Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LOLA
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of silver trays and forced smiles and pretending my insides aren’t shredded.
I work on autopilot. Handing out canapés. Refilling glasses. Clearing plates. Keeping my head down and my eyes away from anyone whose name starts with an H or an R.
Every time I catch a glimpse of a cowboy hat across the yard, my stomach bottoms out.
Every burst of deep laughter makes me flinch.
I’m a mess. A smiling, professional, falling-apart-at-the-seams mess.
I’m stacking empty platters in the back of the tent when Violet appears beside me, hip-checking me gently.
“Hey.” She ducks her head to catch my eye. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
She gives me that look. The one that says I watched the whole thing unfold, and we both know you’re lying. But she doesn’t push. Not yet. She thinks Reese is as much of a dick as I do.
“Listen, we’ve got everything covered from here. Luke and I can handle the cleanup.”
“V, I’m not going to leave you with—”
“You’re not leaving me with anything. Reese won’t dare come near me, and Hunter looks pissed, yes, but not at you.
” She grabs the platter out of my hands and sets it down.
“Go home. Have a bath. Drink something strong.” Her eyes soften.
“You’ve done more than enough today. Take the van, Luke will drop me home. ”
I want to argue, but the fight has bled out of me. I’ve got nothing left. The adrenaline from the Reese disaster has faded, and all that’s sitting in its place is a heavy, suffocating shame that makes it hard to breathe.
He’s stayed well away from me, thank fuck. But, still, being in the same place as him makes me rage. I nod and pull off my apron, folding it over the back of a chair. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
She squeezes my arm. “I’ll be home soon, and we can figure out a game plan out of that apartment asap.”
I nod. We have one viewing left, the last one got snapped up before we even finished the tour. One shot to stay in New Falls without having a dick as a landlord.
I slip out the back of the tent so I don’t have to walk through the party. The sun is starting to dip, turning the sky a bruised orange, and the air has cooled enough that goosebumps prickle up my arms.
It’s beautiful here. I don’t want to go back to New York. Because even on shitty days like this, I’m still happier than I was back home.
I keep my head down. Walk fast. Don’t look back.
All I can see when I close my eyes is Hunter’s face. The way he shook Reese’s hand without looking at me. The way he said briefly like I was a stranger. Like that night in the truck had been scraped clean from his memory.
I was nothing to him.
I did that. I let Reese put his arm around me for long enough that it looked like a choice. I should have shoved him off the second he touched me. I should have—
I round the corner of the tent and stop dead. Hunter is leaning against the tailgate of his truck, arms crossed, hat tipped low over his eyes. Like he’s been waiting. For me.
My heart drops into my stomach.
His head lifts. Those blue eyes find mine across the gravel, and there is nothing soft in them. No warmth. No teasing grin. No firefly. Just a hard, unreadable expression that pins me to the spot.
I do the only thing my body knows how to do when it’s cornered.
I run.
I spin on my heel and take off in the opposite direction, heading for the dirt path that leads to the main road. My flats slap against the ground, and my pulse is hammering so loud it drowns out the distant music from the party.
I don’t get far.
His boots hit the gravel behind me, and then a hand catches my elbow, and I’m being spun around.
“Don’t.” His voice is low. Not a request. But it’s different from Reese. It’s not in a way that makes me feel small.
Hunter's touch empowers me.
“Let go of me.” I try to yank my arm free, but his grip doesn’t budge.
He walks me backward. Not breaking the intense eye contact. Until my shoulder blades hit the cold metal of his truck door and he cages me in, one hand braced on the roof above my head, the other still wrapped around my arm.
He’s close. Too close. I can smell him—leather and cedar and something warm underneath, something that makes my traitorous brain replay every second of the last time I was pressed against this truck.
“Hunter—”
“No.” He cuts me off, jaw tight, a muscle feathering beneath the stubble. “You don’t get to run from me again.”
I press myself harder against the door, like I can melt through the metal if I try hard enough. Guilt is clawing at the inside of my chest, turning my lungs to concrete. “I can explain—”
“Not here.” His eyes flick toward the party, then back to mine. The command in them makes my breath catch. “Get in the truck.”
“What?”
“Get in the truck, Lola. I’m taking you home.” His voice doesn’t waver. Doesn’t soften. “We need to talk.”
I stare up at him. My lips part, but nothing comes out. Every excuse, every deflection, every sharp-tongued comeback I’ve ever used as armor—gone. Dissolved. Useless against a man who looks at me like I’ve cracked something open inside him.
“You can’t leave your son's party over this,” I whisper.
He sucks in a breath. “Wyatt is playing with his friends and has his uncles watching him. I need…” He pauses. As if whatever he was about to admit breaks him.
“I didn’t—” My voice breaks. I swallow hard and try again. “Reese and I aren’t—”
“I said not here.” He leans in, and for a breath, I think he’s going to kiss me. His forehead almost touches mine. His exhale is warm against my lips. But he doesn’t close the gap. He just holds the distance there, and I feel every inch of space between us like a live wire.
Then he pulls back. Reaches past me. Opens the passenger door.
The leather seat stares back at me like a dare.
“Please get in the truck, firefly.” The words are quiet. Rougher than anything he’s said all day. And it undoes me more than the commands ever could, because underneath the authority and the clenched jaw and the don’t fucking test me energy, I hear it.
He’s hurt.
I climb into the truck.
He shuts the door behind me without another word, rounds the hood, and slides into the driver’s seat. The engine turns over with a low rumble that vibrates through the bench seat and into my bones.
Neither of us speaks.
He pulls out of the ranch, gravel crunching beneath the tires, dust kicking up behind us in a pale cloud. The party shrinks in the side mirror until it’s nothing but noise and string lights and a life I don’t belong to.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window and close my eyes.
His hand finds the gear shift. His knuckles are white.
And the silence between us says everything neither of us is ready to.