Page 67 of Hunter

“I don’t care,” he says softly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“B-Beto...”

Her cousin finally looks at her. He holds her eyes for a long, furious moment, then slides his gaze to me.

“Thanks for giving those guys a beating back in Fairbanks. It should’ve been me. They had no right to touch her. That was mad fucked up, bruh.”

“Don’t worry about it. You were dancing. You didn’t see what was going on.” I squeeze Isabella’s shoulder, and she nestles closer to me. “Besides, it was my pleasure to lay them out.”

As we pull up to the Nome Nugget Hotel, Beto looks at his cousin, who’s still got tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m pissed at you, Isabella, but you’re still my family. I’m flying to Ketchikan tonight. I’ll drive your car home.”

Then he jumps out of the van and stalks into the hotel.

“He h-hates me,” she wails, slumping against my chest.

“Nah,” I say. “He’s mad about what happened to you last night. He’s crazy disappointed that you two were eliminated.You should have won and didn’t. He’s just a kid. He’s doing the best he can to keep it together.”

I help her out of the van, and we walk, hand in hand, into the hotel lobby, where neither the remaining teams nor the production crew is anywhere to be seen, thank God. We take the elevator up to our floor and walk to our room. There’s no urgency in our steps. Neither of us is in the mood to make out. When we get to our room, we fall onto the bed, side by side, and stare at the ceiling in silence.

“So much changed in twenty-four hours,” she whispers after a few minutes. “My head’s spinning.”

“It’s a lot to absorb.”

“Maybe…maybe I should—I mean, should I go home with Beto?” she asks uncertainly. “My cousin Miguel is going to be so mad at me. And his father, my mother’s brother. And—oh my god—when the show comes out, and my family realizes that we lost the money because I…all because I…”

A chill passes through me as her voice trails off.

Oh my god.She’s leaving. She’s leaving, and that will be the end of us.

Just like last time.

She’s leaving.

After all of our plans to spend the rest of the summer together.

She’s leaving. Again.

And if it hurt last time, this time it’s going to break my fucking heart in half.

I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, telling myself not to be so selfish. She’s been through so much over the past two days. And I care about her too much to add to her pain and confusion by guilting her into staying. I sit up and swing my legs over the bed, keeping my back to her. My eyes burn from exhaustion and bitter, useless tears.

I’ll go downstairs and tell Carlos to wait for her. I’m about to tell her to get packed when—

“…all because I fell in love with you,” she says softly.

The words stun me. It takes me a second to process them. When I finally do, I look at her over my shoulder.

“Wait. What did you say?”

“We lost our chance at a million dollars,” she says, her lips tilting up just a touch, “because I fell in love with you.” Her eyes soften with tenderness as she rolls onto her side. “Lie down next to me, Hunter. Please.”

“Are you leaving?” I ask first.

“No,” she whispers. “I’m not. I promise.”

***

Isabella

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