Chapter 19
We spend the next couple of hours sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, Hunter and I sipping wine, while Hannah attempts to explain what a ‘creeper’ is, and why we don’t want to encounter one.
Then, when she finally gives up, I take over and casually thrash them both at Tetris, making a mental note to thank my sisters later for bringing such a large amount of children into the world who can practise this stuff with me and keep me on my toes.
‘I would never have guessed you’d be so good at video games, Rosie,’ Hannah exclaims, when she gets up to get ready for bed. ‘You were rubbish at Minecraft earlier.’
‘Rosie’s full of surprises,’ observes Hunter with a slow smile in my direction that suggests he’s not just talking about Tetris.
‘Um . . .’
‘She cooks a mean pasta, too,’ he goes on.
‘And performs daring rescues on horseback,’ I put in, feeling like I might as well keep mentioning this, seeing as it’s probably the most impressive thing I’ll ever do.
‘And shows people her bum,’ shrieks Hannah, putting a quick end to the conversation.
‘Teeth, Hannah,’ says Hunter, tipping the last dregs of the wine into our glasses. ‘You’re in with me tonight; Rosie’s going to be taking your room. That’s if you’re sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable in my bed, Rosie?’
He pauses, the wine bottle hovering above my glass as he looks at me questioningly.
‘And I’d take the couch?’ he clarifies, seeing the look on my face.
‘No, um, I’m sure I’ll be fine in Hannah’s room,’ I reply, my cheeks growing hot under his gaze.
‘Well, as long as you’re sure,’ he says with a shrug which suggests it doesn’t matter to him where I sleep; a fact that’s considerably more disappointing to me than it should be.
Fortunately for me, Hannah chooses this moment to provide a distraction by effusively bidding us both goodnight, and, by the time she’s safely tucked up in bed, I’m behaving more or less like a normal person again.
Well, by my standards, anyway.
‘Feeling a bit more relaxed now?’ Hunter asks, handing me my wine glass again. ‘Now that you know you’re not going to be stabbed in your sleep?’
‘I didn’t seriously think that would happen,’ I protest, even though that’s exactly what I thought. ‘I just got a bit spooked by it, that’s all. You don’t really expect to find a knife in your bed, do you? Especially not in a five-star hotel.’
‘No, that’s definitely four-star treatment,’ agrees Hunter. ‘I’d be leaving a strongly worded review if I were you. Don’t though – I’m begging you. I don’t think Dante would survive that.’
‘I still have him down as the main suspect,’ I tell him, sipping my wine. ‘It’s not normal to be as passionate about your job as he seems to be.’
‘You just think that because you hate yours,’ Hunter points out. ‘Some of us are quite happy with what we do, believe it or not.’
‘So, who do you think’s doing it, then?’ I ask. ‘It has to be someone. Even if you can explain away the other stuff, that . . . dirk . . . didn’t get itself into my turnip on its own, did it?’
‘Ach, I don’t know, Rosie,’ Hunter admits. ‘I’m still inclined to think it’s some kind of stupid prank that’s gone too far. Whoever it is probably doesn’t even know how much it’s getting to you.’
‘Don’t do that,’ I say quietly, staring into my glass. ‘Don’t try to minimise it. I hate that. I know you’re just trying to reassure me, but . . . I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘OK,’ he replies carefully, after a pause. ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’
‘My ex,’ I say, swirling the wine around in the glass. ‘Adam. He was always trying to tell me I was wrong about stuff. Always trying to play down my fears, or my worries.’
‘Rosie, I wasn’t . . .’ Hunter says softly. ‘I would never try to do that. But I’m sorry it came across that way. I really was just trying to make you feel better.’
‘I know,’ I tell him, flushing. ‘Sorry, I think I’ve probably had too much wine. I know you were just being nice.’
‘And you’re being too nice again, by apologising all the time,’ he points out. ‘Even when you have absolutely nothing to apologise for.’
‘Sor— um, OK. And thanks for saying that; I appreciate it.’
‘So, this Adam,’ he says, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands. ‘What other things do I have to hate him for?’
I laugh in spite of myself.
‘Oh, nothing, really,’ I reply. ‘Adam isn’t a bad guy. He just wasn’t the right guy, that’s all. He’s not worth hating.’
‘Nope, too nice again,’ Hunter cuts in. ‘Give me something to work with here, Rosie. At least tell me he hogged the remote all the time. Or squeezed the toothpaste in the middle.’
‘He was in a fairly committed relationship with the remote control,’ I admit. ‘Much more than he ever was with me.’
‘And?’ Hunter raises his eyebrows comically. ‘There must be more than that?’
‘Well . . . he would sometimes finish watching a TV series that we’d started together without waiting for me,’ I say, warming to this game.
‘No!’
‘And then he’d talk about it in front of me. With spoilers.’
Hunter puts his face in his hands and pretends to weep.
‘Go on,’ he says through his fingers.
‘He was always late for everything. Especially when it was something we’d arranged to do with my family.
Or my friends. He just didn’t seem to see them as particularly important.
I once asked him to come to one of my sister’s birthday dinners, and he genuinely couldn’t understand why I expected him to come, or what it had to do with him.
It was like he didn’t see us as a couple. ’
Hunter lowers his hands, and I notice he isn’t laughing anymore.
‘Then, when it was my birthday this year,’ I tell him, ‘I decided to throw a party; which I never normally do, because I don’t like the attention. But my best friend talked me into it, and I thought, why not? Why shouldn’t I get to feel special for once?’
I pick up the wine glass and take a huge gulp.
‘Adam didn’t turn up,’ I say into the glass. ‘Well, not until the party was almost over, anyway. Said he forgot about it. He just . . . forgot about me.’
‘He forgot? Seriously? He forgot your birthday?’ Hunter almost spits out his wine.
‘Yup.’
I swallow the rest of mine in a single gulp.
‘Rosie, that’s shit,’ says Hunter quietly. ‘That’s really, really shit. I hope you told him where to go after that?’
‘That’s the thing,’ I admit, staring back into my wine glass.
‘I didn’t. I accepted his apology, and I tried to pretend it was fine; that it was my fault for thinking I needed some big celebration just for having been born.
Then he dumped me anyway, for being “high maintenance”. That’s why he’d come round.’
‘He dumped you on your birthday?’
He says it quietly, but there’s an undercurrent to his words that makes me feel like I’m hearing this piece of news for the first time. And, when he says it like that, I can suddenly see how awful this actually is, and how little I deserved to be treated like that.
‘Rosie,’ says Hunter, taking the glass out of my hands and putting it down on the floor. ‘You know how messed up that is, right? You know it’s not stupid or weird to expect your partner to remember your birthday, or come to your party?’
‘I know it now,’ I reply, blinking frantically to stop myself from crying. ‘But at the time, it was easy to believe he was right.’
‘Well, he wasn’t,’ Hunter says, taking both of my hands in his and looking me right in the eye, in a way that should be uncomfortable, but somehow isn’t.
‘He was completely and utterly wrong. You do deserve to be celebrated. And you deserve to be with someone who knows that; not someone who hogs the remote control and tries to make you think you’re not important. ’
I blink, my breath catching in my throat. His hands are warm and steady, and he’s looking at me as if he actually sees me; which is unusual, to say the least.
‘There’s also the TV thing,’ I remind him, swallowing down the lump that’s risen in my throat. ‘That was pretty annoying, too.’
‘Very annoying,’ agrees Hunter. ‘I’m serious, though, Rosie. Never let anyone convince you that you’re not special. Not Bex, not Sabrina and definitely not this Adam eejit.’
‘I’m not totally sure what an “eejit” is,’ I confess with a smile. ‘But thanks. I’ll . . . I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ he says. ‘Just promise me you’ll try to assert yourself a bit more. Stop letting other people try to tell you who you are.’
‘Noted.’
We look at each other, the air between us humming with something unspoken.
‘So, what about you and Hannah’s mum?’ I venture at last. ‘Did she hog the remote, too? Forget to replace the loo roll when it was done?’
Tell me all the ways I should hate her, I’m begging you.
A shadow of emotion flickers across Hunter’s face, and I worry I’ve broken the spell we’ve been weaving together by saying something I’m not supposed to. But then he looks me in the eye and smiles softly.
‘No, nothing like that,’ he says, rubbing the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. ‘And she never forgot anyone’s birthday, either. Hannah’s mum’s the most organised person I know; it’s why she’s so good at what she does, I suppose.’
‘What does she do?’ I ask, relieved that he hasn’t just shut me down, like he did the last time I tried to bring up the topic.
‘She’s a corporate event planner,’ he replies. ‘Which means she’s constantly travelling for work. That’s why it didn’t work out between us: she was just never there for us to make a go of it. She was married to her work.’
He laughs without humour.
‘She must miss you both, though,’ I say, thinking of this super-organised, jet-setting career woman, who sounds like the exact opposite of me, in every way. ‘If she’s travelling so much.’
‘She misses Hannah.’ Hunter shrugs. ‘Takes her on amazing holidays every chance she gets, to make up for not being here for her the rest of the time. I’m not sure she misses me, though. She doesn’t really know me well enough to miss me.’
‘She . . . she doesn’t?’
I reach for my wine glass again, wondering how this can possibly be the case.
How can she not know the man she shares a child with?
‘Hannah wasn’t planned,’ Hunter says, grinning at my confusion.
‘Sienna and I had only been seeing each other for a few weeks when she got pregnant. We wanted to keep the baby, but we both knew by then we didn’t want to keep each other.
And Sienna wasn’t ready for a family. She loves Hannah – I know she does – but she loves her work too. I told you some people do.’
That shadow crosses his eyes again, and I put my glass back down and reach for his hands, the way he took mine a few minutes ago, when I was talking about Adam.
‘Well, Hannah’s lucky to have you, then,’ I say, squeezing them gently. ‘Because I happen to think you’re pretty great; even when you keep mentioning my, um, wardrobe malfunctions.’
‘I happen to think your “wardrobe malfunctions”, as you put it, are pretty great too,’ he replies, his voice a little hoarse all of a sudden. ‘Especially the one in the sauna.’
I cringe at the memory.
‘Oh God, that was so embarrassing,’ I say, letting him go so I can cover my face with my hands. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.’
‘I know I’ll never forget it,’ replies Hunter, chuckling softly. ‘I hope I never do, anyway; it was easily one of the best sights of my life.’
‘Really?’ I blink at him through my fingers.
‘Really,’ he confirms, pulling my hands gently away from my eyes. ‘You’re glorious, Rosie. Absolutely glorious.’
His eyes flicker down to my lips and, all of a sudden, the room feels smaller, and far too warm. My pulse quickens as he shifts closer.
‘Rosie,’ he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Yes?’ My thoughts are a jumbled mess as he leans in, his face just inches from mine.
‘If you don’t feel the same, tell me now,’ he says, his forehead almost brushing mine. ‘Because I really want to kiss you, and if I wait any longer, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself.’
I hesitate for the briefest of moments. Then, instead of pulling back, I close the gap; my lips meeting his in a kiss that’s every bit as surprising to me as it is to him.
Hunter freezes for a split second before his hands slide up to cup my face, deepening the kiss with a tenderness that makes my knees weak.
His thumbs brush over my cheekbones, slow and deliberate, as if he’s trying to memorise me by touch.
His lips are soft, and they taste like red wine; the sensation so intoxicating I barely notice the way my hands have found their way to his chest, my fingers tracing the taut muscles that lie just beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.
‘I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw you in that sauna,’ he murmurs huskily as he breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second. ‘You have no idea what you do to me, Rosie.’
His lips find mine once more, and I sigh with pleasure as he pushes me back against the cushions on the sofa, completely abandoning myself to the moment, until . . .
‘Dad! Daddy, can I get a drink? I’m really thirsty.’
I’m so wrapped up in Hunter and what’s happening between us that it takes a few seconds for Hannah’s voice to filter through, but when it does, Hunter and I jump instantly apart, both of us looking instinctively towards the – thankfully still closed – door.
‘Um, I best be going,’ I say, getting reluctantly to my feet.
‘Aye. I suppose you should.’
Hunter follows suit, smiling so widely at me that I almost reconsider my decision to leave. But then the bedroom door creaks open, and Hannah peeks around the side of it, taking the decision out of my hands.
‘Well, ’night then,’ I say over my shoulder as I walk towards the door of her room.
‘Goodnight, Rosie Winter,’ replies Hunter. ‘Sleep well.’
As the door of Hannah’s bedroom closes behind me, though, I have a funny feeling that I’m not going to be getting much sleep at all.