Page 59 of Running For It

I struggled with logic versus instinct as I soaked. After the bath, I took my time stripping off the blue nail polish from two weeks ago and doing my hair. Hurrying through either meant waiting, and either could be dropped if someone called.

No one did.

Hunter got home a little after five, and I was sitting on the couch with the divorce papers on the coffee table.

He looked between them and me. “You want to do this now.”

“Did you think I’d want to wait?”

He shook his head. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

So. Many. Things. I doubted he wanted a dissertation. Then again, Hunter would probably listen to me spew out every single thought I’d had since I woke up. “You first.”

“I already had a turn.” He crossed the room and stopped a few feet away, keeping the table and the paperwork between us.

“I can’t just turn off my obligations.”

“You don’t have to. I’d never ask that. I want you to take the first step toward making sure you’re as taken care of as everyone you’re looking out for.”

It sounded so simple. More when he said it than when I’d made the argument with myself. “If I stop...” What? The world hadn’t ended today. I felt better rested than in weeks.

“You’re not stopping. You’re doing a risk assessment and re-prioritizing.” Of course he had to make sense about it all.

Was I ready for that? “I think we got off-track. This is about the—” divorce. I couldn’t say it, so I gestured to the paperwork.

“Agreed. We can’t have one conversation without the other. Unless you’re ready to sign that paperwork.” Hunter’s confident tone wavered.

He was holding a marriage I hadn’t wanted over my head to force me to change who I was. No. That was the wrong way to look at it, and he’d made sure to say so.

“All right, I’ll go first.” Hunter came around the table and took the spot next to me. He cupped my face between his palms. “I don’t think I’m ready to sign the paperwork. I’m not saying I’d propose—yet—if we had a chance to do things differently, but we didn’t.What ifisn’t part of the equation.”

Each stroke of his thumb along my cheekbone sent a fissure of comfort through me. He searched my face. “I’ve always liked you,” he said. “You make Ramsey smile, but that’s not the only reason or even the main reason. You’re smart. You’re witty. You’re fun as hell to hang with. You’ve always been a good friend, and even though it meant I got Ramsey, I didn’t like when the two of you split because it meant you were gone. But you’re not competition. These last few weeks have forced me to admit I love you, Violet.”

The words sang to my heart, and pulled a similar declaration to the surface. I opened my mouth.

Hunter pressed a thumb to my lips. “But I also won’t watch you destroy yourself, because you think it’s helpful to others.” He let me go.

Twenty-Three

Hunter loved me.

But he wanted to change me.

No. He wanted to help me. If I let myself trip over the last few weeks, which I had to do to process this, I could see how bad things were. That this wasn’t the beginning of a downward slope, I’d been plummeting toward the bottom of a ravine of taking on way too much before the boiler failed at the shelter.

I also saw Hunter, a bright spot of sanity and warmth in the midst of it all. Ramsey was there too. Just out of reach. I wanted more of both when I looked back, and when I looked forward.

“I love you, too.” It was so much easier to say that than I expected. My heart fluttered just as much speaking the words as it did hearing them. “And I’m scared of making this change you’re talking about, but I’m terrified of staying on the path I’m on.”

Hunter brushed his lips over mine. “I’m here for you. Everything I said stands.”

“And Ramsey?” It was an unformed question. It could mean a million things to either of us. “Technically he and I are still broken up.”

“He didn’t tell me what he’s doing in Vegas, but he promised it would fix things. I trust him. Can we go back to us?”

We could. Now that I knew I wasn’t trading one guy for another. “Yes.”

Hunter’s kiss was so tender, it was heartbreaking. Or the opposite. Washeartmendinga thing? I was making it thing, because the cracks in mine were sealing and vanishing.

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