Page 33 of Reclaim Me

Sebastian is clearly unimpressed, but he still shakes Aaron’s hand. “Statler and Fawn,” he says thoughtfully. “You’ve been trying to get some time on my calendar for a while now.”

Aaron’s head bobs up and down, his eyes alight with an eagerness befitting a child. “That’s right. You’re a hard man to get a hold of.”

“Yeah, that’s intentional.” Sebastian runs an assessing gaze over Aaron’s face and laughs in a way that says this conversation is over. Then he pulls his hand back and smiles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see my wife across the room, and she’ll have my head if I keep her waiting any longer.”

And just like that, he’s gone, leaving the group of men he came in with to follow closely behind. I’m not sure who they are, but since Sebastian didn’t feel the need to introduce them to us, I’m going to assume they’re security or maybe low-level employees. Either way, they move quickly, all of their gazes focused on the crowd surrounding us. At the tail end of the group are two men who move at a slower pace, their strides casual as they talk among themselves. Since I’m the only person in our group still paying attention to the processional, I’m the only one who notices when one of those men pauses, even though his partner is still moving.

To his credit, once Hunter realizes I am, in fact, standing in front of him, he tries to honor his vow to keep moving. He pulls his dark gaze from my face, even though I can’t manage to look away from him, and begins to angle his body in the other direction. Unfortunately for both of us, Mallory spots him before he gets the chance to move.

“Hunter Drake, I know you weren’t just going to walk past me without speaking,” she says, and everybody, including Aaron who only recognizes the name because I told him it, turns to look at him, which means they see me looking at him too. And I’m not just looking at him, I’m devouring him visually, taking in every line of his hulking frame and silently cursing myself for being impressed by the way the fabric of his suit clings to it like a lover.

I’ve only ever seen him in a suit twice before. Once at my college graduation, and, later that same year, at my brother’s funeral. Both times, he wore the same one. That suit was nice, and it fit him well, but this one? This one isn’t just nice, and it doesn’t just fit well. It looks like it was made for him, like every stitch was made with the composition of his form in mind.

Although Mallory is the one who called him out, Hunter looks to me before he makes a move to acknowledge her. It takes me one stuttered heartbeat to realize that he’s waiting for me to give him permission to break his promise, and God, my brain must be broken because I give it to him with nothing more than a slight incline of my head.

“Russ, I’ll catch up with you later.” He tosses the words over his shoulder as he moves forward and brings Mallory in for a hug. Then, just like Sebastian, he spreads greetings around the group, saving me and Aaron for last.

“Hey,” he says, standing in front of me with dark eyes that run greedy laps over my features and steal my breath.

I swallow hard, unable to drop his gaze even though I know I should look away. “Hi.”

Aaron clears his throat and reaches for me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Hunter, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Aaron’s tone is so nasty that I’m left with no choice but to glare at him, silently warning him to pull back. The act robs me of the opportunity to see how Hunter reacts to the fact that I’ve been talking about him but affords me the chance to see Aaron’s smug smile be eaten up by shock when Hunter says, “And you are?”

I’m not feeling particularly charitable towards Aaron, but I still save him the embarrassment of answering the question himself. “This is Aaron Scott, my partner.”

“Partner,” Hunter repeats slowly, the time he takes to do so making the years Aaron and I have been together sound like nothing. He nods and presses his lips into a tight line before stepping back from us.

An awkward bout of silence follows the exchange, but Sloane clears it up by pulling us into an anecdotal story about one of her client’s bizarre design requests. The change of topic allows me to relax just a little, but I grow tense once more when Aaron leans in close and whispers in my ear.

“I’m going to see if I can get us moved to Sebastian’s table,” he says, pressing a kiss to my temple before striding away.

I don’t know whether to be glad he’s gone or angry that he’s on a mission to embarrass himself once again, so I just stand there stunned until Hunter sidles up beside me, the heat of his body turning me to mush.

“Thought you were married,” he whispers, his voice pitched low so only I can hear.

“I never said that.”

“You let me think he’s your family, and he’s not.”

Against my better judgment, I look up at him just to find that he’s already looking at me. “You and I both know that family can look a lot of different ways. It’s not always rings and vows or bloodlines.”

A thousand memories pass between us in a heartbeat, and between our individual streams of consciousness that are playing the same images in a different order, we each find the truth of my words.

We were family once, and now we’re just strangers with a shared history.

Hunter’s breath fans across my lashes. “Rae.”

I shake my head, too aware of the fact that we’re not alone. “Don’t.”

When I turn my attention back to the group, I notice that everyone is trying not to notice us. They’re all intentionally averting their gazes, looking for something or someone in the crowd to distract them from Hunter and me. Lucky for them, that distraction comes in the form of Chris’ return to the group. He’s no longer on the phone, but he is wearing a slightly haggard expression on his face.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Mallory asks, reaching a hand out for him.

Chris steps back into the fold and acknowledges Hunter with a slight lift of his chin before answering his wife. “Nothing, just the babysitter calling with a million and one questions. You’d think it was her first night on the job.”

Mallory laughs. “First of all, stop calling her the babysitter like she’s not your sister. Second, cut her some slack because it’s her first time keeping both twins at once. Of course, she has questions.”

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