind to everything else that’s going on around me. My alcohol high is gone, leaving me to deal with stark truths and sobering thoughts with no fog to help me hide from them.
“I miss you,” he says on the exhale, like it’s torn out of him. I hate that. I hate that sound of it being pulled out of him, like I don’t merit to hear it.
I snort, trying to look mean. I just want him to hurt like I’ve been hurting all this time. I’m sure it’ll make me feel better. It has to.
“Yeah, you look real broken up.” I shake my head, pay attention to the matter at hand. “What’s going to happen to Matty now? Why didn’t you just take the money?” I pull in a breath through my nose but it does nothing to calm me. I feel like an enraged bull pawing at the ground, ready to score someone with my badass horns. “Jesus, why are you here? I was having a good time. And you ruined everything. Matty’s not my problem. You’re not my problem anymore.”
“You’re not getting me, Sera.” His turn to flash his teeth. His turn to try and do the convincing. “I miss you, Matty misses you.” Bastard, bringing up the kid. “I want you back in my life. I need you back in my life.” He rubs at his head. He’s let his hair grow out, it hardly even resembles a crew-cut anymore, and I find myself loving it.
Traitor body, traitor brain. Stay focused.
“Well, I don’t want you back in mine, alright?” Goddamn it all to hell that was fucking hard to say. Like Harry Potter dropping the resurrection stone in the Forbidden Forest hard. Because I do, I want him back in my life. Making me smile, making me laugh, taking care of Matty, watching him grow up. I want all of that.
But I’m not going to settle for anything less than perfect. And Hunter is not perfect – he said so himself.
He gets close across the table, grabbing my hands before I can yank them back. Oh God, he’s touching my skin, interlocking our fingers together and damn if my dumb fingers don’t want to let go, winding themselves into his grip. I look down at our hands, and watch him put his forehead down to the pair of them, almost like he’s praying.
I look around, embarrassed, confused, searching for Katie. She has her back to me, clapping as Alex and Eli do dancing tricks until the crowd rewards them with shots. She’s not even doing proper surveillance. I mean, what’s the point?
“What... what are you doing? Hunter? Hunt?” I ask, trying to yank my hands back, trying to get away from this. I don’t think I can watch him break down, my brave, strong Hunter who isn’t mine anymore.
He looks up at me, eyes bright, teeth clenched together. “I swear on my sister’s life that nothing happened with Aly that night. I swear I didn’t do anything. I fucking swear.”
I can’t swallow past the lump in my throat. God, he just swore on his sister’s life – that has to mean something, right? Please let that mean something. I just watch him, hulking shoulders blocking out a nice-sized portion of the table. I don’t know if I can talk. And I don’t even know if I’m being played again.