Chapter 4
Hunter
“Ihave to go,” she said, reaching for her things like they might protect her from whatever had just passed between us.
I nodded. Too quickly. “Yeah. Totally. Makes sense. You probably have a busy day.”
She grabbed her purse, slinging it over her shoulder, clearly ready to leave.
But she hesitated, her fingers tightening around her keys.
Without really thinking, she stepped back toward me and wrapped her arms around my waist in a quick, tight hug.
I hugged her back, feeling the tension and comfort mixed together, neither of us quite knowing what to do with our hands.
Then she pulled away, going for a friendly kiss on my cheek—only I turned at the exact moment, and her lips grazed the corner of my mouth instead.
We both froze, eyes wide, too startled to say anything.
The air felt charged and awkward, the kind of moment that would replay in my head for days.
She lurched out of my arms so fast she nearly collided with the kitchen counter, cheeks flushed and eyes darting anywhere but mine.
We both cleared our throats at the same time—hers high and embarrassed, mine low and gruff—which only made things more ridiculous.
The awkwardness hung between us, but a tiny, reluctant smile tugged at her lips, and I couldn’t help but laugh softly.
She shuffled toward the door, keys clutched in one hand like a shield. Her steps were hesitant, almost deliberately slow, the silence stretching out until it snapped.
Before she reached the handle, I tried to lighten the mood and said, “Don’t trip over all this awkward tension on the way out.”
She shot me a crooked grin, rolling her eyes. “Only if you promise not to schedule an emergency therapy appointment after I leave.” The tension cracked just enough for us both to let out nervous, awkward laughs, the sound lingering in the charged air as she finally turned the knob.
She paused at the door. Looked back at me. Then didn’t say anything at all.
And that was somehow worse than a goodbye.
The door clicked shut behind her, and I stood there in my stupid gray sweatpants and smeared glasses, holding the second half of a muffin I hadn’t asked for but now never wanted to throw away.
The kitchen still smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, and her shampoo—whatever she used that made her smell like lemon cookies, lavender, and defiance.
Ozzy padded into view, tail twitching, and gave me a look like Well, that could’ve gone better.
“Shut up,” I muttered, crumbling part of the muffin into his bowl.
He sniffed it, unimpressed.
I leaned back against the counter and ran a hand down my face. My heart was doing something it hadn’t done since high school—slamming around in my chest like it had no respect for my boundaries. What the hell was happening to me?
I liked Paige. I even loved her. That wasn’t new. She was my best friend.
But whatever that was? Whatever it was that had just happened between us was new. And terrifying. And oddly kind of amazing.
She’d called me a hot librarian and a lumberjack.
I was going to be thinking about this all day.
It was just coffee. Just a muffin. Just our usual offbeat banter, but this time it had veered one millimeter too close to flirty and made both of us retreat like we’d stepped on an emotional landmine.
But she hadn’t exactly retreated, and neither had I. We’d stood there, biting into our muffins like we were afraid our feelings might escape if we didn’t keep our mouths full.
She hadn’t run. Not right away. She’d lingered. And then we’d almost kissed. What would have happened if we had?
God, I was in trouble.
I took a sip of the latte she brought me, the one with the extra shots, because she knew I hated sweet drinks unless they had enough caffeine to cause heart palpitations. It tasted perfect. And somehow worse than anything I’d ever had.
Because now I wanted more.
More than coffee. More than a shared history and inside jokes and late-night repair calls.
I wanted mornings like this, minus the awkward exits.
Maybe I wanted to wake up next to her instead of watching her walk out the door with muffin crumbs on her sweatshirt and a joke stuck in her throat.
Or maybe not. I’d just turned forty. Perhaps it really was a midlife crisis and nothing more.
Ozzy jumped on the counter and pawed at the empty muffin wrapper.
I picked it up and held it just out of reach. “Nope. It’s evidence now. Something happened here, Ozzy, and I need to figure it out.”
He meowed in protest. I sighed, grabbed my phone, and opened our text thread like a glutton for punishment. There was her last message from last night, a sarcastic ‘happy birthday,’ followed by a winking emoji that she would absolutely deny using.
No new texts. And no clue to help me figure this out.
I tossed the stupid wrapper in the trash and went to get ready for the barbecue. I lingered in the shower, took my time getting dressed, all the while thinking about Paige and the confusing swirl of feelings flooding my mind.
I arrived late, which in Cassidy terms meant “just in time to get heckled.” The Cassidy property spread out like a patchwork of memories around an old, rambling farmhouse.
It felt homey and cozy, shaded by a wide scattering of mature trees.
The massive sycamore tree in one corner was my favorite; growing up, I’d climbed to its top more times than I could count.
That’s where we built tree forts as kids and camped out under the stars.
The grass was patchy from years of games and roughhousing, and the flower beds along the edges had clearly been trampled by children or animals—or both.
The backyard was already full—what used to be just my father and siblings had expanded to include my niece and nephew, my baby sister’s husband, Cade, Spencer’s girlfriend, Lucy, and Larry the Llama, Lucy’s odd pet, who was also the star of her best-selling children’s book series.
Larry was wearing a red bandana and was currently being fed carrots by Tucker’s kids, while Lucy narrated his backstory as if it were an epic fantasy tale.
She waved a half-eaten cupcake for emphasis as she explained that Larry had recently made peace with his rival, a goat named Deborah.
Spencer stood behind her, grinning like he’d already decided he was never letting her go.
Brody was playing DJ, toggling between outlaw country and 80s power ballads like his life depended on the playlist. Deacon was overseeing the drink cooler with all the seriousness of a man guarding nuclear codes, and Cade—Charlotte’s husband-slash-police-chief in Sweetbriar, the next town over—was running crowd control and passing out jalapeno poppers while wearing aviators and an apron that said Grill Sergeant, like this was just another Sweetbriar crime scene.
And then there was my father, manning the grill with Tucker and smiling like the happiest man in the world to be surrounded by his family.
I met eyes with Spencer, who was holding a beer and wearing a grin that said, “I know things.” He clocked me, turned to Charlotte, and said something I couldn’t hear—but she turned toward me like a heat-seeking missile the second she did.
“You’re late,” she said, handing off a stack of paper plates to Cade like a general distributing orders.
“I’m thirty minutes behind. That’s not late. That’s fashionably overwhelmed.”
“You smell like cinnamon,” she said pointedly as she brushed my shirt with a knowing grin.
My mouth opened in surprise. “That’s extremely specific.”
“Paige brought you muffins, don’t bother denying it. We already know.”
I sighed. “Are you psychic now?”
She wasn’t psychic. I knew this bit of information had come from Eliza.
She told Lucy. Lucy told Spencer—big mouth Spencer—who couldn’t keep a secret if you paid him to or even if you taped his mouth shut.
Yeah, we’d been doing birthday coffee every year, but this year had included muffins and weirdness, and it was hard to hide the weird vibes from people who knew you well.
She turned to my brothers with a satisfied smile. “That’s a yes. It was more than birthday coffee. Confirmed.” She held her fist out for a bump.
Spencer strolled over, can of Coke in hand, grinning as he bumped it. “Was it birthday muffins or I-want-to-kiss-you muffins?”
“I hate all of you,” I muttered.
Tucker popped his head up from behind the grill. “So you did kiss her. Really?”
“I said no such thing.”
Brody leaned over the cooler. “You didn’t not say it, either.”
I glanced toward the llama—the llama—as if Larry could save me from the trainwreck that was my family’s emotional meddling. Larry stared back, unimpressed.
“Can’t a man show up to his birthday party without being emotionally dissected by his siblings and a barn animal?”
Tucker waved his spatula in the air while my father chuckled. “Not in this family.”
“Let him be,” Dad called out.
“Thank you!” I huffed. “Let me be. You heard him.”
Brody cracked open a beer. “Forget that. We want details. For bonding purposes.”
Deacon held up his own beer like he was about to propose a toast. “Should we start designing wedding invitations? Because I have a font picked out.”
“Stop it,” I said, slamming my eyes shut in frustration. “There’s no wedding. There’s no relationship. It was just coffee. Birthday coffee, like every other year. Jesus Christ.”
“And muffins,” Charlotte added helpfully. “This time, there were muffins. And she’s divorced, and you are between women. Muffins, Hunter. Cinnamon crumble. Your favorite.”
I turned toward Larry, desperate for a distraction. He made eye contact, then farted loudly and trotted away with the kids, as if his work here was done.
“Great,” I muttered. “Even the llama’s judging me.”
Charlotte handed me a cupcake from the picnic table—vanilla with too many sprinkles, just the way I liked it. “Eat this. Try not to overthink your entire life while you chew. Just go with the flow.”
I took the cupcake and escaped to a lawn chair beneath the sycamore tree like a man retreating from war. I unwrapped the paper slowly, trying not to look like someone scanning the driveway for signs of the woman he may or may not have feelings for.
She wasn’t coming. I already knew it. Didn’t stop me from wishing she would.
Charlotte flopped into the chair beside me, dragging a cooler over with her foot.
“So, Paige. You. You and Paige. Both single for the first time in, well, ever. Right?”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes. “Can I just enjoy my cupcake and slowly die of emotional repression?”
“Nope. Not when you’ve got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The ‘I want to kiss her but also, I might pass out’ look.”
I sighed. “When she brought me coffee this morning. It was weird,” I confessed. “Don’t say anything to them.” I swung my hand toward the yard.
“Weird bad or weird hot?” she whispered, before twisting her fingers over her lips like she was locking them.
“Yes.”
Charlotte leaned back. “You’ve waited like over two decades. What’s your next move? Sending her a strongly worded greeting card? Or owning your feelings and using your words like a brave little toaster?”
“I haven’t exactly been waiting. It’s not like I was celibate or something.” I licked frosting off my thumb. “I don’t want to push her. But mostly I don’t know how I feel. This could all be a result of a midlife crisis, you know,” I added under my breath.
“Hunter.” She turned to me, serious now. “You are the least pushy man on the planet. You once apologized to a raccoon for walking too close to its trash can.”
My lips tipped up at the corner. “In my defense, it had a knife,” I joked.
“You deserve something that’s yours,” she said. “And I think we both know she’s been yours since you were kids. You belong together. I want this to happen for you.”
In the distance, Larry honked like an angry goose, and the kids shrieked with laughter.
It was chaos. Beautiful, full-hearted chaos.
And the only thing missing was Paige and her kids. They should be here, too.
I looked down at the crumpled cupcake wrapper in my hand and sighed.
“I don’t want to mess it up. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had.
Plus, what if I don’t have romantic feelings for her?
What if she doesn’t for me either? What if this is all just because we’re both single at the same time?
Like you just said, that’s never happened before.
” I decided not to tell her about the pact. I’d never hear the end of it.
“You are having feelings. It’s obvious and it’s real. You’ve been repressing them forever because she was married.” She nudged my shoulder. “And you won’t mess anything up. What is meant to be always finds a way. I believe that. I mean, hello? I experienced it firsthand with Cade.”
The backyard glowed with late-afternoon sun, golden light spilling over the weathered picnic table and dented cooler. It was messy and loud and home. And for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel like enough.
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. Because if I said what I suspected I really felt, it would all be out there. No takebacks. No more hiding behind tools, flickering lightbulbs, and muffins. No more hiding behind our friendship. Which, aside from my family, was the most essential thing in my life.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out; my thumb was still stained with frosting, and I saw her name.
Paige: Sorry, I bailed on the barbecue. Blame it on work. Really, it was more of a social-overwhelm-slash-what-am-I-even-doing situation. Anyway. Hope the steak was good. And that no one let Larry into the house.
I stared at it, rereading that middle line until it burned.
Typed back.
Me: Steaks are on the grill now. I wish you were here.
Paige: Happy birthday.
Me: Thanks
Three dots blinked.
Stopped.
Started again.
Then vanished.
And just like that, I was a teenager again, waiting on a maybe that was never going to happen.