Page 52 of Hunter

Couldn’t they see how badly I wanted to live my own life?

I didn’t want to be the girl who looked at all the shadows in the world, afraid one of them would come after me.

I took a deep breath before I was about to turn back inside my apartment. I suddenly felt like sulking when another door opened, disrupting my self-pity.

I jumped and looked to see my neighbor from three doors down come out with a plate of chocolate chip cookies covered with saran wrap.

They looked homemade, but I had run into her earlier when I was letting the delivery man in and had seen her carry in store-bought cookies into her place, along with a bottle of red wine and a small pink bag with Victoria’s Secret logo on it.

She looked like she was preparing for a date, and I admit a flash of envy went through me at the thought.

My mind quickly moved to Xavier, but I was sure the man wasn’t interested in me the way I was interested in him.

I told myself to go back inside and mind my own business, but curiosity held me there. I watched as she came up to my next-door neighbor’s door, an elusive neighbor at that, considering the person had moved in the same time I did, and I had yet to meet them.

She knocked on their door.

I should probably mind my own business, but I did want to see who lived next door.

It took two long seconds before the lock disengaged, and my eyes widened in shock when the large figure filled the doorway.

Xavier lived next door to me!

And my neighbor was trying to make a move on him.

Anger burned through me, and I wanted to walk up to them and throw the plate of those store-bought cookies she was trying to sell as homemade out of her claw-like hands…

Okay, so she didn’t have claw-like hands. They were actually nicely manicured, and her hair looked perfectly brushed, coming down in a mass of blonde that reached the small of her back, but still.

“Hey,” she cooed.

It was taking everything in me not to show the disgust on my face.

“I heard you just moved in, and I wanted to welcome you.”

If Xavier responded, I didn’t know.

I had already walked back into my apartment and shut the door quietly behind me.

I had just moved into this building as well, but she didn’t show up at my door with a plate of cookies.

Besides, Xavier wasn’t mine. But he was especially not mine after two measly meetings. The first one had been nothing more than a fleeting glance that I definitely made into something bigger in my mind, yet that didn’t take away the burning jealousy I was feeling inside me.

And I had been feeling sorry for myself just before witnessing that. Now, I felt absolutely lousy.

I took a deep breath and tried to center myself before walking to the kitchen to find something to make for dinner… for one.

Fuck.

My eyes stung, but I refused to cry in self-pity.

I was better than that.

* * *

It wasn’tuntil I was in the middle of making a spaghetti dinner that I realized I didn’t have tomato sauce.

And I was way too excited over the prospect of going out to the store to buy it than I should be, I knew, but it was so much better than to be surrounded by the four walls of my apartment, wondering if my neighbor was now enjoying hot sex with Xavier.

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