I walked in without knocking and saw him sitting at a desk reading over a paper. And yeah, it was probably the worst time to think about it, but he looked hot as fuck. He was shirtless and his messy brown hair hung over the rim of his glasses.
“Are you seriously working right now?”
Hunter sighed, but otherwise ignored me. He wrote something on the page with a red pen before scanning over the next few lines.
I couldn’t help but smile.
He used to do that to me every time we were having an argument. We’d bicker and then he would grab a book or homework and try to tune me out. The longer he ignored me, the more annoying I became—poking him, tickling his sides, just anything to break through his aloof demeanor.
I had a feeling that wouldn’t work on him now. He was incredibly pissed at me.
“Hey, Mr. Walsh?” I asked in a phony innocence. He actually looked up at me with surprise, which almost made me laugh and break character. “About this C minus you gave me on my paper.” I approached his desk and sat on the edge of it, inches from his hand. “I was hoping we could talk and work something out.”
I ran my hand down his bicep.
“What the hell are you doing, Corbin?”
“If I don’t make at least a B, my GPA will drop and I’ll be kicked off the football team,” I continued, still with my hand on his arm. I turned more toward him and kicked up a foot on the other side of his chair, barricading him between my legs.
“Okay. Stop,” he said, grabbing my ankle and pushing it off the arm of the chair. “This isn’t some game and I’m not amused.”
“Are we going camping, professor?” I asked. “Because you’re pitching a tent.”
Hunter put his elbows on the desk and covered his face with his hands. At first, I couldn’t get a read on him, but when I saw the slight shaking of his body I knew he was trying his best to suppress a laugh. And failing.
I grinned and pushed the papers aside before scooting over and sitting in front of him. He looked up as I brought his chair closer and settled him back between my legs.
“You make it hard to stay mad at you,” Hunter admitted, shaking his head.
“I make it hard all right,” I said, waggling my brows.
He smiled, but it quickly faded. His brown eyes searched my face. “We can’t do this, Corbin. Not again.”
“Why?”
Hunter pushed back in the chair, escaping my hold, and stood up. He went over to the window and peered outside into the dark. “Because losing you once nearly killed me. I can’t lose you a second time.”
I stayed sitting on the desk, staring at him. “Not even an hour ago, you were begging me to fuck you, and now you don’t want anything to do with me. This back and forth shit is confusing the fuck outta me, Hunt.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
Something occurred to me. “Why did you reach out to me when I got drafted?”
“Because you were my best friend and I was proud of you,” he answered, not meeting my eyes. “Going pro is all you’ve ever wanted.”
“When I tried to talk to you more after that and gave you my number, you never called, texted, or gave me yours in return. You never got personal with any of our messages. Just small things before you stopped responding again. It’s like you cast a line out to me, but you refuse to reel it in.”
“So you’re a fish now?” he asked in a snarky tone. “Am I the fisherman?”
“Well you’ve baited me enough,” I shot back. “Drawing me in, just to throw me back into the water.”
He turned to me, crossing his arms. “Are you going to stay here after you get Bill’s will and everything settled?”
Shit.
“No,” I said through a tight jaw. “And it’s not really fair for you to be pissed at me for it. I have a life, you know.”
Hunter watched me. “You’re right. How shitty of me to think anything would be different this time.”
“No need to be a smartass,” I said, sliding off the desk and nearing him. “If you wanna blame anyone for what happened with us, why don’t you take a look in the damn mirror?” I didn’t want to lose my temper, but I was tired of him placing all the blame on me. “You’re the one who told me to stay at USC all those years ago. You dumped me. So stop this fucking bitchy attitude of yours and own up to the fact that this isn’t just my fault.”
We stared each other down, neither of us breaking eye contact.
“You should’ve known better, Corbin,” he said. “Out of all the times we talked about our future together, you should’ve known I didn’t mean it. But instead you believed it without hesitation.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked. “You’re pissed that I didn’t see through the lie? I’m not a psychic, Hunter! I can’t read your damn mind.”
“That just shows you didn’t really know me then,” he spouted back.
I was speechless. I looked into his eyes and didn’t see the boy I’d fallen in love with. The Hunter I loved was still in there somewhere, but a newer, more spiteful Hunter was at the forefront.
“I didn’t know you?” I asked, fighting back tears. “I know that when you’d tried to play a joke on me, you’d smile and give yourself away. You had to sleep by the wall at night because it made you feel safe. Sometimes you’d have trouble sleeping because you got into these mindsets where you obsessed over death and what happens when we die, so we’d stay up all night talking about anything and everything just to get your mind off it.” A tear escaped and ran down my cheek. “I know that when you were scared or needing to be comforted, you’d bury your face in my neck and hold my side. Just like you did earlier tonight.”
Hunter faced the window.
“I knew you better than I knew myself, Hunter.” My voice cracked on his name, and I hated the vulnerability I felt. “Which is why I believed you. You never lied to me about something important.”
I waited for what seemed like forever for him to say something, but he wouldn’t even look at me.
Needing distance from him, I turned and left the room.
He didn’t try to stop me. No calling after me or following me out into the hall like I’d done to him earlier. It told me a lot about how different we were: I was always the one chasing him. Never the other way around.
Well, not anymore.
I went to his bedroom and got dressed before finding my shoes and putting them on. After finding my coat, I went toward the front door. Before I walked out, I looked behind me and didn’t see Hunter anywhere. Not that I expected to see him there, but I guess a part of me had still hoped.
I didn’t know if I was more mad or upset, but whichever it was, I needed to be alone to work it all out.
Chapter 11
Hunter
No good came from living in the past. If you were constantly obsessing over things that had already happened, there was no moving forward from them. There was no changing what happened. Just a constant battle of what ifs and should haves that served no other purpose than to torture ourselves.
So why couldn’t I just let go of the past when it came to Corbin?
We were being given a second chance in a way, and I couldn’t embrace it. Because I couldn’t forgive him. I couldn’t trust him not to hurt me again.
Days had passed since I’d last spoken to him. He’d been angry—and rightfully so—when he’d stormed out of my house Wednesday night. I didn’t know why I’d behaved that way, and to say I was ashamed was an understatement. My irrational behavior had derived from many mixed emotions: anger and guilt at myself for not being honest with him seven years ago, anger at him for leaving in the first place and for also believing the lie so quickly.
I was angry at all the years we’d lost—time that we would’ve spent together had things taken a different turn. If we’d both made different decisions.
Usually, he would’ve tried calling or texting me by now. It was Saturday and still no word from him…not that I’d reached out to him either, thoug
h.
“Want me to top off your coffee, hun?” Martha, one of the waitresses at my parents’ diner, asked.
“Please,” I said, offering her a smile, even though I felt the farthest thing from happy.
I had stopped working there once I’d left for college, but I still went in there each weekend like clockwork to have breakfast. In fact, my whole life had become routine. I taught English Monday through Friday. Every evening, I graded papers and worked on the next week’s lesson plans. I hit the gym four days a week. On the weekend, I came into the diner and then went home afterward. Sometimes I’d go grocery shopping.
There was no spontaneity or mixing up my routine. My life was predictable. Boring.
Strangely enough, I hadn’t considered my life boring until Corbin came back into it and I saw a glimpse of what I was missing. Excitement. Love. That spark of something new that made me look forward to waking up every day.
But was experiencing that kind of excitement worth the pain that would follow? Because there would be pain…of the heartbreak variety.
Corbin had made it clear he had no intentions on staying, and I doubted a long distance thing would ever work out between us. Not with all the people—men and women—that were throwing themselves at him every chance they got.
And yeah, that was my other issue. Jealousy.
It was an awful trait to have, but I couldn’t control it. I hadn’t known I even had it until a few weeks ago. Mainly because the only serious relationship I’d ever had had been with Corbin. I’d dated guys since him, but I hadn’t cared enough about any of them to be bothered by infidelity or them getting bored and moving on.
When it’d just been me and Corbin back in the day, I hadn’t had to worry about whether he’d cheat on me or find someone more on his level. We’d been on an equal playing field so to speak. We’d had a direction in life, and our futures had been connected.
I felt insecure compared to him now. He was a huge football star and a freaking model and I was a high school English teacher from a small town in Arkansas. In no universe would that ever work.
The sooner Corbin left Willow, the better in my opinion. Then we could both get back to our uncomplicated lives.
After I finished my food, I took my plate to the back of the restaurant and placed it in the sink. Mom was in the office, and I tapped on the door before walking in. I visited with her for a bit before Dad came in.
“Can you help out back?” he asked. His cheeks were pink from the cold and he was out of breath. “Jason didn’t show up today to help unload supplies and I can’t—”
“Dad, you don’t need to do that kind of work,” I said, standing up. What I didn’t say was that he didn’t need to over exert himself because he wasn’t in the best of health. He’d thrown out his back last year. “Sit down with mom and I’ll go finish up.”
Once outside, I finished unloading the truck before carrying the boxes into the storage room. Henry, one of the cooks, helped me sort out everything, and with both of us doing it, it didn’t take too long. It was busy work that kept my mind from wandering to topics it shouldn’t be wandering to.
However, when I finally got home, all I could think about was Corbin.
And since he’d been in my house, I couldn’t look at the kitchen table without remembering him sitting in the chair as he ate the meal I’d cooked for him. I couldn’t look at my bed without remembering him beneath me, staring up at me as I straddled his hips. I couldn’t even go into my home office without recalling how he’d try to seduce me on the desk with that crazy roleplaying thing.
I needed a night out—to break my routine and just let loose for once. Maybe it’d help me get him out of my head.
***
Later that night, I was at a bar in the bigger city about thirty minutes away and telling myself that I’d made a good decision…even though I felt the exact opposite. I was in my mid-twenties, but I felt like I was ancient compared to the crowd getting shitfaced around me.
Since when did I become an old man who couldn’t party? I’d done more partying in college that I cared to admit, yet I felt out of place.
Corbin would fit in here, I told myself as I saw three frat-type guys doing shots a few feet down the bar from me. Ugh. Stop. The point of this night is to forget about him.
“What are you having?” the bartender asked. She had short, spiky black hair, dark purple lipstick, and black liner fanning out from her eyes in sharp points.
“Do you have Angry Orchard?”
She chuckled before grabbing a bottle and popping the cap. “Didn’t take you for the hard cider type.”
“Yeah, I’m just full of surprises,” I said with indifference, handing her my card to pay.
“Ah, I know that look,” she said after swiping my card and returning it to me. She placed the Angry Orchard in front of me before leaning against the counter. “Girlfriend troubles.”
“Hate to be the one to break it to you, sweetheart, but you’re wrong again,” I pointed out with maybe just a bit too much bitch in my tone.
Surprisingly, she grinned. “So some dude has you sitting at my bar and being a bitter old Betty, huh?”
“You can say that,” I said, finally letting the façade slip and smiling a little. I scanned the room, seeing a large group of college-aged guys at a table in the center, drinking and being unreasonably obnoxious. A couple was dry humping each other in one dark corner of the room, and they were really going at it too. I rolled my eyes before turning back to her. “Does it ever get old playing shrink to all these drunkards?”
“Drunkards?” she asked, cocking a brow. “What, are you some bloke from the fifteen hundreds? No one says that. But since you brought it up, you’re kind of included in that category, sweetness.”
“I beg to differ,” I stated before taking a drink. The beer was both tart and sweet, and it’d been a while since I’d had one. I made a face at it before going in for another drink. “To be a drunkard, I’d have to be drunk.”
“Well you keep on sipping your little cider and you’ll get there eventually.”
“Are you mocking me?” I asked, setting the bottle down and arching a brow at her. “Isn’t the customer always right?”
“Not when said customer is acting like an ass. No.”
“Touché,” I said with a curt nod of my head. “I’m not always an asshole by the way. He just makes me crazy.”
The bartender walked a few feet away to grab the discarded shot glasses from earlier and placed them below the bar before coming back over to me. “And what did this guy do to get you to leave the comfort of your home—which I assume is full of books and probably fancy art and shit, Mr. Scholar—and come out drinking when you obviously don’t drink much?”
She was more perceptive than I’d given her credit for.
“Honestly?” I wrapped my hand around the bottle and fidgeted with it. “He didn’t do anything. All he’s tried to do is get close to me and make up for lost time. It’s me who’s the asshole in this equation. He makes me crazy because I’m in love with him, but I know it won’t ever work.”
“How do you know?” she asked before looking toward the end of the bar where that group of guys from earlier were now shoving each other around. “God dammit, hang on. Break it up, guys!”
She stood on her tip toes and motioned to the bouncer, who was quick to act.
Since it was a small bar, there was only one bouncer, but his size alone was a good way to ward off threats. The man was a beast. He easily broke up the fight, and tossed one guy aside, who was still trying to get to the other guy.
Both drunken men were screaming obscenities at each other, and by the sound of it, one guy had apparently fucked the other’s girlfriend or something. The group of them was kicked out, and I decided right then that I’d had enough of my night out and just wanted to go back home.
“Hey, Shakespeare,” the bartender called to me just as I slid off the stool. “Not sure what the deal is with your man, but not
hing is impossible. Before I opened this bar, I was told all the time—mostly by men—that a chick like me wouldn’t be able to run this kind of place. I proved them wrong. So don’t say it won’t ever work. If it’s meant to be, it’ll find a way. Fate is funny like that.”
“Thanks,” I said before walking out, leaving my barely touched beer behind.
Fate. The word nudged something inside of me.
Corbin and I used to talk a lot about fate. Just like how we’d often discussed classic literature, the symbolic meanings of certain plays and poems, football—of course—and happily ever after endings. In the late nights when I couldn’t sleep, we’d talked about the meaning of life, soulmates, and all of that weird shit that most people never actually said out loud.
No topic was off-limits for us, though.
He’d said it had been fate that it was my blue crayon he’d tried to grab when we were in kindergarten—the incident that had caused our first ever fight that then led to us being inseparable. I had said it’d been his only-child-syndrome that’d caused it, basically calling him spoiled.
And that had circled back around to him calling it fate.
Once I was home, I changed into my night pants and sat on the couch with a book. It was kind of late, but I wasn’t tired. When nights like those struck, I’d read for hours and try to mentally exhaust myself so I could sleep.
I didn’t suffer from full-blown insomnia, but there were times where it affected me worse than others. Sometimes it was hard to shut off my brain because I tended to obsess about things. Death being the main one; which way was the worst to die, how will the world end, and will I still be alive when it does? Even things that’d already happened and there was no changing them would haunt me, but for some infuriating reason, I still played the scenario out in my head over and over, trying to come up with different ways it could’ve ended.
“Sometimes you’d have trouble sleeping because you got into these mindsets where you obsessed over death and what happens when we die, so we’d stay up all night talking about anything and everything just to get your mind off it.”
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