Page 15 of His Curvy Woman

Chapter 7

Whitley

Tonight has beena crazy rollercoaster of emotion. Happy, nervous, turned on, frustrated, shocked, and then back to happy again. I don’t know which way is up or down. I never would have thought I’d run into my longtime crush and he’d tell me he wanted to be with me. What do I even say to that? It’s almost like I’m living in a dream, except this isn’t a dream. This is reality, and I’m scared that I’ll get my hopes up and then something will go wrong and screw it all up.

Sitting here worrying about what-ifs aren’t going to get us anywhere though. I go to the kitchen and start looking through his cabinets to find plates. The only thing he has are paper plates and solo cups, go figure.

Hunter walks into the kitchen carrying two pizza boxes that smell incredible and a couple other to-go containers. He sets them down on the counter and starts opening them all up for me to see. He’s ordered a large supreme pizza, a white pizza, garlic knots, wings, an order of alfredo fettuccini, and a salad. Dear Lord, what is this man trying to do, feed an army? I look at him and shake my head. “That is way too much food, Hunter. How are we going to eat all of this?”

“Silly woman, I am a grown man. I can finish one of those pizzas all by myself. Also, I didn’t know what you wanted, besides the pizza.”

I inhale all of the delicious scents, and my stomach rumbles again making me laugh. I shouldn’t have skipped lunch today, but I was too nervous about our date tonight to eat. I look through his drawers looking for something to serve the salad and pasta with, so I can make our plates, but all he has are plastic forks. “Hunter, you really need to go shopping. Where is all of your kitchen stuff from your old place?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I never had any. I lived at home with Mom and Dad until I moved out. It never made sense for me to get my own place when I was able to live rent-free. When I moved, I just figured I would take you with me when I went shopping since you would be the one who would be using it all too. Or no?”

I sigh and shrug my shoulders. “Yes?” His smile fades, and I immediately feel bad. I place my hand on his forearm and squeeze, getting his attention. “I’m scared, Hunter.”

“Of what baby?”

The emotion in his eyes shows me that he’s genuine, that what’s between us isn’t temporary. “That this is too good to be true, and everything I’ve ever wanted is going to be taken away from me.”

He wraps me in his arms and hugs me tight. “Believe in me and in us Whitley. We’ll take it day by day, and I’ll prove that our love is a love that will last us a lifetime.”

I’m not touching the word love. Nope. It’s too soon for that kind of talk and gives me a funny feeling in my middle that I’m not going to think about, something akin to need and hope.

When my stomach rumbles again, he swats my ass and laughs. “I need to feed that monster that keeps growling. Go sit down in the living room, and I’ll bring you your plate.”

I roll my eyes and swat his stomach as I pull away. “How about I make the plates, and you go find us a show that we can watch while we eat.”

He gives me a quick kiss, grabs the pizza boxes, and heads out of the kitchen and into the living room. The saying ‘I hate to see him go, but I love watching him walk away’ is entirely accurate here. That man has a fine ass. I shake my head to clear it and fill both of our plates with garlic knots, salad, pasta, and wings then walk out to the living room.

Hunter has pulled over a few moving boxes making a temporary coffee table of sorts and put the pizza boxes on them. I set our plates on top of the pizzas and go back to the kitchen and root around in his refrigerator to find something other than water. I find an unopened case of A&W Root Beer and my stomach warms when I see it, realizing he must have bought it for me. The man isn’t a big soda drinker unless that’s changed over the past several years, but I highly doubt it.

I walk back out to the living room with my root beer and a bottle of Michelob Ultra for him, then sit down beside him and hand him his drink. “Thanks, Lee.”

I smile and curl my legs under me as we settle in to eat. Netflix is loaded on his television, and I’m curious about what he’s going to pick out for us. “What are we watching?”

“How do you feel about The Umbrella Academy?” He asks.

“Have you seen it yet?” I ask and take a bite of the pasta.

“I’ve watched the season once, but after reading the comics, I want to do a rewatch.”

“You got the comics, too? As soon as I watched the first episode, I was hooked, and when I finished the season, I found the comic books on Amazon and ordered all of them.”

He clinks his beer against my soda. “Same girl, same.”

I start laughing, “Just press play Hunt.” Then I take another bite of my pasta. He’s quiet and doesn’t do anything, so I look over and see him staring at me with a warm look in his eyes. “What?”

“You’re going to see Lee, I’m going to show you every day how perfect we are for each other.”

“Okay, Hunter. You keep showing me, and I won’t fight it.”

“That’s my girl.”

We share a smile that means we’re both in, all in, on this journey. I can’t be more excited to see what happens. Hunter presses play on episode one, and we dig into our dinner.

After we finish eating, Hunter cleans everything up while I go and wash up. Pizza is greasy, and I don’t want any of that getting in the way of stealing a few kisses. I walk to the master bathroom, and while I’m washing my hands, I notice a picture taped to his mirror that I didn’t take notice of before. It’s a picture of Hunter and I at one of the pool parties my parents threw the last summer we spent together. We both look like babies compared to now, Hunter free of the colorful ink that I can’t stop staring at now. I pull the picture from the mirror and study it. We’re both in bathing suits smiling at the camera. His arm is thrown over the back of my chair, and he’s leaning in close. I’m so busy staring at the picture in my hands that I’m startled when Hunter comes in and wraps his arms around my waist from behind, and rests his chin on my shoulder.

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