All I Want is You

by Cassie Cross

  Alexa looks between me and Hunter, and she’s standing close enough that I can hear the quiet “oh” when she says it.

  “I’m just gonna go inside,” she says, hooking her thumbs in the direction of the door.

  “Okay,” I reply. She grins and then walks away.

  Hunter watches her go, and when the front door closes, he says, “I’m glad you have a friend like her.”

  I haven’t known Hunter long, but something about the sentiment touches me in a way that’s unexpected.

  “She’s the best kind of friend to have. I hope you have one like her, too.” After seeing how stressful his job must be and how much he looks out for other people, I want him to have someone he can decompress with.

  Hunter starts to say something but catches himself. He moves a couple steps closer to me instead, so close I have to tilt my head to see him.

  “Hayley,” he whispers, his eyes full of something that makes him even more gorgeous than usual, which is a feat. He takes my hands in his, and I let out a soft sigh at the feel of his warm skin against mine. “I’m sorry for the circumstances under which it happened, but I’m so glad I met you. Spending time with you was…a pleasure.” He slides the pad of his thumb across my knuckles as he says it, sending an electric shiver up my spine that fizzles out into my fingertips.

  I want to push up on the tips of my toes and kiss him, just one more time. Grab on to his shirt and pull him close and not let go until I’m ready.

  But I don’t do any of that.

  “Goodbye, Hayley,” he says, bringing the back of my right hand to his lips.

  I’m completely transfixed by him, unable to move, until a car horn blares somewhere down the street and makes me snap out of it.

  “Bye,” I whisper.

  I step away from him, grab the duffel, and turn to go inside. I don’t look back, but I feel Hunter’s gaze on me as I walk away.

  When I open my apartment door, Alexa’s standing at the window. Watching Hunter drive away, I’m guessing.

  “Want me to tell you which street he turned down? It might give us a clue about—”

  “I don’t want to know,” I tell her. If I start thinking about where he lives, then I’ll do something with the phone number that’s burning a hole in my pocket.

  She nods, facing me after she tucks the curtain back into place. “How are you really?”

  I drop the bag on the floor and shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “Is it about what happened at the club?”

  “No,” I tell her right away. “I don’t know. I think I’m okay? I’m not scared to be here, even though I thought I would be. I feel…fine.”

  “That’s good,” Alexa assures me with a smile.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry that you got dragged into this. If you’d gotten hurt, I—”

  “Hey, hey,” she says soothingly as she walks over and hugs me. “I’m fine. I got an excuse to spend the weekend at home with a hot guy—total ten—cooking me breakfast. No one got hurt, and you’re here safe. What more could I ask for?”

  “Carson’s in rehab,” I tell her. She hates his guts, but I tell her anyway.

  “Jesse told me. I…might’ve ranted about Carson a little.”

  I laugh. Alexa’s little is a lot.

  “Do you want to talk about what I saw down there?”

  I take a deep breath. I could tell that there was more to her time with Jesse than she let on, of course she’d catch on to this. I shake my head. I don’t even want to think about what she saw down there. It’s a lot, it feels…important, and I’m scared to get her take on things. Because she’d encourage me to go for it, or to leave it alone? I have no idea.

  “Okay,” she murmurs. “How ’bout I pick the wine, and you pick the movie?”

  Sounds like a plan to me.

  I lie awake the first night I’m home, mostly because Alexa and I stay up really late. Wine tends to keep me up all night, and I drank a lot of it. Plus, there’s a part of me that’s scared that if I go to sleep I’ll have another nightmare, and there isn’t anyone next to me who’ll be able to pull me out of it.

  Alexa is sleeping on my couch—she insisted—and it’s nicer than being here alone. Even though I lie in bed willing it to come, sleep is elusive.

  It’s better when I get back into my routine. I take the Metro to work like I always do, and my coworkers are gathered around talking about the draft party for this year’s fantasy football league. They ask me how my holiday was, and I spin a tale about taking a trip to the beach with some college friends who were in town.

  No one suspects that this weekend my whole world was turned upside down.

  Alexa keeps tabs on me from a respectable distance, doing her best to make sure I’m not alone if I don’t want to be. She invites me out to dinner every night, and I go, but on the fourth night I tell her that she doesn’t have to worry about me. That I think the sooner life goes back to normal, the better off I’ll be. She seems skeptical, but agrees.

  My nights are mainly nightmare-free, even though I’m still not sleeping well. I have a lot on my mind. The first major challenge I have is when a car backfires outside my window, and I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding its way through my ribcage. I think about calling Hunter as I sit on the edge of my bed, counting my breaths, trying to calm down. I’ve been through a lot. Even though everything turned out okay, it would be nice to have someone tell me that I’m not being ridiculous when my pulse picks up if someone in a crowd looks at me too long, or when the rush-hour crowds on the train make me feel uneasy because I don’t have an escape route to get out of there if I need to.

  I know I can tell Alexa, but I don’t want her to feel like she has to babysit me. I just want some reassurance, and I know Hunter could give that to me.

  I start getting off the Metro a few stops before my usual one on my way home from work, exploring the city I haven’t taken the time to get to know since I moved here. My bed doesn’t hold the same allure that it used to, and I can’t find anything I’m interested in watching on Netflix. I go out for walks in the evening, passing through the small boutiques nearby. I stay on busy roads and near crowds. I’m doing all right.

  It isn’t until I walk down the street that the club is on that I let myself think about the night we first met, how much I loved the smell of his jacket, the warmth of his body by my side. I’m tired of pretending like there wasn’t something there between us, like I’m not desperate to have it again.

  Truth is, I’m lonely.

  If I’m honest with myself, I have been for a long time. I crave companionship, someone to hold me when I lie in bed at night, someone to listen to me when I need to vent. That’s not something that I can find with a one-night stand. I’d been foolish trying to convince myself that I don’t want or need it. Alexa teased me about my produce-section fantasy man, but I think maybe he’s a reality.

  And I have his phone number at home in my bedroom.

  That night, when I’m home, I slide the duffel bag across the room from the corner I’d stashed it in and plop on the edge of my bed.

  I unzip it, hoping that maybe the clothes still smell like him. Pathetic, I know.

  The first thing I see is Hunter’s leather jacket, folded-up neatly on top of the stack. It’s the one he put over my shoulders that Friday night that seems so long ago. I slide it on and press my nose into the collar, breathing in deep.

  Exhausted and warm, I crawl up and collapse on top of my pillows, exhaustion finally pulling me under into a deep, deep sleep.

  I wake up to the soft scratch of fingernails soothingly sliding across my scalp. For a second, I think I might be stuck in a dream, but my dreams have never quite managed to capture the smell of freshly brewed coffee. No, this is happening, and I am awake, and someone is making coffee in my apartment.

  My eyes open to Alexa sitting on the edge of my bed, giving me a fond smile as she brushes my hair away from my face. Sunlight is streaming through my windows, and I c
an tell by the light in my room that I’ve slept much later than I usually do.

  I’m so groggy and confused that I can’t think of anything to say to her other than… “What?”

  “We were supposed to have our normal Friday dinner last night,” she says, her voice calm and low. “You said you wanted to go back to normal, and that was our normal. When I didn’t hear from you, I got worried, and you weren’t answering your phone. I got in late last night, but you were dead to the world, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you up. I know you haven’t been sleeping very well.”

  I rub my eyes, pushing the sleep away. “I’m sorry I scared you,” I tell her. “I completely forgot.”

  “I figured,” she replies with a soft laugh. With a weak tug at the collar of Hunter’s jacket—which I’m still wearing—she asks, “Wanna talk about this?”

  I look at her for a long while, at odds with myself. “I miss him,” I admit. “Isn’t that weird? I knew him for a grand total of two days, but…it felt like he was supposed to be a part of my life.” I shake my head at myself, because I know this sounds totally nuts. “I always get so worried about getting wrapped up in another guy like I got wrapped up in Carson. I don’t trust how I feel, I worry about ignoring warning signs because everything feels so good. That smitten stupidity. But it’s not going away now, and…” I shrug. “I just miss him.”

  Alexa grins, her eyes bright. “It’s not nuts,” she replies. “It happens. You felt a connection with the guy, and if it’s not going away maybe that’s fate trying to tell you something.”

  Playfully, I roll my eyes. “You know I don’t believe in fate.”

  She purses her lips together, looking a little exasperated with me. It’s good natured, though. “Fine,” she says with a dramatic wave. “It’s your heart, your mind, your whatever trying to tell you something. If it was just hormones or smitten stupidity, it would’ve passed in the past couple weeks.”

  She’s right, I know she’s right. “So what do I do?”

  Alexa takes a deep breath. “You’re going to have to decide if taking a chance on him is worth it. You don’t have to get married tomorrow.” She laughs when I tense up. “But you can get to know him, go on some dates. Take it slow. If it’s not right, then you move on, but at least you’ll know instead of always wondering.”

  I don’t want to live with that regret. “He would’ve taken a bullet for me,” I tell her. “There isn’t any part of me that thinks he could possibly be a bad guy.”

  “Then I think you have your answer.”

  12

  Hunter

  The days are long.

  I throw myself into my work, thinking if I can get into some kind of a groove, I can distract myself from the fact that Hayley hasn’t called. I expected a wait, but I hadn’t expected more than a few days’ wait. Every evening I pick up my cell phone and think about calling her. Every evening I decide against it.

  After what happened with Carson, she has commitment issues. I understand that, and I’m dealing. The last thing I want to do is pressure her, because if there’s a chance at all for anything between us, I have to be able to give her some space.

  I’m trying.

  A week after I dropped her off at her apartment, I take a cab to Union Station and head up to New York City. I’ve been looking to expand the business into another major market, and I set up meetings with a few potential stakeholders. Everything goes well.

  I meet a few college friends for beers at a trendy microbrewery in Brooklyn. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, and we sit around shooting the shit, catching up on each other’s lives. My buddy Jake’s getting married, and our friend Kyle’s gonna propose next week. I update them on the state of my business, and when they ask if there’s anyone special, I tell them I’m not looking. It’s a lie—there is someone special—but telling them that she isn’t interested in talking to me only invites more questions.

  We hit up a Yankees game before I come home on the early train the next morning. The morning air is brisk, so I tell the cab driver to let me out early and I’ll walk the rest of the way. He pulls over, and I sling my bag over my shoulder. I make a stop at my favorite local cafe for an egg sandwich and a fresh cup of coffee to help wake me up.

  Coffee in hand, I step out onto the sidewalk and catch sight of Hayley crossing the street. My breath catches. Do I run over and talk to her? She looks in my direction, and for a second I think she sees me, but the rush-hour crowd is heavy, and she keeps on walking.

  We only live three blocks away from each other, something I never told her.

  As I make my way to the office, I wonder how many times I passed her just like this before I knew who she was. How many times I’ve passed her since.

  I walk by Hayley’s building often when I run my day-to-day errands. I turn right down her street to get to the local market. Turn left to get my dry cleaning.

  I never run into her.

  Two weeks in and still no call.

  It doesn’t go unnoticed at work that I’ve been on edge lately, that I’ve got a lot on my mind. I’m distracted, distant. Sometimes I snap even though I don’t mean to.

  One of my guys—Jesse—catches me in a particularly bad mood after a rough meeting with a potential client.

  “Wanna go punch it out?” he asks.

  Sparring sounds good; it’ll give me a physical outlet to work out some of this frustration I’ve been carrying around with me.

  “You sure? I put you on your ass three times the last time we sparred.”

  He replies with a cocky smile I want to knock off his face. “I’m sure. I’ve been planning my revenge. Meet you on the mats in twenty?”

  I nod. “I’ll be there.”

  Jesse kicks my ass.

  He throws me off my game from the get-go, able to get in a few easy punches and a couple of kicks to my side. He clips me on the side of my chin, then sends me down on the mat with a leg sweep that I never saw coming.

  That’s when he calls a stop to things.

  “Are you firing me or something?” he asks, tossing a towel in my direction.

  I sit up, rest my elbows on my knees, and wipe the sweat off my face. “What?”

  “Are you firing me? Is that why you’re letting me kick your ass? You’re off your game, and this seems like a pity fight. That’s not you, so is this compensation for letting me go or something? What’s going on?”

  I sigh, running the towel along the back of my neck. “Nothing’s going on.” We’re friends, I suppose, but he’s not the guy I’d spill my guts to.

  “Did something happen on the Grey case?”

  I train my guys to be perceptive, but I don’t enjoy that perceptiveness being turned around on me.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “No offense,” Jesse says, looking over at me as he lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the floor. “But you’ve been hell to work for ever since then. I know you’re close to the guy who caused her some trouble, but I thought he was in rehab? That’s what Davis said, at least. Is that not going well or what?”

  “It’s not him,” I say, tossing my towel on the floor.

  “Then what…oh.”

  I don’t even want to look at him; I hate that this is so easy to read on me.

  “Yeah, oh.”

  “You gonna do something about it?”

  “Date a client?” I say, testing the waters. We have a rule about dating clients; all my employees signed contracts stating they wouldn’t. She’s not my client anymore, but it’ll be good to get a feel from Jesse for how the situation would go over with my employees. Provided I can ever get Hayley to call me.

  Jesse rolls his eyes. “She’s not your client anymore. No one here would bust your balls over it.”

  Good to know.

  “I’m not sure she wants me to,” I admit. Probably more than I should be telling him, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to have someone to talk to about this.

  “I’ve wo
rked with you long enough to know that you wouldn’t be holding on to it if you didn’t think there was something there. You’re pretty good at cutting your losses.”

  “Yeah.” He’s right about that; I have a great feel for business and can tell right away when a situation isn’t going to pan out the way I want it to. I’m not sure how well that ability transfers over to relationships, though.

  “Alexa was pretty broken up over the whole thing,” he tells me.

  “Alexa?”

  Jesse’s eyebrows knit together. “Her friend?”

  Oh shit. Yes, Alexa. “Right, right.”

  “She blamed herself for the whole thing, and got to talking. One thing she told me was that she thought Hayley was lonely but afraid to do anything about it because of everything that had happened to her. So keep that in mind,” he says as he stands up. He walks over to the towel rack and grabs one for himself.

  “Sometimes clients stick with you,” he says, slinging his towel over his shoulder with a smile. “They stick. You should probably do something about it.”

  I hate to admit it, but he’s right.

  On my way home from the office, I stop by Hayley’s apartment. I knock on the door and wait for a couple of minutes, but there’s no answer. I consider waiting for her, but I don’t want to be that guy; I think that might scare her off.

  I take the steps down to the lobby and catch her walking past as I open the stairwell door. Without thinking, I reach out for her, sliding my hand along the inside of her arm.

  She hauls off and punches me, putting her whole body into it. Pain blooms across my cheek, radiating out through my eye socket.

  “Oh my god, Hunter!” she says with wide, panicked eyes. She reaches up and touches my face tenderly. “I’m so sorry, oh my god, I felt you touch me and I just reacted.”

  “It was a great punch,” I tell her. “I taught you well.”