Page 126 of Pinkie Promise

“You mentioned Willa’s kid… what did you say that their name was again?” I ask slowly, willing away the alarm in my voice. Then I flick my eyes back to the surname on the label, printed in bold and clear as day.

The delivery guy raises his eyebrows and amusement dances across his features.

“You don’t know?” he asks, smiling in disbelief. “Willa’s kid is practically famous around here. He’s on the college hockey team and they’re about to smash up the NCAA championships. Name’s Hunter.”

My lips pop open and the whole world stops.

“You’re telling me,” I say slowly, “that Willa’s son – my boss’s son – is…” I swallow hard, pressing my fingers into my forehead. “Willa’s son is Hunter Wilde?”

The delivery guy chuckles in relief, like he justknewthat I’d get there in the end, but my heart stumbles in my chest, my world tilting on its axis.

I’m working for Hunter’s mom… and Hunter never mentioned it to me?

“Yeah,” the guy says, nodding his head in that way that men do when they’re talking about another guy who they can’t help but admire. “He used to work here, you know? Was kind of bummed when he handed in his resignation.”

I drop my fingers from my forehead, my eyes widening.

“I’m sorry, what?” I ask him, my voice high-pitched in disbelief.

“He quit at the end of last year, just before you showed up I guess.” He gives me a pitying laugh when he sees my expression. “Hey, don’t feel bad – I’m sure you’ll get to meet him. Justbecause he doesn’t work for his mom anymore doesn’t mean that he won’t stop by here and there. He’s a real good guy. Those are few and far between.”

I press my fingers over my lips, realisation hitting me like a damn truck.

Of course I didn’t justfindthe perfect job.

Huntergaveit to me.

Hunter quit his job so thatIcould have one.

And I have no idea what to do with that information.

My mind races backwards to when Hunter sauntered in here, finding me embarrassingly excited to havefinallyfound a good job that I could keep.

“Knew you’d find one,”he had told me, so confident and proud that I hadn’t questioned it for a second. I’d just blindly trusted his calm authoritative demeanour, eagerly submitting to it, despite knowing that jobs around campus are rare as hell once term begins, because all of the organised people already secured them before the summer ended.

I take a small step backwards, knocking into the bench at my right, and making the coffee mugs clank together.

Hunter telling me that he loves me is one thing, but Huntershowingme that he loves me is another thing entirely.

Words, I can handle. I’ve spent my life lost in books, reading the words of others to navigate the world when I felt as though I didn’t belong. And from my obsessive consumption of the English language I’ve also learned that things can get lost in translation. You can say one thing, and someone might perceive it in another way entirely. I mean, the weight of a word like ‘love’ to one person may not even come close to what it truly signifies for another.

But actions? Actions, generally speaking, are undisputable.

And to give an action of love without evenasking for recognitionhas got to be the purest form of love that I’ve ever seen.

I rub my hand against my chest, so overwhelmed by Hunter’s generosity that I have no idea how to handle it.

I can’t believe that he would have done this for me. After years of being treated like a burden to my parents, I don’t know what to do when I’m being treated like a prize.

My mind begins whirring at a mile a minute.

If Hunter is behind getting me a job, behind making me smile, behind making my lifeliveable, how the hell will I cope if I ever lose him?

I almost laugh as I think about the fact that Ispecificallytold him that I needed to be independent – and then he went behind my back and did the damn thing anyway. Being there to take care of me even when I didn’t know about it is the most Hunter thing that I’ve ever heard in my whole life.

“Fallon, I would never let you fall.”

When he said those words to me on the rink all of those months ago I took them literally. It turns out that he meant them in more ways than one.

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