Page 136 of Hunt for You

Everything in me deflated. I shook my head “I’m not going to do that, Sam. I barely know you and he’s… I don’t know if I’ll even see him again—” My head echoedsoon,proving me a liar, but I ignored it—“but if I do… that’s between me and him.”

Sam sat back, propping up on his arms. It made his chest and shoulders pop, and his shirt cling to his flat stomach. “So… if we work this out… if we got together… you’d still see him?”

I wasn’t eating, but I choked like I’d inhaled the Fettucine. “No. Not likethat… I mean…no.But I… you can’t… that’s not—”

“I like you, Bridget. I feel like we get each other. And I know I’d be a helluva lot better for you than some monster in the dark who’s indulging his fantasies.”

“That’s not what’s going on,” I croaked, still trying to clear my throat.

“Whatever, I just… If I learned anything in the past few years it’s that playing games and dancing around things can be fun for a time, but it gets old fast. I’m trying to get away from thinking that way. So I’m here. I’m telling you that I like you. But if we’re… if we become something, I don’t want to share you with some dude in a mask creeping around in the dark.”

All the protests and excuses rushed up my throat, ready to be thrown at him. But he was sitting there, just baldly staring at me, waiting to see what I’d say.

“Why?” I rasped.

“Why do I not want to share you?”

“No. Why me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I can’t keep my eyes off you. And when you’re not around, I wish you were. It’s really that simple.”

I just stared.

“But… you’regood.”

He sat forward, shaking his head. “Depends on the day, honestly,” he said, clawing a hand through his hair. “But I try. I mean, more than I ever have before.”

Then he met my eyes again and I felt the light in his eyes. It crackled in the air and in my chest and made my heart beat faster.

I couldn’t remember what we talked about after that because my head was spinning, and I spent the whole timearguing with myself about whether I should take him seriously, or whether I’d destroy him.

At some point he got to his feet and offered me a hand to help me get up. I thought for a second he might pull me into his chest when I got up, but after a moment’s hesitation, he let me go and reached down to stuff the trash into the bag, then gather up the blanket that he slung over the arm closest to me as we walked back to the car.

I was confused.

He’d declared himself, hadn’t he?

But now he was walking along, staring at the ground and acting like we were just friends out for a walk.

He opened the car door for me, then drove me home.

But neither of us really talked, and I couldn’t decide if the silence was tense with awkwardness, or anticipation. Because I didn’t know what he was doing.

And apparently neither did he.

When he pulled up at my house, he got out quickly and trotted around to get my door, then walked me up the path to make sure I got in.

I unlocked the door with trembling fingers, then just as I turned the knob, I looked over my shoulder at him, about to invite him in to see if I could get a look at the rest of his tattoos.

But even though he stepped closer, when I swung the door open, he caught my elbow, and pulled me back from the stoop to stand in front of him on the porch.

“Sam… What are you doing?” I breathed.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But it feels right.” And his eyes were gleaming.

I grabbed his arm, flashed him a grin and started to turn towards the door, pulling him with me. But—

“Bridget, no, I’m sorry.”

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