“Hey, Char Char—are you going to answer my texts or are we gonna have to do this face-to-face?”
Hunter’s voice coming from my open window nearly gave me a heart attack. My bedroom was on the first floor and overlooked the twenty feet of plush grass between our house and the neighbor’s. I turned to see him leaning on the windowsill and wearing a teasing grin that caused my stomach to dip. Dropping my phone on the bed, I rushed over to push up the screen.
“What are you doing here?” I knelt on the carpet and leaned my elbows on the sill in front of him so we were at the same level.
His hazel eyes searched my face as he tilted his head to one side and then ran a tongue over his lips. “I wanted to say sorry for earlier. I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was being a total jerk. Forgive me?”
I chewed on my bottom lip and watched the sorrow reflect in his eyes. This was one of the reasons why Hunter and I would always be friends. We owned up to those few moments we made mistakes and we never let our anger get in the way. He might have come back from Texas as this super-hot bull riding machine, but he was still the same guy.
“It’s fine,” I said with a quirk of my lips. “I already forgave you hours ago. But thank you for admitting to the jerk part. That was a rare Hunter McNally moment.”
He winced and raked a hand through his messy hair. “Yeah, that wasn’t cool. If I ever start talking like Steven again, please slap me. Hard.”
I nodded. Bree’s ex-fiancé, Steven, wasn’t exactly an easy guy to get along with. And Hunter hadn’t liked to talk about him much. I’d just assumed things were awkward between the two of them. When Steven had moved into the house, we’d spent less and less time hanging out at Hunter’s and more time at mine. I’d never thought about it much until now. Guess he was a bigger jerk than I’d realized.
“So, how’s your mom doing with the break-up?” I asked, tracing the woodgrain of the windowsill with my index finger.
Hunter’s gaze followed the slow journey of my finger as he sucked in his cheeks. “She’s doing better. The time away in Texas helped.”
“He wasn’t exactly my favorite person, but I never did understand why they broke up. Did she get cold feet?”
I didn’t miss the slight hardening of the lines around his mouth. “No. She was ready to get married.”
“Did he...cheat on her?”
My voice was hushed and as I waited for an answer I kept my gaze glued on the path I was making along the wood. The mere suggestion of cheating felt like a betrayal to Bree. Honestly, I couldn’t understand why anyone would do that to someone as amazing as her, but then again, I didn’t really understand most guys.
“No, no cheating.”
He cleared this throat and then gently placed his hand on mine, halting my progress. Everywhere he touched tingled along my skin. I looked up to see him staring at me, dark emotions swirling in his eyes. It seemed like he wanted to say something else but didn’t know how. He parted his lips slightly, then winced, and shut them again.
“Steven just wasn’t a very nice guy,” he said, slipping his hand off of mine and staring down at my motionless finger.
It felt like there was a lot left unsaid during the heavy silence that fell between us. Maybe I could’ve pushed him to talk to me, but Hunter liked to work things through in his own head before anyone could force him to spill. I had to be patient, if I was going to hear more of that story.
“Do you want to come in?” I nodded toward my room and the vintage Nintendo set collecting dust under my TV. “It’s been a while since you beat me at Joust.”
His gaze swept over my messy room and I know I saw a blip of longing in his eyes. This used to be a summer treat for us. Playing video games in my room or sneaking out to the backyard in the middle of the night just to talk beneath the stars. I’d lost count of the number of times we’d stayed up way too late together. But when he shook his head slightly and smiled sadly at me, the excitement I felt at reviving those old times faded away.
“I really shouldn’t, Char.”
My shoulders drooped. “Why? Got something big going on in the morning?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not meeting with the Oakie boys ’til nine to train at the arena and then it’s your pie contest.”
“Then, what?” I gave him a half-smile. “You worried I’ll keep you up all night and you won’t get enough beauty sleep?”
His chest rose and fell with a heavy breath as he frowned painfully at me. “I just...shouldn’t. It’s your bedroom. And your parents are sleeping.”
I threw my head back and laughed. He’d been in my room a million times before—both with my parents asleep and awake. It was no different now.
“You’re not serious, right?” I wiped the tears out of my eyes. “Hunter, come on. It’s just me.”
“Yeah...just you.”
As I waited for him to come to his senses and climb through the window, my gaze searched his hesitant expression. The light from my bedroom had fallen on his face in a way that highlighted the sharper angle of his cheekbones and jawline. It also revealed a faint white scar that I hadn’t noticed before. It ran perpendicular to his lips and stopped just short of his chin. Had he gotten it from a bull like Marshmallow?
I had the sudden and crazy desire to reach out and run my finger gently over the scar and then trace the cupid’s bow of his lips, just like the wood grain on the windowsill. But instead, I kept my hands firmly
