King of the Friend Zone (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Pratt, Sheralyn

  He’d always loved that about Esme—her ability to look everyone in the eye and talk straight. Sure her dimpled chin, curvy body, and sapphire eyes didn’t do anything to harm his affection, but it was her spirit that had always held him captive. Her clear gaze that seemed to see all; her inability to tell a lie; and, yeah, it didn’t hurt that he found her incredibly beautiful, either. Looks never hurt, but Hunter liked to think that his feelings would stay the same no matter what Esme looked like.

  “Your love is true,” Miss Pearl said softly. “Hers is, too. So what is it you fear, Hunter?”

  Fear. Hunter didn’t want to admit that fear was driving him, but the cookie lady had nailed it.

  He was terrified.

  “She’s my north,” he confessed. “Always has been.”

  “Do you think running away from her will change that?”

  “No,” Hunter breathed. “But she walked away so easily last time.”

  He felt Miss Pearl’s wise eyes studying him. “How do you know it was easy for her?”

  “Hunter!” a female voice called out from the complex and Hunter looked up to see Shauna running his direction, tears streaming down her face.

  “Give me a sec,” he said to Miss Pearl only to find himself alone. Miss Pearl was nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t have time to process that since Shauna was only a few steps away and closing in fast. Hunter stepped all the way up to the yellow tape and caught Shauna when she threw herself against his chest. He did his best to catch her while still keeping the cookies safe.

  Looking over his shoulder, he motioned to Kenny where he stood in the background. If Shauna was handing out hugs, the kid definitely deserved one.

  “Thank you,” Shauna sobbed. “Thank you so much!”

  “Don’t thank me,” Hunter said, squeezing her back. “Kenny was your guardian angel tonight. He’s the one who let me know you were in trouble.”

  She grew still against him. “How?”

  “Don’t worry,” Hunter said, pulling away. “After what Aaron did at the gym, he did some digging. He was looking out for you.”

  Apparently, that was enough of an explanation because when Kenny walked up behind Hunter, Shauna released him, ducked under the yellow tape, and grabbed the teen.

  “Thank you so much, Kenny,” she said fiercely as she wrapped him in a hug.

  “Whatever,” the kid said as if he hadn’t spent the last hour fighting to get Shauna the help she needed.

  Shauna put some distance between them while keeping her hands on his shoulders. “You saved my life,” she said, looking him right in the eye. “Do you understand that?”

  To Hunter’s surprise, Kenny teared up before trying for nonchalance again. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Because of you,” she repeated, then pulled him into another hug. “I’m alive right now because of you.”

  This time the kid hugged her back, a tear slipping out as he held onto his social worker. Hunter did the kid the favor of pretending not to notice that his eyes were leaking.

  “Miss Weekes,” Flynn said, coming up behind her. “We’re going to want to take you to the station and talk to you, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course,” Shauna said, dabbing at her eyes and pulling away from her hug with Kenny. Squeezing his shoulder, she stepped away. “I mean it, Kenny. Thank you.”

  Then Flynn led her away to where Esme stood.

  Next to him, Kenny wiped the tears from his face and straightened. “Thanks for believing me,” he said, keeping his eyes straight forward.

  “Trust is earned,” Hunter replied.

  The kid nodded. “So is the part where I get in trouble now?”

  Hunter considered that before placing his hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “This is the part where maybe we bend the rules a bit.” He pointed Esme’s way. “Talk to Esme in private before you give your statement to the police. The police need to talk to you, but there’s such a thing as the Fifth Amendment. You can tell them all the stuff that helps them close this case without incriminating yourself, so talk to Esme before you talk to them. If she tells you not to say something, don’t say it. Understand?”

  Kenny nodded. “Got it.”

  “She’s not a lawyer, but she deals with them every day. She knows what needs to be said and what doesn’t. She’ll guide you right and keep you out of cuffs. Listen to her.”

  “I will. I trust her,” Kenny said before walking toward Flynn.

  Kenny trusted someone? That was news. And when Hunter glanced back over to watch Esme as she spoke with Shauna and Flynn, Hunter couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride. Apparently, there was no limit to the number of miracles Esme Taylor could pull off in one night.

  Get Flynn to let you talk to Kenny privately before he gives his statement, Hunter texted her as he walked back to his truck to help clear the scene.

  Chapter 58

  Esme opened her Uber app as she exited to the lobby of the police department. She’d arrived around 8:30 p.m. and it was now after midnight.

  She felt like a flag after a wind storm and could only hope she didn’t look it. Not that it really mattered. The station was mostly empty and only an Uber driver would be seeing her before she made it home and fell into bed. It would feel good to pass out and leave this day behind her.

  Talk about life happening while you were making other plans. Esme didn’t regret a single thing that had happened that night, but she hadn’t really seen any of it coming either. The past five hours had been a total blindside. She’d started out thinking that Miss Pearl had planted the red herring of an idea that she and Hunter were supposed to connect two friends only to get her and Hunter in the same space long enough for them to realize “the couple” was really them all along.

  Instead, they’d saved a life and Esme was still alone.

  No love connections tonight.

  The next time Esme saw Miss Pearl, she’d have to remind her that her crystal ball might be due for a little polish. Or not. If given the choice between saving a life and making a love match that night—even her own—Esme definitely would have chosen saving a life. And there was no one she would have rather spent the evening with than Hunter.

  There might not have been a remotely romantic moment all night—unless you counted the full-body hug Shauna laid out on Hunter the moment she saw him—but the night had only affirmed to Esme something she had known all her life.

  She and Hunter were opposite sides of a coin. Together, they were seamless.

  Esme had worked through numerous crisis situations, but never so effortlessly and with such little miscommunication. Hunter knew her; she knew Hunter; and they both knew where to hang back and where to pick up slack. They trusted each other. They respected each other. They had each other’s backs.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d talked herself into the idea of what a successful marriage looked like—that it had a certain wardrobe or social calendar or dynamic. But after tonight, Hollywood could shove it, because there was only one man for her and his name wasn’t Prince Charming. It was Hunter Chase. And she was about to turn his life upside down until he was down on his knees begging for her.

  But first, sleep. So much sleep. She’d only had a two-hour nap in the last forty hours and she was feeling it. After she woke up, then she could plan her big speech to Hunter about how tonight only proved they were perfect for each other. She’d tell him how much it meant to her that through everything they’d been through that night, it hadn’t occurred to her to be afraid. Not when Hunter was there. She couldn’t have felt safer or more supported, and that’s how it had always been when they were together.

  Hunter watched her blind side. Always. And he did it without ever making her feel embarrassed or ashamed.

  Jon would have never trusted her like Hunter had tonight. He wouldn’t have handed over the phone when she asked. He wouldn’t have driven to the crime scene if he thought it was a bad idea. He wouldn’t have spoken to the officers at the scene and introd
uced her as a trained asset. And he wouldn’t have stepped in between Esme and an approaching teenager in the dark and demanded that the teen treat her with respect.

  Jon was a good man. There was nothing wrong with him, but he wasn’t the love of her life. Hunter was. And she’d broken his heart. Worse than that, she’d broken Hunter’s trust and she had no idea how to undo that. She really didn’t. All she knew was that she would give pretty much anything for a shot to earn it all back.

  Tomorrow. She’d have to take another sick day, but it needed to happen tomorrow. Hunter had to know she was all in and ready to move at whatever pace he chose.

  Her heels clicked on the tile of the station lobby as the Uber app informed her that prices were at a premium due to the low amount of drivers out. That was no problem; she cared more about the fact that the nearest driver was fourteen minutes away. She honestly didn’t know whether she could stay awake that long.

  “Need a ride?” a familiar voice asked from off to her right, stopping Esme in her tracks.

  A glance to the side revealed Hunter leaning against the lobby wall like he owned it, hands tucked in his pockets and feet crossed at the ankles. He had to have been standing for hours, yet he looked as if he’d only been waiting for her a minute or two.

  Her eyes moved to the thick five o’clock shadow on his jaw, the only evidence that he’d been up for the past eighteen hours. There was no fatigue in his blue eyes and his hair still looked perfect. Unlike hers.

  Esme didn’t need a mirror to know that her makeup was a few hours past its prime and her hair was definitely going rogue. She had to look like a wilting flower, and knowing that made her shift uncomfortably. If she had known Hunter was waiting for her, she would have stopped by the bathroom to freshen up.

  But she hadn’t known, so here they were; Hunter looking perfect, per usual, and her looking more like a used mop.

  “Hey,” she managed, stepping toward him while curbing the instinct to try a blind fix-up of her hair. “I thought you took off.”

  His eyes looked her over as if trying to gauge her mood. “I figured you’d need a ride back to your car.”

  Esme grew still. Was he calling a truce? “Well, that’s thoughtful.”

  He nodded, pushing away from the wall. “That’s probably one of the nicer adjectives used to describe me today.”

  “Ah, c’mon,” she said, stepping toward him. “You helped save a woman’s life tonight. Surely that earned you a few favorable adjectives from someone.”

  He appeared to consider that. “Stupid was definitely mentioned. Stubborn, too.”

  “Stubborn, definitely,” she said, stopping about three feet away from him. “Stupid, not so much.”

  He shrugged. “If it helps, it was a guy who called me stupid and a woman who called me stubborn.”

  Esme couldn’t help but smile. “Well, that explains that, then. The woman nailed it; the guy whiffed it. Such is life.”

  There was an awkward silence as Esme considered the distance between them. Three feet—not close enough that she could reach out and touch him, but if they both reached out at the same time…

  “You look exhausted,” Hunter said, hands still in his pockets.

  Esme managed a smile, once again kicking herself for not swinging by the bathroom before heading out. It might be gross and filled with fluorescent light, but it had a mirror. “Thanks.”

  “How about that ride?” he said, pulling out his keys. “You good to go?”

  She almost nodded, then stopped herself. There was something she needed more than a ride at the moment. “Hunter?”

  “Yeah.”

  She took a nervous breath, not quite meeting his eyes. “You were handing out hugs earlier. Think you’ve got one to spare?”

  To her relief, he nodded. “Yeah. I think I’ve still got one in the tank.”

  When Hunter’s arms opened wide in front of her, Esme didn’t hesitate. She stepped up and fell into him with a sigh. Her arms barely wrapped around him as she rested her face against the firm muscles of his chest and melted in. Everything about Hunter made her feel small and she loved it.

  When one of his hands moved up and down her back in a soothing gesture, a light sound escaped her throat and part of her relaxed even further.

  “You were amazing tonight, Esme,” he said over the top of her head. “You really were.”

  Her only response was to tighten the squeeze of her arms around him. For the moment, she was too content to talk. In no time at all, Hunter would pull away and they’d walk to his truck and this moment would be over. Now was a time to lean in and hold on. There was no telling when her next chance would be. Soon, if she had her way. But there was no guarantee.

  “Ez?”

  She felt his voice as much as she heard it, the deep rumble of it vibrating against her cheek through his chest. She kept leaning in. She kept holding on. “Yeah?”

  She felt him move to put distance between them and part of her broke. He was pulling away. Again. Resigning herself to his wishes, Esme stepped back and looked down at her Uber app.

  “Look, thanks for waiting, but—”

  Her words were stopped when a finger tilted her chin up and firm lips pressed against hers. Were it not for the scruff pressing lightly into her upper lip, Esme might have thought she was imagining the kiss, but no, framing the softness of his lips was a definite non-fantasy scratch.

  There was too much to take in at once, all of it jumbling together in her mind as her feet tripped forward in an effort to press back in to regain the contact she’d had when they were hugging. She pushed higher onto her aching toes and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck in an effort to get even closer.

  This. Esme didn’t even have words to describe the swirl of fatigue and relief and exhaustion and elation flashing through her, but she knew she was holding onto the one person in the world who could effortlessly watch over her as she rode it all out. No matter what she was feeling, these were the only arms she trusted more than her own to make things right again.

  And his mouth…not to be picky, but did he have to be so gentle? Did the touch of his hands on her waist have to be so light? She’d kind of had a rough few hours, and feather-light wasn’t cutting it for her.

  Still, there was something breathtaking about the tenderness underneath his touch.

  Over the years she’d imagined kissing Hunter countless times, but never once had she imagined his touch would be so gentle. Hunter was many things in her mind, but soothing wasn’t one of them. She’d always imagined him to be a bit more commanding—sweeping her off her feet. Literally.

  Not once had she ever imagined a scenario where he waited four hours for her in a police station only to turn the most needed of hugs into the softest of kisses. Nor had she imagined the simple contact would have her feeling each heartbeat up her throat and out the top of her head. And she’d definitely never imagined that she would be the overzealous and grabby one. Yet here they were—Hunter the model of propriety while Esme gripped onto the front of his shirt with one hand and tangled her other hand into his hair to make sure her hands didn’t wander anywhere he wasn’t ready for.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  She needed the hands at her waist to wrap around her and pull her close. She needed his head to dip down about a half an inch and make her forget her own name. She needed to feel that this new way of touching between them meant as much to him as it did to her, which was why she had to put a stop to it and look at him.

  It took pretty much everything she had in her to pull away, but she managed to pull back far enough to look Hunter in the eyes. “What was that?”

  No part of him flinched away or pulled back, even as she felt his hands start to shake at her waist before one hand came up and his thumb traced along her jaw. “That was for not choosing Jon.”

  Esme’s heart double-timed at his words, then triple-timed when he stepped in so they were almost touching. She knew she should say something, but her mo
uth suddenly felt very uncooperative.

  “I couldn’t choose him,” she finally managed. “I belong with you.”

  Few words ever felt better leaving Esme’s lips and she was so grateful she’d chosen to say them while looking right into Hunter’s eyes so she could see that her words were both received and believed.

  “I don’t remember a day in my life when my heart wasn’t yours,” he said softly.

  It wasn’t until Esme felt the scratch of five o’clock shadow on her chin that she realized she had surged up onto her toes to connect their lips again. Her kiss proved to be far less delicate than Hunter’s had been, causing him to take a few steps back to balance the two of them before they hit the wall.

  She didn’t mean to let a few tears sneak out as she urged him into a deeper kiss, but they came out anyway. Esme ignored them and focused instead on the tickle of his scruff against her palms as his hands moved around her waist and up her back to pull her close.

  Esme was putting everything she’d never said into the kiss and Hunter was right there with her, arms wrapping around her as she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him down to her. Hard.

  This, was all she could think. Yes. This.

  Her toes barely touched the ground as she stood weightless in his hold. This time his mouth felt like she’d always expected—or rather, hoped—it would. And her name? Well, she’d figure that out some other time because the only thing that mattered at the moment was sinking deeper.

  “Are you two lost?” a voice asked off to her right. “Need someone to point you the direction of home?”

  She saw the world through a fog when Hunter pulled away. It wasn’t until she looked toward the sound of the voice and saw Officer Flynn that she remembered they were standing in the middle of the police station’s lobby.

  Whoops. Maybe not the best place to make out.

  “Hey, Flynn,” Hunter said, still holding her close.