28. There was nowhere to go #2
“I can’t believe what I have to tell you,” she said giddily, then she paused to drink her champagne.
Her dark eyes, which were made even more dramatic with eyeshadow and rich eyeliner, flitted to the photog and he finally got bored and moved on to a reality TV person sitting two couches over.
Hannah put a hand on his closest knee and leaned in.
“I found someone to star in my new music video.”
“Okay, good,” Colby answered, wondering why Kenner had been ominous about this. “Did you finally lower your standards?”
Hannah had spent the last six weeks going through headshots. She wanted, in her words, “someone who was pretty but not too pretty. A guy who made you want to strip naked without even having to be asked. Raw sex appeal but even more raw vulnerability.” And apparently no one had that.
“Not even a bit. If anything, he’s way better than I could have imagined, and he said yes!” she explained and squeezed his knee. “And you agree!”
“I can’t agree if I don’t know who it is, baby.” I reached for the champagne, but she pulled the glass away.
“You can have the gin and tonic he’s getting me,” she explained. “And you know who it is. Oh! There he is with your drink.”
Colby turned his head and looked up, expecting some Calvin Klein model or like pseudo-famous hot guy that he might vaguely recognize but wouldn’t be able to name.
Instead, his eyes were assaulted by familiar dark eyes, darker hair, and a tall, lean, muscled body he knew how to make come apart.
Colby’s whole body went stiff, except his heart, which felt like it was melting into a puddle inside his chest.
Hunter looked at Colby and paled visibly, which was quite the feat for a guy who was already alabaster. Hannah acted like nothing weird was happening. She just smiled and gestured between the men. “Hunter Law, you remember Colby Keaton. Colby Keaton, you remember Hunter Law.”
Hunter had matching drinks in his hands.
He was holding them chest-high, elbows tucked, close to his white, almost sheer shirt and vintage beige blazer.
Around his neck was a thick, short, white gold necklace with a single black diamond nestled in the hollow of his throat.
His hair was longer than Colby had ever seen it…
in person. He’d seen videos… accidentally-on-purpose, over the last few months—interviews mostly.
It somehow looked thicker and glossier in person as it swept up and, in some places, also over his forehead.
It’s gorgeous. He’s gorgeous. And it filled Colby with a thick, dense pain.
“Can you two say hello, because this is getting weird?” Hannah laughed and motioned at Hunter. “Give Colby his drink.”
Colby stood because it felt like a disadvantage to have Hunter look down at him.
Hunter didn’t speak, didn’t even blink, he just jutted his left hand out toward Colby and moved his gaze to Hannah.
Colby took the drink, careful not to touch his fingers in any way, and almost dropped it on Hannah.
She would deserve it. “This is who you’re going to ask to be in your music video? ”
“This is who she did ask,” Hunter corrected without looking at him.
“Hannah,” Colby said flatly. She knew it all. In screaming detail. She’d seen him turn himself inside out over this guy over the last few months after making the decision to stop communication with Hunter. Not that it was that hard since Hunter was already ghosting him.
She looked up at Colby with soft, gentle eyes, like she had the worst news ever to deliver. “He is the it boy of the moment. And well deserved. That movie made me cry, laugh, cheer, and scream. All the feels.”
Colby just stared at her. Hunter sighed loudly, but Colby still refused to look away from Hannah. “I’ll give you my number, Hannah, and we can work out the details.”
“Is it the same number Colby has? Because I can just get it from him.”
“Oh, he still has my number?” Hunter said, the sarcasm more than apparent in his tone and face as his eyebrows lifted. “That’s weird because he doesn’t use it.”
“When your fellow Canadian Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he made it work both ways,” Colby shot back.
“You moved out,” Hunter blurted out, and Colby could tell by the way his face twisted that he wished he hadn’t said it.
“I’m still paying half the fucking rent,” Colby barked back.
Colby tried to take a deep, stabilizing breath but couldn’t.
His lungs just wouldn’t expand. He turned to leave and walked directly into the back of that fucking photographer who’d been shooting Hannah earlier.
Now he was taking pictures of a rapper and his girlfriend.
Colby apologized as he tried to get around him.
But he noticed Hunter and Hannah, who were standing now, reaching for Colby, trying to stop his exit.
“Oh, hey! Let’s get a shot of you three.
Hottest musicians and hottest actor in the same place, together! ”
Colby wanted to tell him to fuck off, but that would be bad, so he grimaced and hoped it looked like a smile.
He turned back to Hannah and Hunter. Hunter was grinning.
He looked so relaxed and unaffected. Colby wanted to scream.
He also looked so fucking hot it made Colby’s blood boil in a different way.
In his absence, Colby had tried to convince himself that Hunter wasn’t that good-looking.
That Colby had just been desperate to be with a guy, and Hunter had been willing, so it was primal need rather than chemistry or actual attraction.
Now that lie was laid bare because even though Colby was hurt by Hunter and furious with him, he couldn’t deny he was also drawn to him.
It was almost physically painful to look away.
Hannah wrapped an arm around Colby as soon as he was within reach, her stack of gold and diamond bangles jingling in his ear as she guided him to her left, to sandwich him between herself and Hunter.
The photographer looked ecstatic. “Lean into it and have fun!”
Colby bit back another “Fuck you” and gripped his drink tighter.
Hannah dropped her head onto one of his shoulders, and Hunter’s hand dropped onto the other.
Colby felt an electric current where Hunter’s fingers were brushing the side of his neck that shot straight down to his cock. And it made him want to die.
The photographer took a bunch of shots as Hunter’s fingertips roamed the back of Colby’s neck, brushing the ends of his hair near the back collar of his shirt.
Colby had been growing it out again. The stylist flattened it and made it curl just a bit around the ends.
It made him feel confident and sexy until now.
Now he felt like a sad, pathetic loser. Somehow, Hunter was sucking away his confidence, like a vampire.
As soon as the photographer took his last shot, Colby stormed off.