Chapter 18 President of the Board
EIGHTEEN
President of the Board
Mabel
Friday afternoon, I went into town to check in with Abigail (since we broke the seal on our friend thing, I told her about Hutch and my friends-with-benefits situation, and she appeared to be reconsidering her “go with your intuition” advice, but she’d see that it was working the next day when Hutch gave us our tour).
While in town, I grabbed groceries.
Specifically, food for the dinner I was making the next night for my friends, their kids (also my friends, just the kid variety)…and Hutch.
Now I was on trip two of lugging them into the cabin as my phone rang.
Tonks was howling her hello.
Moxie had jumped up on the counter to inspect the grocery totes by stuffing her face into each one, as I’d noticed was her self-appointed role, one she took seriously.
I pulled out my phone and saw it was a call from Mona.
As proud millennials, we rarely called unless we made a phone date.
Not to mention, there was a time difference, but it was not that wide.
She should still be at work.
So this worried me.
I took the call. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“President of the board?”
“Sorry?”
“I’m texting you a TikTok right now,” she announced, then ordered, “Watch it.”
I felt the notification come in, took the phone from my ear and went to her text, my stomach sinking at the profile and caption of the TikTok she sent.
Profile: Misted Pines Community TikTok
Caption: Stony Bluff Animal Rescue and Wildlife Sanctuary President of the Board Has Got the Moves.
I touched the screen, TikTok opened up, and I watched with both delicious fascination and wild trepidation the very well-edited video of Hutch sinking shot after shot after shot (after shot, as far as I could tell, all twenty of them) with a soundtrack of Sia’s “Unstoppable.”
And yes, whoever filmed it caught me at the end, throwing myself at him, along with Hutch’s hot-as-all-hell one-arm lift.
But what made me stop breathing was the massive smile on my face as I said whatever it was I said to him (in that moment, I couldn’t recall).
And the soft, even tender look on Hutch’s face as he held me to him, handsome head tipped back, and watched through his kickass shades as I spoke those forgotten words.
God, I’d been so excited at what he’d done, I’d missed that look in real life.
The video even included when he slowly put me down on my feet.
Then the editor took some artistic liberties, with Sia still serenading us, as Hutch gave Emma her bear, the cute high fives he gave the kids…
And it ended with us in slo-mo, his head turned, chin dipped down to look at me as my head was turned, tipped back, talking to him, while we were walking side by side with Tonks and Hannibal (Emma was cut out of that shot, but you could see her little hand by Hutch’s on Hannibal’s leash).
We looked like we were the King and Queen of Misted Pines in our casual but cool mountain town clothes with our dogs.
Good Lord.
We looked amazing together.
And if Hutch was hot in regular-mo, he kicked ass in slo-mo. Even I was half-convinced Liam was right, and he was a secret superhero.
But my heart actually stopped when I saw the likes (over one hundred thousand!) and comments (over five thousand).
I checked the MP Community TikTok’s follow numbers, and perhaps unsurprisingly after all the attention the town had gotten, they were over a million.
Or maybe it could be all the hot guys I’d seen around and excellent video editing.
Who knew?
I just knew I did not want to be on social media.
And I worried Hutch would want it even less.
I closed TikTok and put the phone back to my ear.
“Yikes,” I said to Mona.
“Yikes? Yikes?” she snapped. “First, are you seeing that guy?”
I was less excited about telling Mona about (what I thought was) my stellar friends-with-benefits idea.
Mona both beneficially and detrimentally had the ability to cut through the horseshit, she didn’t suffer fools or put up with being treated like crap nor did she put up with anyone she cared about doing the same.
At one point during my spectacular breakup with my ex, I thought she felt worse than I did because she’d loved him.
He’d hoodwinked her too.
She wasn’t upset that he’d hoodwinked her.
She was upset that she hadn’t seen through him so she could warn me about him.
“His name is Hutch. And yes, technically, I’m seeing him.”
“Technically?” she asked dubiously.
“We’re friends.” Oh God. “With benefits.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay then.”
I blinked at Moxie sniffing carrots.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Well, no. Outside of wondering why you didn’t tell me. Does Kacey know?”
“No, she doesn’t. Actually, it just happened.” I paused then amended, “Not true. We met a few weeks ago. One-night stand turned into him becoming my dog trainer and that turned into friends with benefits.”
This was whitewashing it a bit, but what could I say? I wasn’t going to tell her about the cult next door. She’d corral Kacey and then I’d also have to live in fear of them showing up and friendnapping me back to Orlando.
“You’re lucky he is all he is,” she replied. “You had a reprieve because I was forced to watch the video eighteen times before I called you to tell you I was pissed off with you.”
“Forced,” I snorted.
Though, I was probably going to watch that video more times than that.
“Okay, well, even if I’m not feeling all light and fluffy about this, considering the fact you look happy there. Like you’re having the time of your life. So that means you probably won’t come home…”
I never was going back to Orlando.
I’d told her that.
But hope springs, I guessed.
“…I feel less light and fluffy that I have to tell you that I heard it through the grapevine that Bryce has seen that video, and he’s on the warpath.”
My insides shriveled up.
Bryce was my ex.
“How has Bryce seen it?”
“Did you glance at the comments?” she asked.
I didn’t want to.
“No.”
“Welp, you and Mr. Basketball are a hit. They’re calling you the Patagonia Power Couple. That account has a lot of followers, but that many likes means that video’s gone viral.”
What?
Neither of us were wearing Patagonia.
But…
Oh God.
Tonks started barking.
Oh God!
Hutch was here.
I took my phone from my ear and covered it, ordering in the dog voice Hutch taught me to use, “Tonks! Quiet!”
She let out a soft roo-roo and dashed to the door.
I put my phone back to my ear, moving to the door myself. “Hutch is here to train Tonks.”
“Okay, I want a callback, but real quick, how Bryce saw it? Well, I saw it because Marcy saw it and told me about it. Which, as you’re aware with Marcy’s big mouth, means people we know saw it.
And some of those people also know Bryce.
Obviously, they showed it to him. Apparently, and this is all hearsay, but we know Bryce… ”
We sure did.
“…and he’s lost his shit at the idea you’re with someone else.”
I’d unlocked the door.
But at what she said, I had to hold myself very still so my head didn’t explode.
“Can I spread the word you are with someone else, missing out the friends with benefits thing?” she asked into my stony silence.
“Because I’m not sure Bryce looked real close at the video.
If he did, he’d see the president of the board could wipe the floor with his bony ass. Babe, that one arm lift? Lawd.”
At this juncture, the door opened, Hutch walked in, took one look at me, and although Tonks was winding up to give him her usual throaty welcome, she didn’t when he barked, “What’s going on?”
“I have to go,” I whispered into the phone.
But Mona’s back was up. “Is he mad at you?”
“No, he’s mad for me. I’ll call you later.”
I thought I heard her mutter, “Friends with benefits my ass,” before I disconnected.
Hutch watched my hand with the phone drop and then his gaze zoomed right back to mine.
“Talk to me,” he demanded.
“It’s not the Waco whackos,” I said.
“That isn’t an answer to my question,” he said.
“Okay, can I…er, give you a little history first?”
“You can give me whatever you want if it explains that look on your face.”
There it was.
This friends with bennies was so working.
“Okay, before I moved to Misted Pines, I was engaged to somebody.”
His attention flew to the phone and back to me. “Is he calling you?”
“Maybe, but I have him blocked.”
He drew in a sharp breath and urged, “Go on.”
“It was…I mean, obviously, since we were engaged, I was in love with him.”
“Obviously,” he drawled.
“The thing is, he, that is…Bryce was already married. And he had two kids. But I didn’t know any of that at the time.”
I flinched just remembering that scene in the restaurant when Tara, Bryce’s wife, and her friends confronted him.
Us.
Then I flinched again at the memory of when she noticed the ring on my finger, and at first, thought I was engaged to someone else. But then, as I was in the midst of experiencing my own heartbreak, during which I shared I was engaged to Bryce, how she reacted to that.
And I flinched yet again, remembering three days after all that went down, when I sat with Tara, we had our convo, and she showed me pictures of her two little kids (one and three years old, and both adorable, by the way), sobbing and not understanding what went wrong (Bryce), how it went wrong (Bryce), and what she was going to do next (that had no answer at the time).
Hutch crossed his arms on his chest, and the days were getting cooler and cooler, so he was wearing a brown and black plaid insulated flannel shirt over an oatmeal thermal.
I could still see his pecs pop, such were the power of his pecs.
“Obviously, I broke up with him,” I went on. “And…well, there’s a lot of other history I have going on. We, as you know, kind of touched on some of it the other night.”
“All right,” he said.