Chapter 11 #2
Not thinking. Not letting my body lead me to her, the way it always did. Just blind panic as my thoughts spun and my heart faltered between desperate sprints, because I needed to fix this.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder a couple booths down, and I reacted instinctively. Grabbing it and turning on the person behind me, all while twisting his arm between us until he no longer had use of it and his other wrist was in my grasp.
“Easy.” The familiar voice broke through at the same instant I noticed the man standing there, calmly allowing my reaction. I bit back a curse when Hunter’s mouth twitched in amusement and hurried to release him. “I see some things never change.”
“Sorry, man.”
My cousin shrugged like he wasn’t bothered by it, but his dark brows drew together in concern as he tipped his chin at me. “You good? We called out to you, but you stalked right past the booth.”
I barely spared a glance in the direction I’d come from. “Uh . . . yeah.” I plastered on a smile and met Hunter’s unconvinced stare. “Yeah, sorry. Just got a lot on my mind.”
He studied me a second longer before dipping his head and taking a quick look around. “Weren’t you just talking to Mallory? Where is she?”
A hesitant laugh left me as everything in me begged to search her out—as that pull inside me demanded I go back the way I’d just come. “Yeah. She’s, uh . . . she’s somewhere,” I muttered as my gaze automatically danced over the people walking behind Hunter.
By the time I settled on him again, a knowing look was crossing his face before he could cover it by rubbing a hand over his mouth.
“I see.” Gripping the bill of his baseball cap, he repositioned it as another ghost of a smirk tried breaking free.
“Well, hey, some of my skeleton crew is gonna come take over in a bit. Y’all still coming for lunch? ”
Right.
Mallory hadn’t exactly been eager to have lunch with my cousins earlier. I doubted I could get her there after what just happened.
“Yeah, I dunno—”
“The kids already think you’re coming,” he said over me.
I worked my jaw as I warred over what I could handle—letting down my cousins’ kids or pushing Mallory further. When I caught sight of Hunter’s victorious smirk, I slanted an irritated look at him. “You’re a piece of work. You know that, right?”
He shrugged, feigning innocence. “All I said was the kids think you’re coming.”
A grunt of disbelief left me because he knew just as well as I did that I thrived off being the fun uncle and cousin—probably because I knew kids weren’t in my future.
“Just wondering if a certain wild you would happen to know why the mention of pregnancy would cause that reaction in a certain stone-faced Mallory.”
I cleared my throat and forced away Chloe’s words from the day before, along with the thoughts that had plagued me ever since.
Not in our future, and not currently happening. She would’ve told me.
“Something going on with you and your girl?” Hunter began, his expression showing a healthy dose of suspicion.
A hesitant sound rose in my throat. “We’ve talked about this. She isn’t—”
“She isn’t your girl,” he said over me with a look that said he still didn’t buy it.
Then again, he’d listened to me talk about Mallory for over a decade. They all had. But not one of them knew about Aruba or the fallout after.
Instead of fumbling between the truth of the past three months and the automatic response I’d always given my family, I looked at the crowd behind Hunter. But looking was never how I’d found Mallory before, and my body was restless with the need to take me to her.
“No one has ever bought the best friend line, Hudson,” Hunter said meaningfully, drawing my attention back to him. “Keep saying it if it helps you, but we all see it. Your mom and sisters especially.”
Right.
He lifted his head in question. “So, what is it?”
I dragged my hand over my chest, rubbing at the constant ache there, before forcing it back to my side. “Can we not do this right now?”
One of his eyebrows ticked up before a look crossed his face that had me biting back a curse.
“I’m fine,” I assured him at the same time Hunter rumbled, “Gonna ask again: You good?”
Doubt settled over his features and worry darkened his eyes as he adjusted his baseball hat, gripping the bill for a little longer before letting his hand fall. “You sure? Because—”
“Not what this is, Hunt. Just . . . just Mallory,” I said, as if that might explain everything. “But, again, I don’t wanna do this right now.”
An impish smirk tugged at his mouth as relief and understanding transformed his expression, as if her name had explained everything. “You know what?” His head bobbed as he started stepping away. “Think y’all coming over might just be for the best.”
My head slanted and brow furrowed as suspicion crept through my veins. “What do you mean? Why?”
“I gotta get back to the booth,” he said instead.
“Hunter.”
“See y’all soon,” he called out as he turned and effortlessly maneuvered through the crowd.
Blowing out a heavy sigh, I ran a hand through my hair and started toward the opposite side of the street, where my aching chest was begging me to go—
Just in time to catch the brunette launching herself at me with an excited squeal.
“Hi, handsome!” the familiar voice said as the girl wrapped her legs around my waist in a practiced move that had my blood going cold.
Because there, standing at one of our favorite booths, and gripping that chain around her neck as she stared at us, was my wife.