27. You’ve been amazing #2
It was mid-afternoon, so that was the lamest excuse ever, and Hunter knew it, but if Hannah did, she didn’t act like it.
Instead, she nodded as the wind blew a strand of her long, wavy hair across her bottom lip.
His mind flashed to a fan photo of Colby brushing a similar strand in a similar place off her pretty face, and he tried not to frown.
“Yeah, I have to go too. I’ve got a meeting with my agent.
He only eats at Wolfgang Puck restaurants, and so Cut it is. God, he’s so predictable.”
She leaned in and hugged him again, but so quickly this time he didn’t even have time to react. “Hey, is your thing tonight at Marmont? That jewelry party thing?”
Say no, say no, say no, Hunter’s brain screamed.
She pointed and grinned again. She really was breathtakingly pretty, damn her. “It is! Oh cool. I will see you there! Bye, Hunter!”
So he guessed he isn’t a good actor after all if she could read him like a book.
He took a deep breath and got in his car.
On the way home, he replayed the conversation in his head and thought about all the things he should have said—like naming any place other than Chateau Marmont.
Fucking hell. How could he even go to the event now because if Hannah Wolfe was going… chances were Colby Keaton was too.
Had she even been photographed at an event without him since that stupid song they wrote and sang together hit number one and was used in a critically acclaimed movie?
No. Not that Hunter could remember, and yeah, he’d googled their names a few times—not a lot, just maybe twice a week since Colby and Hunter stopped talking.
Which was eighty-six days ago. And counting.
The last text Hunter had gotten was a week after his movie premiere. Hunter was back in Montreal waiting for his mom to come out of a chemo treatment.
Colby
I have autopay set up for the rent. It transfers to you first of every month since they take it from your account.
I can pay my half now and pay you back the months you covered.
Colby
We can deal with that back rent later. If you want to pay half now then fine.
Cool. How are things?
Colby
Fine. Hope your mom is doing okay.
Hunter had sent a thumbs up and that was that.
When the buzz around the movie was completely out of control, and he spent most of his days locked in the guest bedroom at his mom’s doing Zoom interviews and fielding calls from Margo, his parents had sat him down and demanded he go back to LA.
“You worked so hard for this, and I won’t be the reason you miss out on the opportunities,” Catherine had told him.
“I would actually sleep better knowing you’re working rather than skipping out on stuff to take me to chemo when your dad can do it anyway. ”
So Hunter had gotten on a plane, about three weeks after that Los Angeles premiere and the stupid tequila kiss with Mikayla, and stepped into his ratty, old, beloved apartment.
He knew instantly Colby didn’t live there anymore.
His clothes weren’t stacked in the corner by the sofa.
His guitar was gone. The sheets were washed and folded neatly on the bed.
So Hunter sat on the couch and spent an hour drafting text after text to Colby, only to delete them before he hit send.
What was the point of reaching out? How would it fix anything?
Right now, they were friends, technically on paper, and maybe that’s the only way they could be friends.
If Hunter was alone with Colby right now he would spill his guts—ramble endlessly about how crazy it was that everything was changing so fast and about how guilty he felt leaving his mom, and Colby would tell him all the success and problems with his life and they would laugh and maybe cry and definitely touch and Hunter would cross lines—all the lines—because he still wanted to, more than anything.
And that could not happen. So he didn’t send a single text.
He unpacked, showered, ordered food, and got on with his life.
A resurgence of press for the movie had kept him busy enough that he didn’t mope.
And Hunter tried hard to stay focused on his blessings.
He was living his actual dream, in part because he’d walked away from his little fling with Colby.
He did follow Colby’s career, which seemed to be moving at a pace that rivaled his own, and he was happy for him. Truly.
Hunter blinked and realized he’d been sitting in the driveway of his house for at least five minutes.
Fuck. He needed to get a grip. He got out of his car and slowly walked toward the front porch.
He was renting a house in Spaulding Square—a cute, flat area of West Hollywood that had a bunch of adorable craftsman cottages that used to house Hollywood starlets in the forties.
He’d been in it for about a month, but the place was still mostly devoid of furniture except his bedroom, which had all new stuff he’d bought at a fancy store in the Valley.
Hunter took a shower, then made an iced latte with his fancy, expensive coffee machine that would make Starbucks jealous and FaceTimed his parents.
His mother cried when she found out his salary for the superhero movie.
She was so relieved. His dad had a puffed-up chest and an air of awe as he rubbed Catherine’s back.
And when Catherine composed herself, she told her son it was time to get a good, reliable accountant because she was nothing if not pragmatic.
After catching up with them, he took a power nap, which sucked because he dreamed of Colby and woke up horny and agitated.
He jerked off and cleaned up, and then his stylist and groomer were knocking on the front door.
They set up in the bedroom as Hunter internally battled one of his anxiety attacks.
But it wasn’t a bad one. The new meds he was on really helped keep them under control.
As he got his hair done and listened to Knightley complain about LA traffic while he steamed the vintage Armani outfit, Hunter tried to think of all the ways he could recover from anything and everything that could go wrong tonight.
Tripping in front of the cameras, tearing his outfit in an inappropriate place, saying something stupid to someone important.
Running into Hannah Wolfe again. Running into Colby.