Page 94 of Hell Hath No Fury
Hunter:Breakfast?
Hunter:Where are you staying? I can pick you up.
Now, that I know, is not a good idea. Being stranded and at his mercy sounds like the worst idea possible. Plus, I’m pretty sure my mom would kill me if I ended up missing the wedding. Even if I was with Hunter. Who she absolutely adores.
Me:Not a good idea. I have family obligations today and my mom would murder me if I’m late. Tell me where. I can be ready in ten minutes and meet you.
Hunter:Do you remember Lydia’s?
I should feel insulted that he would think I would forget our favorite restaurant. It’s this little hole in the wall on the beach. Lydia moved out here in the seventies and opened her restaurant. Very beachy hippie vibe, but the food is to die for. Hunter and I used to go there nearly every weekend when we were in high school.
It was our place.
Me:I’ll be there in fifteen.
Hunter:See you soon.
My phone lands with a thud as it slips from my fingers onto my chest and a grunt slips from my lips. Am I really going to go see him?
I don’t let my mind linger too long before I’m rolling out of bed and throwing on the nearest clothes. It’s just Lydia’s. It’s justbreakfast. Putting effort into how I look means something and I don’t want him to see this as any more than what it really is.
No big deal.
The pounding in my chest says otherwise, but I’m going to ignore that, too.
Bounding down the stairs, a sense of deja vu hits me like a brick. I left this small town to get away from the familiarity of life and yet the moment I come back, I’m falling back into the routine. I push that thought away as I hit the last step.
“Mom,” I yell out. “I’m heading out to Lydia’s for breakfast.”
I don’t even make it to the door when not only my mom but Hunter come from around the corner.
“Just breakfast, Hunter. We have lots to do before the wedding,” my traitorous mother says to the man who is messing with my mind.
With a big smile, he tells her, “You got it, Mrs. D.”
My mom shoos us outside when all I want to do is turn around and hide. She probably told him to take me out to breakfast. I stop on the front porch as Hunter continues to walk to his car.
“You sent me a text from my kitchen?”
He has the audacity to look sheepish and says, “I didn’t want to scare you off. I felt bad for leaving early last night and I came to apologize to your mom. She started putting me to work, doing heavy lifting right away. I couldn’t exactly tell you I was downstairs. You never would have said yes if you knew I was already there.”
“You don’t know that. You didn’t give me the opportunity to make that choice for myself. You blindsided me. You don’t know what I would have done. Did you really get my number from my mom last night? Or did she give it to you while you were downstairs in the same house as me?”
How am I even supposed to trust him when he was already lying to me?
Moving away from his car, Hunter makes his way halfway up the steps and reaches for my hand. He says, “Fox, I know exactly how you would have responded. I know you. Now can you please drop this so we can go to breakfast and talk? That’s all I want.”
He knows me?
Maybe he used to, but I am not the same girl I used to be. I’m closed off and I don’t trust anybody. There’s an iron cage wrapped tightly around my heart and he is the reason it’s there.
My blood is boiling as I spit out, “Hunter, you don’t even know me anymore.”
“I know everything about you, Fox. I know the white scar next to your belly button is from the night we jumped the fence surrounding the Hollywood sign to watch the meteor shower and you got cut on the razor wire. I know that when you were nine years old and your parents were working late, you packed your backpack with graham crackers, apple juice, the fanciest dress you owned, and your favorite pink unicorn Sparkles. You showed up at my house and said we were having a ball in my treehouse and then we were going to run away together. I know that no matter how many times your parents demanded you come down from that treehouse, you refused and we spent the night. I remember every scar, every laugh, and every tear. It guts me like no other to know that the last time I saw you cry, I was the reason for the tears pouring down your face. Fox, I fucked up when I was a stupid eighteen-year-old kid. And I’ve been hating myself ever since. But I will do everything in my power to make it up to you until the day I die.”
My traitorous heart falls for every single thing he said to me. I want to reach for him and demand he kiss the hell out of me with every emotion he lets bleed from himself. Fortunately, I’m not letting my heart do the talking right now.
Taking a deep breath, I swallow down the butterflies dancing to the beautiful and poetic words he threw my way. Too little, too fucking late. With the courage building up in me, I look straight into his hopeful eyes and say, “Hunter Hayes, you had your chance. You had every fucking piece of me. But you threw that away the minute you ran away on prom night. You left me in the middle of the dance floor and fled.”
