CHAPTER 3 #2
I groaned, capping the nail polish and setting it aside, satisfied with my pretty toes. “I have no idea what you’re both talking about.”
“Bullshit!” Layla said. “Now put us out of our misery and tell us what happened.”
It was foolish of me to assume I could actually keep this tidbit a secret from my best friends, who were basically like my sisters. Though I was still trying to make sense of what happened last night…they weren’t completely wrong.
Hunter’s kiss deeply affected me.
My whole world tilted on its axis.
I’d kissed a lot of guys in my life, but no one had ever kissed me like him.
Passionately, with his hand wrapped around my throat possessively. Eagerly, like one kiss wasn’t enough and he needed so much more. And hungrily, as though devouring my lips was the only thing that could satiate him.
Just remembering that hot revenge make-out session and the way Hunter called me good girl and sweetheart heated my blood. No doubt, I had heart eyes and drool at the corner of my mouth too.
Knowing Anna and Layla wouldn’t rest until I told them everything, I relayed my story, beginning with seeing Tom and Morgan on the dance floor. By the time I finished explaining how Hunter and I wound up putting on a show for Tom, their jaws were slack, mouths hanging open.
Seconds later, I was subjected to more surprised squeals.
“I can’t believe he said ‘Kiss me.’” Layla chuckled. “Clearly, he saw his shot and took it!”
“One hundred percent,” Anna agreed, grinning.
Confused, I said, “What are you talking about?”
Anna twirled a lock of her waist-length blond hair around her finger. “I mean, I’ve noticed he stares at you whenever we’re in the same room. It’s like he can’t help himself.”
“I’ve noticed that, too,” Layla added.
Excuse me, what? Why am I only learning this now?
“And none of you thought to, I don’t know, maybe tell me that?” I deadpanned.
“Honestly, at first I thought he had a staring problem.” Layla winced. “Then I figured he found you so pretty that he simply couldn’t look away. But after hearing what you just told us, I’m convinced he’s been harbouring a crush on you the entire time.”
“I concur,” Anna said. “Why else would he jump at the first opportunity to kiss you, Gabby?”
I stayed mum, digesting this new piece of information and seeing our exchange from last night in a different light. Maybe Anna and Layla were right. Or maybe they were delusional, including myself, for even entertaining this possibility. Nonetheless, it didn’t matter.
It was just one kiss, one night, one encounter.
Nothing would come of it.
I was a fling or one-night stand kind of girl. Hunter wasn’t about to be another notch in my belt. Not only because it may ruin the dynamics of our friend group when things inevitably ended, but I had an inkling he was a long-term kind of guy.
The complete opposite of me.
Even though at one point, I’d been exactly like that. A long-term kind of girl. Someone who hoped to find her perfect match and settle down, with the whole white picket fence and two point five babies dream.
But perfection was a myth and most men frankly sucked.
“I don’t think he has a crush on me,” I concluded, shaking my head. “He barely knows me. And hypothetically speaking, if he does, why wait until now to approach me? The way I see it, yesterday was a one-off. We were just two people in the right place at the right time.”
“Some people are shier by nature.” Anna smoothed her hands down her baby pink, high-waisted miniskirt. “Maybe Hunter just didn’t know how to talk to you before, and last night was the first time he found the courage to actually do so?”
When I pondered over our moment from the terrace, Hunter didn’t appear shy. Only playful. But he did mention that he was a homebody. Perhaps he was more introverted than I suspected and that halted him from previously approaching me.
Still, I was choosing to treat the kiss between us as a successful business transaction.
Nothing more, nothing less. But the next time I saw Hunter at a party, I’d go out of my way to hang out with him for the sole reason that I didn’t like knowing he hid in the corner.
Big crowds made him anxious and that, for some inexplicable reason, tugged at my heartstrings.
“Plus, you’re a catch, Gabby.” The thin gold bracelets adorning Layla’s wrists jingled as she gestured towards me. “Can’t blame Hunter for having a thing for you.”
“Oh, God.” I stood up, groaning. “Let’s stop this conversation right here.
For all we know, your earlier theory of him having a staring problem could be accurate and we’re just being silly by thinking he has a crush on me.
” I put crush in air quotations. My ego wasn’t so grand to assume that everyone with a dick in my vicinity had the hots for me.
“And though he’s cute and I’ll admit that maybe I’m attracted to him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never act on that attraction. ”
They both seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Why not?” Anna asked. “He seems like a nice guy. Not like…”
She trailed off, but we all knew about the elephant in the room.
Not like Franco, my ex-boyfriend.
The stupid fucker who birthed all my trust issues. I regretted giving him three years of my life. If I could turn back time, I’d undo all our memories and make sure to kick him where the sun didn’t shine.
“Yeah, Hunter does seem nice.” Reminders of my ex brought out a bitter note to my voice. “Alas, still a no.”
My best friends didn’t push the topic anymore.
Layla tried to ease the mood by wiggling her eyebrows and jokingly saying, “Do you want me to text Josh and ask if he thinks Hunter has a staring problem?”
Anna chuckled and a scoff escaped me.
“Please, don’t do that,” I pleaded, adjusting the strap of my structured black minidress so it rested better on my shoulder. “If this gets back to Hunter, I’ll die of embarrassment.”
We spent the next few moments exchanging goodbyes and making plans to meet up for a study session midweek. Since I didn’t have my license yet, Layla drove me to my apartment, which was located in a complex owned by the Remingtons—Josh’s family—and not too far away from Vesta University’s campus.
The best decision I made was moving out of my childhood home for the sake of my mental health. I loved my parents, but distance really made the heart grow fonder. Moreover, I liked living alone, sans roommate. It helped strengthen my independence.
Maverick, the security guard who doubled up as a doorman, welcomed me as I neared the entrance of the building. “Hello, Miss Bellafiore.”
I forced a smile. “Hey, Rick. Good day?”
“Better now that you’re here.” He gave me a suggestive once-over that made me want to gag. I resisted the urge to hurry up to my apartment so I didn’t come off as a total bitch. “How’s your day going?”
He put a pudgy hand on my waist under the guise of guiding me inside the building and I shuddered, quickly ducking out of his hold. “Great. Thanks for asking.”
Maverick was in his early forties and a little too flirty and handsy with the female patrons living in the apartments.
A few months ago, when I came back home after a night out, he propositioned me, asking me to dinner and well, everything that comes afterwards.
I politely declined and he took it like a champ, never asking me out again.
But he did make me uncomfortable with his creepy grins and leery-eyed looks.
I bet if he knew about the gun sitting in the drawer of my console table, he’d never look my way again. Nevertheless, I gauged Maverick to be relatively harmless and never bothered reporting his weird behaviour to management.
“I hope you have a great rest of your day,” Maverick drawled with a wink.
But something about the way he said great and day had my gut tightening with instinct. I couldn’t quite place my finger on the trigger, but I felt edgy. I tried squandering the feeling screaming inside of me that something was off as I headed for my apartment.
Visibly, everything was status quo. The usual potted plants sitting in the foyer.
The speckled flooring from the ’90s. The light smell of lemon-scented cleaning products.
The gentle whirring of the air conditioning unit.
The cockatoo from the ground floor apartment squawking faintly in the background.
But eeriness pulsed through the air as I climbed up the steps in the empty stairwell, the echo sounding like nails being pounded into a coffin. My skin itched like a hundred little ants crawling down my spine by the time I reached the third floor.
The hallway was exceptionally quiet. With every footstep, my senses whetted as I neared my apartment…and automatically halted.
My door was unlocked and ajar.
I pushed it open and stepped inside before thinking twice.
Once I did, my eyes widened in shock as I soaked in my wrecked place.
My favourite crystal vase, which used to rest on my console table in the entryway, was broken, shattered into tiny little pieces on the floor.
And the white living room wall before me bore an angry sentence, scrawled in crimson red paint.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here…
including you, bitch.
Something jumped at me from my left and I flinched, letting out a bloodcurdling scream.