Chapter 3 #2
When I round the corner this time, I’m expecting his large presence but not witnessing him yanking his ruined tie off and unbuttoning his shirt, revealing his washboard abs and sculpted chest as he continues through the already cleaned-up kitchen to the laundry room beyond. My mouth goes dry.
But Hunter is not in any mood to be ogled by a woeful roommate who hasn’t been on a date in months.
Undeterred, I follow him, determined to apologize and make this right.
I would never, ever want anyone with scars of any kind to feel bad.
A wave of deep, nauseating guilt rolls through my stomach, knowing my unguarded reaction to the left side of his face has clearly wounded him.
Now that he removed his shirt, I can see the striated skin—clearly the work of skin grafts—extends down his neck and spreads over his left shoulder and part of his back.
His lips tighten into a thin line as he smashes his clothes into a ball and chucks them into the washing machine.
“Are those okay to go in the wash? They look like they need to be dry—”
“Let’s not do this.” A ripple runs through his shoulders, his back muscles flexing and hardening like a storm brewing beneath his skin. “I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity. And your expensive shirt might need some TLC so it doesn’t get ruined.”
He shoots me a glance over his shoulder—he’s careful to look over his right shoulder, showing me the normal side of his face—and I amend, “Well, more ruined. I’ll replace it.
I feel awful. About the salad . . . and .
. . and the look out front.” As I flounder through an apology, he grips the edge of the washing machine, his knuckles flashing white.
“I would never mean to make you feel bad. I had a heart transplant, and I have this huge scar, too, so I know what it’s like to have -people stare, and I would never—”
“Liv, is it?” he cuts me off, turning to face me.
Neither of us turned on the lights in the laundry room, so he’s huge and hulking in the darkness again, standing there like a tragic movie poster, with his slacks slung low on his hips and his bare torso.
He’s so beautiful that even his scars can’t hide it.
“Olivia, but my friends—”
“Do you honestly think that because you’ve got a big red mark on your chest and half of my body looks like it’s been through a war, we’re suddenly going to be best friends? That we’ll swap tales of skin grafts and endure rude stares together?”
A hesitant tremor sparks in my belly at his words. “Some-thing like that.” I opt for an encouraging smile, despite the simmering animosity radiating off him.
“I don’t do scar buddies,” is his stony response, and my smile fades.
“I meant what I said to Lou. I’m not looking for a relationship right now—or anything else either.
I’ll try not to ‘skulk around in the dark’ anymore, and you can keep the salads and electronics to yourself.
We’ll settle for being neighbors who don’t attack each other. Nothing more. Sound good?”
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. Hunter brushes past me with a concerted effort to make sure no part of his arm or hand touches me, and I’m left in the dark laundry room, my mouth gaping open.
“Wow, that must be some migraine,” Lou comments from behind me a moment later.
“He actually slammed the door. Like he’s thirteen and throwing a tantrum.
” I turn to face my friend, still reeling from Hunter’s blunt rudeness.
“I don’t think he’s normally like this. He got more bad news at work today and—”
“And he’s a total dumhuvud!”
Lou grimaces, recognizing the Swedish insult from both my and Farmor’s using it. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing worth repeating. But you might want to take your dream of becoming family and throw it through a shredder. I don’t know if I ever want to talk to him again, let alone consider dating him.”
“Well, crap,” she repeats.
“Yeah,” I agree, rubbing at my temples. “Hey, what happened to your date?”
“He was running late at work, so I came home to change. I have to leave in ten to go meet him.” She glances sideways to the wall that conjoins the half of the duplex Hunter now inhabits. “Do I dare leave you two here alone? Will my home still be standing when I get back?”
“I won’t throw anything else at him—unless he tells me he doesn’t want a scar buddy again. Then I make no promises.”
“He didn’t!”
“Oh, he did.”
Lou groans. “What a turd.”
“Don’t worry about it. I doubt he’ll come back here, and if he does, I’m a grown-up. I can be civil. Since he’s your cousin and all.” I shoo her. “Go on. Go get ready for your date.”
“Nope. I’m going to cancel it and stay here to watch Grey’s Anatomy or something with you.”
“I forbid it. What if this date is the one? I can ogle McDreamy by myself, thank you very much.”
“You know the chances of this date finally being the one are slim to none, right?”
“I know this is the banker guy who you’ve been looking forward to meeting for two weeks, right? So I think the chances are higher than slim to none. Now, go! Before I shove you out the door and possibly scratch your Louboutins.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Lou holds up her hands with a defeated laugh. “All right. I’m going, I’m going.” She actually takes off her shoes (that are worth more than my entire closet of clothes) to dash up the stairs to her room.
When I hear her talking to someone on her phone above me and a deep voice responding during all her pauses through the shared wall, I realize she must have called Hunter.
I can’t make out the words and don’t want to know what awful things he might say about me to Lou, so I grab a bag of popcorn and shove it into the microwave, waiting for the sound of the kernels bursting into buttery goodness to drown out the murmurs of their voices through the too-thin walls of this duplex.
By the time Lou comes rushing back downstairs in a stunning little black dress that shows off her svelte figure (despite daily Swedish treats) and her teal-tipped hair, I’m sitting on the couch with the huge, steaming bowl of popcorn in my lap, my apron gone and old reruns of Friends on.
“Oh man, not the season where Monica and Chandler are secretly dating. You know I love that season!”
“Go! Make your own magic. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
Lou sighs and blushes a little bit, belying how excited she is for her date. She’s been talking of nothing else since her friend at Wells Fargo sent her this guy’s Instagram page and said he was ready to date again after getting out of a rocky relationship a few months earlier.
“Okay. And don’t let Hunter get to you. Ever since the accident, he can be . . . a little moody at times. But he’s like a cactus.”
“A cactus?” I choke on my bite of popcorn, nearly inhaling it from the laugh I try to hold back.
“Yeah, prickly on the outside, but inside, he’s mush—full of the waters of kindness.”
“The waters of kindness?” My heart issues aren’t going to take me out after all. I’m going to die from aspirating popcorn after laughing too hard. “Aren’t some cacti full of spiders?”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.” Lou flicks her hair over her shoulder. “He’d do anything for the ones he loves.”
“Well, he’s made it clear I’m not going to be on that very short list. Now, quit making the Dreamboat Banker wait.”
Lou seems about to say more, but then her phone buzzes, and after glancing down, she flushes and nods. “All right. But we’re not done with this conversation.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” I wave her off as she hurries out the door.
Once I hear her car pull away, I settle into our plush couch with my bowl of popcorn and a determination not to let Hunter’s comments—or the memory of his abs—replay over and over in my mind.
But not even Monica saying, “I could go for some chicken,” can drown out the words Hunter flung at me from echoing through my mind. Especially when I hear him moving around next door, reminding me that he’s right there, a few inches of wood and plaster away.
No. You don’t get to be a jerk and then make it so I can’t ignore you. I turn the volume up until I can no longer hear the sounds of him pacing the floor next to me and secretly hope he hates Friends.