Page 139 of The Love Haters

“Probably.”

“Let’s be best friends, then,” she said, as I helped tilt her down to her pillow and then pulled up the covers.

“I’ll be your best friend,” I said, “if you won’t fire me.”

“Deal,” she said.

And then she lifted her hand from under the covers and held it out for me to shake.

Which—what the heck—I went ahead and did.

She’d never remember, anyway.

BY THE TIMEI got back outside, Hutch was gone.

Only Cole remained—alone. In a pool chair. Surrounded by The Gals as they tended to his swollen eye and busted lip.

“Where’s Hutch?” I asked.

“He left,” Cole said, as Ginger opened up the first-aid kit.

“He left? For where?”

But Cole shrugged. “Didn’t say. He just took off.”

Hutch left?

I mean, granted, it had been a couple of hours, but Hutch had, just tonight, learned that I was single. I got that his first order of business—mid-fight and all—might be addressing that long-standing beef with his brother. But I really had been assuming the whole time that his second order of business would be…

Throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me off to bed.

Or something.

Now that I was officially… available.

Out of a million possibilities, I would never have predictedHutch going home without even saying goodbye.

I would have expected a moment of closure, at least.

But then I wondered if maybe Hutch had pretended to go home but was actually waiting for me at my cottage. There was more than one way to get a moment of closure.

I pointed at Cole, who had been sleeping on the floor of my place for the last two nights. “You,” I said, “find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

Right? Just in case.

“What?” Cole protested. “Where?”

“I’m sure Aunt Rue will take you in,” I said. “Or one of The Gals.”

“But all my stuff is there!”

“I’ll put it out on the porch.”

BACK AT MYcottage, alas—no Hutch.

No texts or missed calls, either.

I put Cole’s stuff out, anyway.

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