Chapter 4 Hunter
Hunter
I had to hustle Wesley outside because I’d gotten so turned on it was shameful. I put it down to the fact I hadn’t slept with anyone since my ex, and even with Michael, sex had been sporadic and unsatisfying.
Wesley, with his sexy self, falling into my arms, stole my sleep.
Stupidly pretty, annoying, Wesley stared up at me with dark eyes and gasped. And I was instantly hard.
Before I got over the embarrassment of having Wesley in my arms, albeit by accident, and getting hard as steel at the scent of him, how soft and sweet he’d felt pressed against me, the surprise in his wide eyes, the way his mouth had fallen open as if he couldn’t believe I was holding him.
For fuck’s sake, I couldn’t believe it either, or the memory lingered far longer than it should have.
Adding insult to injury, what with lack of sleep and a faint throb already building behind my eyes, I’d already dealt with a couple of disasters.
As I was prepping pastries, the second oven gave a sickening clunk and died.
I stood there with flour on my hands, staring at the useless hunk of metal, the ache in my temples tightening with every second.
“Of course. Perfect timing.” I gave it a frustrated glare.
The day had barely started, and already it was going wrong.
Then, when I was making myself a coffee, our primary machine hissed and sputtered as if it were about to explode.
I slammed the switch off and groaned, grabbing the phone to call in for a replacement part.
Great. Add that to the list. We’d have to rely on the second machine, which was slow and unwieldy.
My head pulsed harder, a reminder that stress and fatigue were piling on before noon.
Wesley didn’t help. I rubbed at my eyes, the light from the windows already too bright, and his chatter made my head buzz like a hornet’s nest. He was at my door as soon as I opened, and now we were up to three visits already, and it was only eleven a.m. I had to deal with him popping in with arms full of scribbled recipes for Nordic drinks, wild ideas for decorations, and his latest so-called conspiracy theory.
Today’s gem involved the snapped pine up on the first bend of the mountain road where he’d once wrecked his car—he swore he’d seen something there, maybe the legendary snow angels that haunted lonely alpine passes.
“I never really thought it was all my fault, you know,” he’d begun. Still, anyone seeing Wesley Darkwood driving on snowy roads knew to stay well away. He was as elaborate in his driving as he was in his life.
“And according to this forum I found,” Wesley chattered, leaning over the counter, “they spotted ghostly figures up in Whiteface Mountain last winter. Snow angels, Hunter! They lure drivers off the road with wing-shaped shadows in the snow. And now I’m telling you, me getting distracted and hitting the pine on the bend could be proof they’re here too.
” He told me all this while I was grinding beans and pulling his usual ridiculous order—half-caf, double-shot latte with oat milk, two pumps of hazelnut syrup, and extra whipped cream with sprinkles.
Coffee is coffee in my book, but I wasn’t about to argue with the man when he paid extra for all that froufrou nonsense.
Money was money, even if his theories made less sense than his order.
The chatter scraped at already fraying nerves, every laugh or shift of his voice sparking the dull ache in my skull.
“And talking of Norway…” He tilted his head.
My head hurt, and the light through the window seemed suddenly too bright, almost overwhelming, and I caught myself wondering if this was the start of a migraine.
I hadn’t had one of those since I left Ashcroft—more specifically, since I’d ended things with Mark and started my life over.
Wesley was still talking
“You know, with all our Nordic prep, there was this story from Bergen,” he went on without taking a breath, “about a ghostly woman in white who wanders frozen roads and whispers people’s names until they skid into the drifts. Totally real. It’s all connected, Hunter, I swear.”
“Uh-huh,” I said and placed the coffee on the counter, reminding myself yet again that I tolerated Wesley because…
well, because I did. He was noise and chaos wrapped in too much enthusiasm.
Still, when I looked up at him, I found myself pausing—had his eyes always been that dark?
And had his hair, freed from the usual ponytail, always fallen across his forehead in an easy, careless wave that made my fingers twitch with the ridiculous urge to brush it back.
“And a pastry,” Wesley said, breaking my strange train of thought as he stared into the glass cabinet. “The seventh croissant down.”
“Seventh.”
“My lucky number.”
I can’t do this today… “They’re all the same pastries.”
He gasped theatrically and clutched his chest. “Seven is fate, Hunter. I was born on July 7th, 1997. My first dog? Jackson! Seven letters in his name. See? Then, the year I finally passed my first-ever math test was seventh grade. And don’t get me started on how many times I’ve stumbled into near-death experiences and walked away on the seventh try. It’s the universe talking to me.”
“Next, you’ll be telling me you crashed your car on the seventh.”
He tapped his full lower lip, then brightened. “No, the fourteenth, but oh my god, that is two times seven. Told you.”
I used the tongs to remove the seventh croissant, counted it out and everything, then paused. “Wait, seventh from the top or the bottom.” I was teasing, but a genuine look of consternation had me pausing.
“Top, bottom, no… top… no, I’m a bottom kind of guy.”
I stiffened, the words hanging in the air heavier than they should have.
He froze, eyes darting to mine, cheeks scarlet before he recovered and gave me a wink. “Oops. From the bottom, the one with the curly end.”
I bagged the pastry, trying not to think too hard about that pause, and told him the price.
He tapped his card on the reader as if nothing had happened.
Before he picked up both things, though, he pulled out a stapled booklet and slid it across the counter.
“Some more recipes. And I thought we could coordinate decorations in blue and white.”
“I don’t decorate,” I muttered, though even I knew how miserable I sounded.
“You’d make more money if you did.”
“I don’t want to make more money,” I shot back, a lie we both knew, and one he let hang between us without calling me on it. The silence pressed, and I hated how he could see straight through me.
“I can help,” he offered brightly.
“I don’t need help.”
“It worries me that you might use the red and gold you had last year.”
“I didn’t put any decorations up last year.”
“No, I put them up on the lamppost, remember.”
“Then you chose the red and gold.”
“Exactly.”
Exactly what? My patience frayed. I wasn’t following his leapfrog logic, and it frustrated me more than it should. The door opened then, the bell sounding.
Wes scooped up his drink and pastry, entirely unbothered. “Just tell me which recipes you choose to do. Bye!”
“I’m not doing any of it—” I started, but the door shut before I could finish.
He was gone, and I dropped the booklet behind the register with more force than necessary.
“I’m not doing this shit,” I muttered to myself, though some treacherous part of me was already imagining the blue and white lights he’d talked about, and how easily his energy filled the empty spaces of this place.
“I’m not making Nordic freaking drinks and dressing up,” I told the cash register, and Jamie stared at me as if I was losing my mind.
I probably was.
By the time the lunch rush had thinned, the noise of customers and phones still echoed in my skull, each sound sharp as glass, and the missing deliveries wound me tighter, my head throbbed, and my patience was gone for the day, particularly when our regular bean delivery didn’t arrive.
We had enough for two more days, but no one at the delivery company could answer where this week’s delivery had gone.
I talked in circles with them until finally they agreed to redeliver—at my cost, of course.
That wasn’t new. Me throwing money at a coffee shop I didn’t even want had become routine.
And yet, it still left me simmering with frustration, the kind that clung to the back of my throat and made my headache worse and seemingly immune to Tylenol.
“Boss?” Jamie looked wary as he touched my arm—he’d only been in a few minutes, but he’d been quiet ever since he stepped in, almost as if he had something to say.
I could imagine him saying he was leaving or something, and fuck, the thought of me in this place having to cover all day…
fuck, no. “Are you getting a migraine?” he asked, and that shocked me.
“I mean, you look like my uncle when he has one—he screws his face up, like this.” Jamie pulled a face to demonstrate, and despite myself, I huffed out a laugh.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Sure, you are,” he said, unconvinced. “Tell you what, I’ll take the last two hours. You should go lie down.”
I wanted to argue, but the pounding in my head made the decision for me. “Thanks, Jamie.”
I took him up on it, but instead of heading for a nap, I sat down at my laptop—too much to do to think about sleeping. To be fair, away from the counter, I felt a little more relaxed, either that or the meds had kicked in… until I caught myself hunting down Nordic drink recipes.
Because…
Well, I had no fucking idea.