Chapter 21 #3
“None of you seem to get it. I can’t let myself hope for any of that, because the chances of me living to seventy or sixty or even fifty are basically zero!”
Hunter takes my arms in his hands, refusing to let me shut him out. “Liv, listen to me. I know you’re scared. I understand. I would be too.”
“No, you don’t understand. No one does,” I snap. There’s a small, logical part of my brain that flashes bright and urgent, warning me that this can’t be easy for him. And yet he’s here, he’s trying.
But the fears I’ve lived with for so long are insistent, -angry. And loud. As loud as the roar of my blood in my ears as I struggle to keep the anxiety from crawling up my spine and seizing control of my whole body.
“Okay, that’s fair. But I’ve been doing my research,” he says, steady and unyielding, his beautiful eyes inexorable on mine, “and there’s plenty of reason to believe that when this heart can no longer keep you alive, you’ll be able to get a second transplant.
Plus,” he continues, barreling over my protest, “there’s a ton of new science and possibilities out there.
There have been so many advances in the last decade we probably can’t even imagine what your options will be in ten or fifteen years when you actually need them.
They’re even working on potentially using pig hearts, and there is a lot of promising signs that they will last much longer than human transplant organs! ”
I wrench myself free, and he lets me. I shift back on the bench, my heart hammering against bone.
The surge of my blood rushing through my veins makes me feel caged and overheated.
“You think I don’t know all that? Yes, there is the potential that any of those things could happen.
But the only guarantee I have is that sometime in the next week to ten years, my body will reject this heart, and I will go back into heart failure. ”
“That’s not even necessarily true. One doctor I spoke with told me your heart could stay healthy for up to twenty--five years posttransplant. He’s even seen some go thirty.”
“You talked to a doctor?”
Hunter flushes, his powerful shoulders lifting and falling as if it’s totally normal to somehow track down a cardiac surgeon and actually get them to talk to you.
“I’m worried about you. I want to understand what you’re going through—what the reality of your life is, as you put it.”
I’m shocked into silence.
“I don’t want to make you more upset than you already are,” Hunter says, soft yet determined, “but he seemed much more optimistic about your outlook than you are. It made me think maybe Talia and Lou have a point. I know you’re afraid—and you have every reason to be—but I’d hate for you to miss out on the potential to meet ‘your person’ and be truly happy because you’re too scared of what might happen to you. ”
I grab my half-eaten salad, snap the lid back on, and stand up. “I want to go back to work now.”
“Liv, please. Don’t do this.” Hunter rises, too. Tall, gorgeous, and pleading. His jaw tightens, a muscle twitching like he’s barely holding it together. “I’m trying to help.”
“Help me?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it.
“Here’s an idea: When you finally stop living in the past and forgive yourself for a mistake you clearly hate yourself for, then you can give me a pep talk.
Then you can tell me to ‘think positive’ and ‘believe’ I’ll live a long, happy life, despite every medical statistic screaming otherwise. ”
I catch the flash of pain in his eyes—but I turn away before it can soften me.
I storm to the car and stop at the passenger door, chest heaving, waiting for him to follow. But he doesn’t come right away. Instead, he drops back onto the bench heavily and shoves his hands through his hair. He holds his head for a moment, elbows on his knees.
The sight of him hunched and defeated is what finally deflates my anger, leaving me hollowed out.
He wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know that. I lashed out because he touched something raw, something I haven’t figured out how to face myself.
The sun is still warm, but it’s no longer comforting—it only highlights the cold knot of guilt coiled in my chest. I stay where I am, frozen in place. Not because I don’t want to go back . . . but because I don’t know how to face him after what I said.
Hunter stands, cleans up the rest of our lunch, throwing his in the garbage can, and slowly makes his way to the car. His eyes flicker to me but quickly away again. His face is a mask.
I did that, I think, a scalding blast of shame striking me in the chest. He took a chance on me, and I threw it back in his face.
“Hunter,” I say, low and beseeching, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I was upset and feeling attacked, and . . . I’m really sorry.”
He stills in the motion of reaching for his door handle, his gaze flickering back up to mine again.
“I wasn’t trying to attack you, Liv. I wanted to show you that there’s still hope.
That you don’t have to be so afraid of your future.
That there’s proof that you shouldn’t be afraid to find ‘your person.’”
There’s something in his eyes—and a responding tightening within me—that silences my instinct to once again argue that he’s wrong. “I want you to be right,” I whisper instead.
We stare at each other across the car. My heart lodges itself somewhere in my throat.
A child’s screech—No, I don’t wanna leave yet!—from the minivan next to us shatters the moment. I blink and grab the car door handle, swiftly opening the door and taking my seat. My thoughts are a tangle of questions, wants, and fears.
Hunter climbs into the car and starts it but doesn’t put it into reverse yet. His fingers flex and release on the steering wheel.
After a beat of silence, I ask, “You really found a way to get a cardiologist to talk to you about me?”
He nods, not looking up, still gripping the wheel. The leather squeaks in protest.
“That’s kind of amazing,” I admit softly. It’s not like heart surgeons take phone calls all day—or ever. Even I usually have to communicate with Dr. Thorup through his nurse. “No one has ever done something like that for me before. Well, except my mom,” I add with a strained chuckle.
Hunter glances over at me, unsmiling, and mine fades. “I know I told you I didn’t want any sort of relationship when we met, and I’m sorry. I thought I meant it. But after the last few weeks with you, I’m not sure anymore.”
The blood rushes to my cheeks again but not in anger this time. The look in his eyes delves straight into the deepest part of me, where a tantalizing heat ignites.
“Could you ever learn to care for someone like me? A man who killed his sister . . . a man who looks like this?” He gestures to his face.
“You didn’t kill her, Hunter. You made a mistake, and your sister died. There’s a difference. And I don’t care about your scars.”
His gaze is unrelenting, and my mouth goes dry.
“This is the part where I warn you again about all the risks if you were to get involved with me,” I say shakily. “I’m the walking time bomb.”
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Liv”—his voice is low, rough with emotion—“I don’t care.
You can’t scare me off. I already know life can end any day, at any time.
None of us have any guarantees. You might live five years or fifty.
I could get hit by a car on my run tomorrow morning—or I could die when I’m ninety of Alzheimer’s.
” Hunter pauses, the weight of his words hanging heavy between us in the small space that separates our bodies in his car.
“That’s all I was trying to say before. You don’t need to live in fear of dying.
Any one of us could be gone from one minute to the next.
Your dad, my sister . . . neither of them had any warning.
One day they were here, and the next—they were gone.
” His eyes are full of the pain I feel reflected in my own heart.
“You know how precious life is, so instead of living in fear of it ending, live like every day is the gift you’ve been given.
Because it is. You, alive, sitting in my car, looking at me like that, is a gift. ”
I’m unable to speak, strangled by the ache swelling in my chest.
“I hope I can convince you to forgive me for the terrible first impression I made on you. I’m scared, too, Liv.
But I’m doing what you asked. I’m trying.
And I want to give this a shot—if you’ll give me a chance to show you who I really am.
Because we’re messy mates, right? Messy mates give each other second and third and fourth chances, if necessary. ”
“Right,” I rasp, tremulously. Because he’s right, I am a mess. And I am terrified. I’ve had another man say I couldn’t scare him off before, but eventually, he, too, broke up with me. Why would Hunter be any different?
He lets go of the steering wheel with one hand to reach across the console to gently wipe a solitary tear from my cheek.
Our eyes meet, and his hand stills on my skin.
My heart beats so hard it’s painful. His thumb brushes against my lip, and my mouth parts beneath his touch.
A shiver races down my spine. Every nerve in my body sparks with the need for him to keep touching me—for him to close the distance between us.
Instead, he drops his hand, a muscle tightening beneath his scarred flesh.
This time, I reach up and cup his face—-feeling the combination of mottled and smooth skin beneath my fingers.
His eyebrows pull together, and his jaw clenches beneath my hand.
There is unmasked pain in his eyes. He tries to pull back, to turn away from me, but I lift my other hand to the unmarred side of his face, holding him there, forcing him to look at me.
“They don’t bother me. They’re a part of who you are—and you are an amazing man, Hunter. If you’re going to make me face my fears, then I’m going to make you face yours too.”
He swallows, his expression tortured.
I lean across the console between us and press my lips to his jaw, on his ravaged skin. Hunter shudders; a sound escapes from deep in his throat, rough, involuntarily.
“Our scars tell the stories of our survival,” I whisper.
His arms come around me, pressing me to him as much as possible in the cramped space of the car. My hip digs into the console and the steering wheel pushes into the side of my rib cage, but I don’t care. He shakes in my arms as I hold him as close as I can.
When he speaks, his voice is hoarse. “She never touched my scars. Not once in a year.”
I don’t say anything. I merely wrap my arms even tighter around him.
The sound of my ringtone startles both of us, and we spring apart. Hunter shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes while I fumble to pull my phone out.
The picture of me and Talia lights up my screen. I stare at it for several seconds.
“You should talk to her,” he says quietly. He’s regained control of himself. Only the red rimming his irises hints at the storm of emotion from moments prior.
“I will. But not right now.”
I reject the call, set my phone back down, and glance at the clock on Hunter’s dash. I’m shocked to realize I’ve been gone for almost an hour.
He follows my line of sight and groans. “I hate to do this, but I have to get back to the office.”
“It’s okay, I should get back too. My mom is running the bakery alone.”
We’re quiet on the short drive to Konditori. I don’t know why he isn’t talking, but I know for me, it’s because there’s so much to say and not nearly enough time, so I don’t speak at all.
When we pull up in front of Konditori, Hunter shuts the car off and hurries over to open my door again. I climb out, feeling strangely bashful and uncertain. I have no idea where we stand now. Are we . . . friends? Still only messy mates? Messy mates who are maybe dating or something?
“Thank you for going to lunch with me.” He’s as uncertain as I am.
I notice a flash of movement in the window of the bakery and realize Mom is watching us.
“We’re going to be swamped with this deal today and tomorrow so I don’t know if I can sneak away like this again.
But . . .” He hesitates, his hands flexing at his side.
“Maybe I can take you out on a real date this weekend?”
Warmth blossoms in my chest. My hesitation melts away. “I’d like that.”
“Me too. And hey, thanks for being my messy mate,” he says with a little half-grin, bumping my shoulder with his.
“Thanks for not thinking I was crazy when I suggested it.”
“Oh, I definitely thought you were crazy. But cute crazy,” he adds when I huff, affronted.
“Okay, then.”
“Okay, then,” he repeats.
“Thanks again for lunch.” Before I can lose my nerve, I throw my arms around his waist. His arms come around me, holding me tight. But when I start to pull back, he immediately releases me. “I better get in there.”
His gaze lingers like a whisper down my spine as I walk into the bakery. When I glance over my shoulder, he’s watching me, the corners of his lips curved gently up. It’s a smile I haven’t seen before.
One laced with hope.