On The Rocks

Speaking of awesome friends, I grab my truck keys off the pegboard on the kitchen wall and head for the front door. Time to get my Casey on.

I open my front door and immediately turn to my left to grab the mail out of our box, which is mounted on the wall. I lean into the foyer and throw it on the small table, content to look through it when I get back home. Pulling the door shut, I lock the deadbolt with my keys and then turn to walk down the stairs.

And I come face to face with Hunter.

He’s leaning back against the railing of the walkway, his arms folded over his chest. His hair is typically surfer-esque, sun streaked and windblown. His facial scruff is at the perfect length, not too scratchy and not too soft. His blue eyes are glinting as they look at me, but I can’t read the look on his perfectly tanned face.

He is utterly the most gorgeous man on the planet, and after I get over being blinded by his brilliance, it finally seeps into my addled brain that he’s standing here in front of me rather than sitting on a plane to Fiji.

“What are you doing here?” I ask in disbelief.

“We need to talk,” he answers simply.

“No, we don’t,” my brain automatically denies, thus pushing the words from my mouth.

“Yes, we do.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Gabby… give me the courtesy, please.”

Oh, fuck that shames me, and while I have no desire to talk to him, because I am completely out of sorts with the fact he’s standing here when I just had accepted the fact I’d never see him again, my shoulders sag and I nod my head in capitulation.

“In your apartment if you don’t mind,” he urges, nodding towards my door.

My heart starts hammering as I turn around and unlock the door, pushing my way inside. I hear Hunter follow me in and close it behind him.

Glancing around… I’m not sure where to go. Kitchen? Living room? Bedroom? Definitely not, because that’s not a place we’ll ever be in together again.

So I opt for the living room, walking to the center of the room and turning to look at him. It’s reminiscent of just two nights ago when I stood in his, telling him that we were over, and breaking both of our hearts in the process.

I carefully watch Hunter as he walks around the living room, casually looking around, one hand tucked in the pocket of his shorts. The silence is deafening, causing my anxiety to ratchet up a notch.

He reaches down to one of the end tables and picks up a small sandpiper figurine sitting there, examining it briefly before setting it down.

The waiting… wondering what he is doing here, is killing me, so I say, “Um… I’m on my way to meet Casey, so… uh… this isn’t a good time.”

“Casey’s not meeting you,” he says softly, picking up a small photo of Savannah and me that sits beside the sandpiper.

“She’s not?” I ask stupidly.

“No,” he says as he sets it back down. “She called you with that ruse to get your mopey ass out of bed, so I could talk to you.”

I blink at him… once, twice. “Mopey ass?”

“Yeah. Heard you’ve been locked in your room for two days, pining away for me.”

Okay, that is exactly what I’ve been doing, but the smug way he says it rubs me wrong.

“I have not been pining after you,” I assert, raising my chin up in the air.

He then turns to look at me, his face bland. “Do you think I’m stupid, Gabby?”

“What? No… I mean… that might be debatable right now,” I say, torn between confusion and anger. “Hunter… what in the hell are you doing here?”

In two steps, he’s standing in front of me, and the nearness of him nearly has me sobbing from the sensation. As he looks down at me, his eyes roam over my face as his fingertips come up to trace the outline of my jaw.

“You must think I’m stupid,” he says softly, “if you think I was going to fall for that line of horseshit you fed to me the other day.”

“Hunter—”

“Terrible lie you told me… about Sasha,” he murmurs, his fingers sifting through my hair to cup the back of my head.