Page 127 of The Confidant
“Can’t?” His eyebrows knitted together. “Or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
His frown deepened. And I wanted to tell him everything. To explain what was going on and making me act so weird.
But I had literally been forbidden to talk about it with anyone. By my dadandthe High Priest.
As far as I knew, going against the High Priest’s command was basically just asking to be struck down like all those people in the Bible.
“I actually don’t really want to think about it,” I said, hoping it would show Hunter that I didn’t like what was going on, either. My hands were just tied.
Plus, I could at least wait to think about everything until tomorrow, couldn’t I? Save it for when I was back in New York. Because for tonight, I just wanted to have one last night with my best friend. One more night where I could pretend things were different.
“I think I’m actually going to go change out of these clothes,” I said.
“Okay.” He gave me a disappointed look, like he thought that was my way of saying goodnight.
But since that was actually the last thing I wanted right now, I asked, “Do you want to come hang out with me in my room?
“Oh, yeah…” His eyes lit up in surprise. “Sure. We have a couple of hours before curfew.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. It was the weekend, so we had until midnight before it was lights out.
We walked up the stairs to the girls’ dorm together and stopped at Heather’s door to let her know that Hunter would be hanging out in my room for a while. But after standing there for a few seconds and hearing Heather laughing about something with one of her friends, Hunter and I gave each other a look like this was our chance to be sneaky and break the rules. So we headed down to my hall without checking in.
I unlocked my door with my ID badge, and we both slipped inside. Instead of leaving the door open a crack like we were supposed to do when we had boys over, I decided to continue my rebellion against the rules and shut the door all the way so we could have some privacy.
“Should I step outside while you change?” Hunter asked when he noticed me pull my pajamas out of my dresser drawer.
When I looked back at him, he was still hovering right by the door as if he didn’t want to cross some sort of line. But this was my last night of freedom and I wanted to push as many boundaries as I could, so I peeked at him through my lashes and said, “You can just turn around. I trust you…”
He turned to face the corner, and I took a few steps closer to my closet and started the process of changing out of my dress. I was leaving my bra and underwear on, so it wasn’t like Hunter would see everything if he happened to take a peek, but it did feel somewhat dangerous doing this.
Changing in the same room with the guy I liked.
I started unzipping the back of my dress. The sound seemed to do something to Hunter because as soon as he heard it, he cleared his throat and started to make small talk—like he was trying not to think about the fact that I was undressing. And just the thought of him having a reaction to any of this made my entire body flush with heat because the devil in me wanted him to look.
Because even with everything going on, I still wanted Hunter to want me like that.
“My parents are excited to take us to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden,” he said, talking about our plans for the next day. “Then I was thinking we could stop at that bookstore you like and have dinner at that diner on the corner that you love.”
“That sounds nice,” I said, pulling my pajama shirt over my head.
But even though it sounded like the perfect day, I was overcome with sadness because I realized that once I was married—in, like, a week—I wouldn’t be able to have Saturdays like that with him anymore.
I’d be spending my Saturdays with someone else.
I quickly pulled my pajama shorts on and turned around to see that, like the true gentleman that I knew Hunter was, he was still facing the corner.
“I’m decent now,” I said.
I watched him turn around slowly. After taking in my pajamas with little pink cats all over them, he smiled and got a look in his eyes that said he thought I was beautiful. And I was instantly sad that tonight was probably the last night he’d ever look at me like that.
I want him to look at me like that forever.
Meeting my eyes, Hunter asked, “What do you want to do now?”
Without thinking about anything else anymore, I walked across the carpeted floor and into his arms. And after kissing him, I whispered in his ear, “This, Hunter. This is all I want to do.”
