On The Rocks

And fuck if this high road doesn’t feel good.

Hunter pushes the covers down so he can pull my body in closer to his, and the heat emanating off him burns through my clothes. He snuggles in deep, pulling my face into the crook of his neck, and wrapping both arms and legs around me.

“You feel good,” he murmurs sleepily, squeezing me tight.

“And you smell good,” he adds as he takes a deep sniff of my hair.

One of his hands drifts down my back and over my butt, grasping me tightly there.

“I bet you taste fucking divine, too,” he says, his voice now a little less groggy and a whole lot more alert.

Giggling, I hug him tight. “Bad man, and while I’d love to let you find out exactly how I taste, I don’t have time. I just wanted to drop off some donuts for you, John, and Sasha, and give you a good morning kiss before I started work.”

He makes a sound of disgruntlement deep in his throat, but then he pulls away slightly to grin at me. “You sure you don’t have like five minutes to spare? No, wait… ten minutes to spare?”

Pushing out of his hold, I swing my legs off the bed. “Sorry, babe. Duty calls.”

When I turn back to look at him, my breath catches in my lungs. He’s beautiful… lying on his back with his hands propped behind his head. His smile is magnificent, showing me all the kind and lovely things I know to be deep inside this man. He looks so happy, and that makes me happy.

Leaning over, I sweep the hair off his forehead and give him a kiss. “See you later.”

“Love you,” he says as he turns over in bed to go back to sleep.

“Love you, too.”

I tiptoe back through the house, because I assume John is still sleeping, and I pray that I don’t run back into Sasha. The coast seems clear, and I literally trot down the stairs high on life.

But when I get to my truck, I come to a dead stop because I see her standing there. She’s still in her robe and leaning up against the passenger door. Gone is the smug look on her face, and rather, I see an interesting array of confusion and earnestness.

“You didn’t tell Hunter what I did,” she says matter-of-factly. “How come?”

I walk up to stand before her. “Because it was unnecessary. I didn’t believe you, and I didn’t want to get Hunter upset.”

She appraises me a moment and, for the first time, I don’t feel like she’s looking at me like a bug that she wants to crush. Instead, her face gets softer and her voice is genuine when she says, “I misjudged you.”

“I think so,” I tell her. “I’m just not sure what you hoped to accomplish by that. You had to have known you might have driven me away if that little scheme had worked, but there’s no way Hunter would have ever taken you back. Not after what you did.”

Sasha gives me a sad smile. “Gabby… I didn’t do that to get Hunter back. I did it only to push you away.”

I blink at her, stunned by her words. “Why? I don’t understand.”

Gabby looks up at Hunter’s house, a wispy smile on her face, and then turns back to me. “I care for him a great deal. I may not have shown it all that well, and I screwed things up with him when I demanded he leave the tour to be with me. I know that, and I accept that. And while I may have misjudged you, I have never misjudged Hunter. I see how in love with you he is. So I’ve known from the get-go that Hunter would never go back on the Tour. There was no way he was going to leave you.”

“You tried to drive me out so Hunter would go back on Tour? I still don’t get it… what do you stand to gain?”

“Nothing. I’d gain nothing, but Hunter would gain everything. And I still care for him. Always will. I don’t want to see this opportunity slip past him, and while John is too laid back to push Hunter one way or the other, I’m not.”