Chapter Three #3
If she did, the better part of a week had already passed.
She’d probably found someone else to lend her a hand, and that did not make a hot little ball of jealousy form at the base of his throat.
He had absolutely nothing to be jealous about.
She was a random person he’d met on a random street corner for ten random minutes in an otherwise unremarkable day. End of story.
Still, he checked the time. He had another hour left of his shift, and the bookshop would be closing soon. He wouldn’t make it there tonight.
I can pick it up tomorrow, he volunteered.
While he waited for his old man to respond, he tapped on the messages Lucas had sent him, which included a goofy meme about novice DIYers setting their houses on fire and a gif of a guy banging his head against a wall, so apparently his day at the local hardware store downtown was going well.
He fired off a gif of Ron Swanson chuckling, then went through and deleted half a dozen odd spam messages that were cluttering up the rest of his inbox.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Dad: SRSLY
He definitely wasn’t getting pissy when he replied, You’re welcome to go pick it up yourself if you need it today.
“You old coot,” he muttered under his breath before tossing the phone on his desk, where it landed safely on a pile of leaflets about the new bug that was threatening to destroy half the trees in Vermont this year.
“Everything okay?” Alix asked.
“Yeah.” Hunter shook his head in a mix of affection and irritation. “Just my old man being a pain in my ass.”
Alix snickered, but there was something bitter to it.
Hunter debated with himself for a second before biting. “Relatable?”
“You have no idea.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“No.”
Okay, then. They’d played this game before, so he kept his mouth shut and counted to ten.
Right on cue, Alix threw her hands up in the air. “My mom won’t stop badgering me with all this college application BS. Like, she refuses to get it through her head that I don’t want to go. What am I going to do with a college degree?”
Oh boy, this was a minefield. “Whatever you want, I suppose.”
“What I want is to get my GED and come on full time here and move out of her house, but I’m being reasonable and finishing high school, even though it’s torture.”
Melodramatic, much? “Very reasonable.”
“I know, right?”
He should probably stay out of this, but he was basically legally required to put in a good word for staying in school.
“You realize it’s not all or nothing, right?
I went to college, had fun, then came back home with a lot of good stories to tell and a way higher base salary.
It’s not a bad thing to keep your options open, y’know? ”
But she wasn’t having any of it. “Nope. I’m suffering through high school, and then I’m done.
There’s no reason to waste my time or money on stupid applications for places I’m never going to go.
” She blew out a righteous breath. “It’s time for her to recognize that it’s my life, and she needs to get off my back. ”
A little pang fired off in his chest, but he squashed it down. “Your mom’s probably just trying to help.”
“Well, she’s not. Ever since Dad skipped town she’s been unbearable.”
“It’s not easy for a single parent with a—ahem—spirited teenage daughter.” God knew Hunter’s sister, Kyra, had given his dad enough gray hairs, back when she was in high school.
“Don’t you go taking her side.”
“I’m not, I’m not.” He held up his hands. “I’m sure if you explain your point of view, she’ll eventually come around.”
“From your lips…” She gestured at the ceiling, leaving the to God’s ears part unspoken. With that, she returned her attention to the computer screen in front of her, effectively signaling that the conversation was over.
He frowned, torn about whether to press further or just let her stew, but fortunately, he was saved from having to decide when his phone buzzed and his dad’s response flashed on the screen.
Dad: FINE
A flash of panic lit up his nerves. Crap, was his dad actually taking him up on his challenge to go get the book himself? If he did, Hunter wouldn’t have any reason to go to the bookstore. Unless, heaven forbid, he just went there on his own. To… shop for books?
Granny would never let him live it down.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t a reader; he just wasn’t a shopper.
She’d see right through him, and she’d start poking at him about how his fateful meeting with Emma at the Crossing had set him on his path to wedded bliss.
Which was ridiculous. Everyone knew he wasn’t the marrying type.
He just… wanted to say hi. No need to read more into it than that.
His phone buzzed again.
Dad: C U TMORROW
Oh, thank God. He’d known his dad wasn’t going to trek all the way into town just to get a book twelve hours earlier. Stroking his beard, he gave his dad’s response a quick thumbs-up before blanking the screen again.
He had a perfect excuse to drop by the store now. And if he found himself actually looking forward to having to go into town?
Well, that was something he didn’t have to read too much into, either.