Page 58 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
“Hallmark has filmed movies here before,” Hunter says easily, opening his menu. “One summer just after Isabelle was born. They hired me to build sets.”
Building sets for a Hallmark movie—that’s really cool. But I’m more distracted by the mention of Hunter’s daughter. It’s still hard to hear my middle name fall so easily from his lips. His daughter’s name. Hunter has a daughter. Hunter is adad.
I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I do want to talk about it. About her.
But maybe not quite yet.
“The island doesn’t seem all that changed,” I say, wanting to kick myself for making stupid small talk.
“It’s more touristy than it used to be. But we’re not Myrtle Beach yet.”
“And hopefully never will be.” I’m not sure where this sudden bout of protectiveness for Oakley comes from. Then again, this place always had open arms for me. Even now. I can’t help but wonder what might have changed if my parents hadn’t gotten divorced. If I’d kept coming here, summer after summer. Would my whole life’s path have been different?
Hunter looks like he’s going to ask me something, but the waitress appears, so we busy ourselves for a few minutes, asking questions about the menu, placing our orders. When she’s finally gone, Hunter extends a hand across the table, palm up, and I slip my hand into his.
Easily. Like breathing. His palm is warm and a little rough—a working hand. It feels strong. The kind of hand I’d like to feel cupping my face again. On the back of my neck, pulling me toward him. On my lower back or maybe my hip …
I clear my throat—and my head. “I didn’t notice the name of the restaurant until I looked at the menu. This place is really called The Big Tuna?”
“The owner is a fan of Jim Halpert fromThe Office.” He smiles. “And, you know—it’s seafood, so it makes sense.”
I laugh. “That’s fun.” I pause, suddenly running into the big gap of things I don’t know about Hunter. That he doesn’t know about me. Namely … everything in the last ten years.The Officewas on back when I still came to Oakley, but streaming wasn’t what it is now. I watched the whole show long after it went off the air. “Did you likeThe Office?”
“Yes, but not the British version, even if it was the original. I tried and just couldn’t.”
“Same. Do you have a favorite show?”
“Longmire,” he says.
“I haven’t watched that one. What’s it about?”
Hunter and I fall into what could be considered normal first-date conversation, but it feels like catching up, the way we did every summer when I first arrived back on Oakley. It’s easy. Comfortable. And yet … there’s still so muchpasthanging between us, like I’m watching Hunter through some thin curtain as we continue talking.
I learn that he got a license to rescue and rehab wild animals like possums and raccoons--one of which he currently has at home. He also adopted a collection of rescue dogs as well, most with some kind of disability. There is something so very …Hunterabout this, and it makes my chest ache. At heart, he’s a caretaker.
I tell him some of the things I love about my job—consulting on print and digital advertising campaigns. Which isn’t all that interesting to anyone outside the field, but his attention from me never wavers.
Even ifmyattention keeps snagging on his mouth as he eats his coconut shrimp.That mouth kissed me an hour ago. I want it to kiss me again now.When not caught up in memories of kisses, my thoughts keep circling back to the things wearen’ttalking about. Finally, there’s a brief pause after the waitress stops by to refill our drinks.
I swallow, my eyes dropping to my almost empty plate of blackened mahi-mahi. “Hunter, will you tell me about Cassidy?”
And Isabelle.But for some reason, that feels like a harder question. Because I don’t know how to NOT connect the name to our lifebefore.To the conversations we had. Theplanswe made. Not to mention the way I’m still trying to get my head around the idea of Hunter being a father in the first place. I mean, I saw Isabelle, but not with him.
He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, wiping his mouth before he pushes his plate back and clasps his hands on the table. “What do you want to know?”
“You guys got together after . . .” I don’t know how to end the sentence.After me.But just because my life is divided into two distinct parts—before Hunter and after Hunter—that doesn’t mean his is, too. For all I know, his life is marked by before his marriage to Cassidy and after.
“You remember her right?” Hunter asks gently, and I nod. “We went to school together. But we were just friends.”
He may think so, but she didn’t want to just be friends with him. In the brief interactions I had with her around Hunter, I saw it. Even if he didn’t.
It shouldn’t sting that she got him all year long when I only got summers. But somehow, it does. Unfair though it may be, I want all of Hunter. His friendship, his happy memories, just …him. I don’t want to share, even his past that I wasn’t a part of.
There’s that possessiveness again, the same one I felt when Naomi said other women were interested in Hunter. It’s starting to feel like a too-familiar burn right behind my sternum, rising in my throat.
“After that last summer you were here, I was—” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair. “I was kind of a mess, Mer. I don’t mean to make you feel bad,” he says. “It’s forgiven.”
“Okay.” My eyes are starting to sting, the familiar swell of tears nearing the surface, and it takes all the control I possess to force them back.
