Never Been Kissed(40)
An agitated sound comes deep from his throat. Impatient. “I’m not with her. I stopped everything I had with her the day after the elevator. Especially when you were the one that took me to the hospital and she was nowhere to be found. When you were the one that had to take Matty home and watch him overnight.”
“I did what anyone would’ve done. I had to help you out. I mean, your mom coulda taken him home, too, but I was cool with it and-”
His hand is on my hand! It’s on my hand! Do I move it?
Jo. Harvelle. I am Jo Harvelle.
“Baby, you didn’t have to do any of that. You didn’t have to take Matty home with you, a stranger’s kid. If Aly was my girl like she really wanted to be, she’d have been there, not you.”
My heart’s beating even faster in my chest. I can feel it knocking on my ribs. My hands tremble as they rest on the tablecloth, one caught in Hunt’s grip. I don’t think I can eat anymore, and I really wanted to eat some more. His words make hope spring in my chest, a bright light that just needs a little bit of encouragement to glow. It’s going to hurt so much more when he crushes me to pieces.
“I also happened to find you leaning against the wall.” I pull my hand away slowly. “It could’ve been her who found you, not me.”
Hunter keeps eating, packing in the protein. “Should’ve been her. She was in my apartment when I told her I wasn’t feeling good and needed to get out in the hall for some extra space.”
The hallway is the tiniest part of the building. As always, my face does the talking for me. “I’m not rational when my sugar spikes. I can’t think properly or logically. I just want what I want. And I wanted to get out.”
I nod, pretending like I understand.
“How long were you waiting out there, in the hall?” I’ve curled my hands into fists, nails biting into my skin, the pain centering me. I bite down on my back molars and wait. And wait. And wait.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Say whaaaat? “Are you bloody kidding me?” I say through clenched teeth, pulling air through my nose. If I ever see this chick again, I’m going to stab her with a fork. In the eye. “You could have died out there! What if I hadn’t come up when I did? What the frak is that?” I snap, looking around our table, trying not to look at him. I don’t want him to stare at my face and see what’s there – I care what happens to him, more than I should. Bloody hell!
People around us are starting to eavesdrop. I guess when I threw out the D word, s’more like a glowing neon sign over our conversation for listen here!
When I look at Hunter, a supremely satisfied smile sits on his mug. It’s a good look on him, better than when Jane Foster saw Thor in his full Asgardian armour. Hunter would look stunning in armour.
“I’m sorry. I forgot that my volume control’s off.” I wrap my hands around the condensation of my cold glass of water. I let the coolness soothe me, as much as it can.
“How can someone do that? Just leave you out there?” Staring at my water, watching the ice float, flashes of memory hit my frontal lobe as I remember that day. I glare up at him, eyes wide, mouth open.“Oh my God, what about Matty? She was there when I yelled out for him? What the fuck was she doing, taking a dump?” I growl, like a crazed cat, swiping and hissing at any moving objects in its personal space. I want to punch something.
Hunter laughs. A full head thrown-back belly kinda laugh. I did that. Me, Sera Delos, fat ass, big thighs, awesome nerdy shirts. I did that! But he doesn’t answer, so I leave it, for now.
The conversation is easy and light as we finish our meals and I order a cup of coffee. There is no dessert for either of us.
I learned that besides his favourite movie being The Goonies he has a healthy respect for all Martin Scorsese movies. When he told me he never watched any British television, I swore that it would rock his world. His eyes got that ember look in them again, and I squirmed in my chair. No one has ever looked at me like that before.
“I still haven’t seen The Avengers.” Hunt says with a smile. I’m sputtering, choking on my coffee.
“That could be on par with never having seen Star Wars.” All Hunter does is raise his eyebrows, like oh, yeah? “No. No way. What is wrong with you?”
“I have a lot wrong with me, actually.”
I scowl, sticking my tongue out at him. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Well, looks like you’re going to be borrowing a lot of my DVDs. There are rules to be followed when it comes to my preciousses.” Gollum would be proud.
“Why don’t we watch them together?” Oh, smooth, Hunter MacLaine. Smooth. “Friends do that. They watch movies together. It happens,” he shrugs, but if I look closely, he looks like he has a lot riding on my answer.