Page 6 of The Jackpot Screwer
“But he’s a guy,” I replied, frowning.
“Yeah, but it’s still fucking funny,” Hunter replied, almost doubled over laughing at his own shit joke.
I breathed out through my nose and wondered why everyone thought Hunter was the sensible one in our friendship. “I don’t have the energy to tell you what an absolute dick you are. Just don’t you dare tell Ellie about…” I looked around and then moved closer to whisper, “…the baby.”
Rubbing at his chest, Hunter retrieved his bottle of beer and took a quick drink. “I don’t have secrets from her,” he announced.
“You’ve only been together like two months, of course you have secrets.”
“Nine weeks and two days to be precise.”
What the…
“You know exactly how long you’ve been together?” Damn I really was shit at the boyfriend thing. I could hazard a guess that Bronte and I had been together around five months—or so—but not the exact amount of time.
“What? You don’t know when you started dating Bronte?” Hunter asked, a smug look on his face.
I shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. We were just messing around to start with. I do know the first time we had sex was Karaoke night in here, on Minnesota’s birthday.”
Hunter scratched his head and frowned.
“Remember Bronte disappeared and texted Ellie to say she had a headache?”
“Yeah, vaguely.”
“And then I had that emergency.”
“Oh yeah, you left me having to watch Dominic the dick with his hands all over my woman.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ellie wasn’t your woman then. She wasn’t even on your radar.”
Hunter grinned and shook his head. “I think she’s always been on my radar, but I was just too stupid to realize.”
“Whatever. The point I’m making is she didn’t have a headache and there was no emergency. I’d already kissed her outside the bathrooms, so we agreed I’d leave first and then she’d follow me ten minutes later.”
Hunter looked shocked. “One kiss, after years of hating each other, caused you to hook up?”
“Judgy much, says you who did exactly the same with my sister.”
“We had two kisses,” Hunter growled with narrow eyes on me. “Belinda’s party and then singles night. Admittedly the kiss on singles night was on the way to store closet where we had sex, but that’s just splitting hairs.” Ignoring him, I nodded to Penny for two more beers. “And it doesn’t change the fact you don’t know how long you’ve been with your girlfriend,” he carried on, “which kind of explains why she dumped you.”
I swung around on my stool to face him. “She dumped me because I impregnated her, and she thinks I don’t want to be a dad and won’t manage the responsibility.”
Hunter’s head tilted to one side as he examined me. “Do you? Will you?”
My pause must have said too much because Hunter groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face.
“You need to step up man,” he said, glancing at Penny who was holding out two beers.
I took them both and handed one to Hunter and then waited for Penny to leave. When she moved back to the other end of the bar, I let out a sigh.
“It was a shock. We both need to get used to it, so swear you won’t say anything to Ellie. Please, Hunt. I don’t want my folks to know until Bronte and I have had a chance to get our heads sorted.”
“Fuck, Carter, I hate lying to her.”
“You won’t be lying, just keeping a secret. Bronte will kill me if she knows I told you.”
Finally, after a few seconds of watching me, Hunter nodded. “Fine, but if Ellie finds out I knew and didn’t tell her, it’ll be your balls I’ll be using to replace the ones I lose.”
