Chapter 26
Juliet
I’m in the kitchen before eight in the morning, standing on tiptoes in a short black skirt and thigh high socks. Currently, my arms are elbow-deep in a bag of Pillsbury flour. I’m not even sure where the flour came from. This apartment had never had real groceries before I moved in.
But last night’s sex left me feeling restless and sugar-starved, so I impulse-bought chocolate chips, brown sugar, Tahitian vanilla, and eggs.
The flour puffs in a slow-motion mushroom cloud as I pour, dusting the dark countertops and sticking to my arms, the dark gray sleeve of Hunter’s old hockey hoodie rolled up over my elbow.
The place smells like cinnamon and butter, the way I always dreamed my home would smell one day when I grew up.
My childhood kitchen was spacious and even more luxurious than this one, but I can’t recall anyone ever using it. My mom and dad took me out to dinner a lot, or when left to my own devices, I ate pizza or Chinese. I don’t think a tray of cookies ever made it into my oven at my parent’s house.
That’s what you get when your parents work really long hours and leave you to fend for yourself. But today, I woke up wanting fresh-baked cookies. And the easiest way to get them seemed to be… this. I look around at the flour and eggshells scattered across the counter.
I’m trying something new.
I have to stop and check the recipe at every step.
My hands move clunkily. Crack the eggs, whisk the sugar, add too much vanilla, mess up the order of the steps and pretend it doesn’t matter.
All the while, my brain is running a slow-motion reel of every second spent with Hunter in the hours before dawn.
The way he took me apart, piece by piece.
He acted like I was the first beautiful thing he ever touched and he wanted to learn how I worked.
The way he called me a good girl, over and over, like no one else had ever been good for him.
Plus, he made me come so hard my vision went white, then cleaned me up with a hot rag and tucked me in like I was his.
If there is a heaven, I’m pretty sure that was it. I’ve never felt so delightfully boneless before.
It’s embarrassing how badly I want to replay it. My entire body hums when I think about him calling me Monroe in that gruff voice. His hands gripped my waist, guiding and steady, even when I tried to act like I was in control. He made me come three times and never once called me the wrong name.
Something that I must admit was a regular occurrence with Patrick. I figured all guys just had terrible memories when their dicks were hard. I think Hunter broke that illusion, but I’m not mad.
Is it a problem that I can’t think of Hunter Huxley today without a secret little smile?
I slide the first tray of cookies into the oven and set a timer, leaning against the counter.
The kitchen is warm, and the city outside the window is all wet light and noise, early morning delivery trucks echoing off glass towers.
My phone is face-down on the counter, vibrating every few minutes with notifications I’m ignoring.
Probably Ivy texting a million fire emojis or Jessa sending the latest photoshopped meme of me and Hunter. I don’t check. I want this domestic bubble to last five more minutes before the world calls bullshit.
The oven ticks. The smell gets sweeter, richer. It almost drowns out the low-grade dread building in my stomach.
When the cookies are finally done, I pull the tray out with my bare hands, hissing as I remember too late that I’m not immune to heat.
I drop the pan back on the rack and pick up a kitchen towel, cursing.
I set them down on the stove and blow on my fingertips, watching the chocolate chips bubble and settle.
The cookies are irregular, mutant, nothing like the Instagram-perfect plates on my feed, but they look good. Maybe even good enough to eat with someone else.
Before I can psych myself out, my phone pings again, this time with a distinct vibration pattern. A news alert. I fumble for it, my thumb leaving a crescent of chocolate on the home button. The headline is already trending.
“HAVOC STAR’S FIANCéE BLINDSIDES EX WITH NEW ‘ENGAGEMENT’,” the push notification screams. My stomach drops.
There’s a subhead: “Patrick Delacroix Breaks His Silence on Juliet Monroe’s Wedding-to-Be.
” I scroll through, seeing that it links to Patrick being interviewed by some bro-dude for his podcast.
Hesitating, I push play.
“She was always driven,” Patrick says in the clip. “But never through love. I think the only thing she ever really cared about was winning. Her dreams were huge, her ambition even bigger.”
A sick feeling swirls in my stomach.
“If you know Juliet, you know she was born for the podium, not the altar. She doesn’t know how to make space for another person in her life. Never has.”
My cheeks go hot. Is this real? I keep listening against my better judgment:
“Juliet Monroe was so focused on her own image, her own hustle, that she never made room for anything else. Not even me.”
There’s a photo below the interview, a candid from the year we dated. Me in a very demure blue ballgown, arms folded, standing next to Patrick’s trophy wife mom at a charity gala. I glare at the camera like the person taking my picture spat in my drink.
My phone grows heavy in my hand, and I turn it off.
I want to be furious, but the truth is I don’t have the energy.
Because Patrick’s not wrong, not really, not about the core.
I’m cold. Sometimes, I’m obsessed with image and control.
I have never, not once, let myself need another person so badly that I can’t survive without them.
My parents taught me that and Patrick drove the lesson home. If you let people see your weak and vulnerable sides, they can decide that they don’t want you. Don’t want to deal with you. You’re too much, too loud, too everything.
I can’t let that happen again. Not after Patrick.
A door creaks open. Heavy footsteps pad down the hallway. I freeze halfway to the table, and try to look like someone who isn’t coming apart at the seams.
Hunter emerges, shirtless, hair damp from the shower, sweatpants hanging low on his hips. His eyes are sleepy, but when they land on me, there’s a flash of something. Concern maybe, or just his usual predatory awareness.
“Hey,” he says, voice raspy. “Smells good in here.”
“Don’t get too excited,” I say, forcing a smile. “I may have forgotten the salt.”
He glances at the cookies, then at my face.
His mouth twitches, almost a smile, then he goes to the cabinet and pulls out mugs, setting them next to the stove.
Whether I want coffee is never a question.
He just makes it, black for him and, without looking, a splash of oat milk for me.
He slides my mug across the counter. The cookie tray is still between us, steaming.
“Rough morning?” he asks. His question is casual enough that it doesn’t sound like he’s fishing.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I lie. Taking a sip of coffee, I let the taste ground me. I want to tell him about the podcast, about the way Patrick’s words still sting, but the idea of saying them out loud makes my tongue feel impossibly large in my mouth.
Hunter doesn’t push. He leans on the counter, biceps flexed, watching me in that way he does when he’s trying to read the scoreboard before the first period even starts.
I break the silence by sliding a cookie toward him. “They’re not exactly grandma quality, but—”
He grabs one, still hot, and takes a giant bite, almost burning himself. Chocolate smears the corner of his mouth, but he doesn’t notice. He opens his mouth and groans.
“These are fucking incredible,” he says, voice thick. He swallows. “You should open a bakery.”
I snort. “No one involved would like that, Hux.”
He shakes his head, chewing. “No, I’m serious. Best cookies I’ve had in years.”
He says it so earnestly that my face goes warm again. He’s obviously insane. That, or he doesn’t have many cookies. It’s probably that one, seeing as how he’s a professional athlete with a team performance kitchen and dietician. I look down at the counter, resisting the urge to fidget with my hair.
The silence grows. It isn’t awkward exactly, but it’s charged in a way that makes my skin prickle.
I can feel him watching me, not just my body, but the way my fingers drum the side of the mug, the way my eyes keep darting to the phone screen.
He knows something’s off, and the longer I sit here, the more I want to tell him.
But before I can, his own phone buzzes. He checks the notifications, reads something, and grimaces.
“Looks like Silas got in a brawl at a bar last night,” he says, passing me his phone.
There’s a photo of Silas, hair soaked in beer, face-to-face with some massive asshole, fists cocked.
“Matthew Wallen, that douchebag from the Vancouver Vipers. Why they were in the same bar, I have no idea. They hate each other.”
I scan the article, muscle memory taking over as I make mental notes. I’m thinking about what angle to play in the press release, whether we should paint Silas as a victim or a hero, and how to control the narrative before it gets out of hand.
“Do you want me to call Coach Cross?” I ask, already drafting an email in my head. “Or should we wait for the league to weigh in before we start damage control?”
Hunter shrugs, muscles rippling. “Up to you. If it were me, I’d want you in my corner. But Silas might prefer to handle it himself.”
I nod, thinking about how different the three Huxley brothers are. Silas with his quiet discipline, Jett with his cocky bravado, Hunter with the walls he builds and the fists he throws. I like that he trusts me enough to let me take charge, even if it’s only for a minute.