Page 64 of Strut

A young serving girl of no more than sixteen slid my coffee and cruller onto the table and I shot her a nod of thanks.

She smiled, held my gaze a second longer, and frowned. “Are you okay?” she asked in a thick Canadian accent that almost made me smile.

No. Not even close. “I’m fine,” I told her. “Just a cold.”

She hesitated, looking like she might say something else, but when I grabbed two sugars to empty into my cup, she left me to it. I didn’t blame her for being concerned. My reflection in the café’s glass door confirmed I looked a mess. No surprise there. I’d spent the previous hour sitting on a bench in the Washington Garden section of the High Line freezing my nuts off, numb from the crawl on my skin to the sick hollow in my chest. People had given me a wide berth and I didn’t blame them. I’d been acting like I was jonesing for something or was a flashback short of a meltdown.

Or like you’ve been sexually assaulted, a voice said loudly in my head. Yeah, that too.

Jesus Christ.I’d been fucking assaulted.Me.Not just felt up. Not just propositioned. I’d had a guy I was working with professionally shove me face-first into a wall with my hand up my back while he ripped my swimsuit down, grabbed my cock, shoved his erection into my crease, and told me to let him fuck me if I wanted the job. And I had the bruises to show for it. I glanced at my wrist and my stomach turned.

I reached for my coffee and almost knocked it over, my hand was shaking so badly. I squeezed it into a fist a couple of times and tried again, this time with both hands, and finally took a welcome sip of the hot liquid. I was so fucking cold; I’d hardly stopped shaking since I’d left Hunter’s warm arms that morning.

Hunter.

I put down my coffee and picked up the cruller and took a nibble. Then I flipped the phone and read his apology for the millionth time and sighed. It wasn’t his fault my head was a mess. Hell, it wasn’t mine either. Waking with him wrapped around me had meanteverything. He was the only reason I’d got any sleep at all.

He cared. He meant well.

But then I thought of his neat list on that pad and dropped the cruller back on the plate as my stomach coiled itself in another knot. I’d seen the pad when I’d dragged my sorry arse to the kitchen at six. Reading his account of what I’d said and what he’d felt when he’d seen me sent a bolt of panic through my chest.

He was already planning retribution, and I’d barely gotten my head around what had actually happened, let alone what the fuck I was going to do about it.

Nothing. That was my first thought. Do nothing. Darcy didn’t rape me, right? He just... touched me. It could’ve been worse. I didn’t have to blow this up into something that would just do more damage to me. I was an adult, for fuck’s sake. A grown man. Who really needed to know? It didn’t change anything. I could... I could do... what?

I groaned.

What the fuck could I do? Forget about it? Good luck with that.

And Hunter knew.

And Hunter wouldn’t forget. And I knew I wouldn’t either. It was going to eat me alive. It already was.

I stirred a third packet of sugar into my coffee and tried another bite of the cruller. If I didn’t get something in me soon, I was going to pass out.

My gaze slid back to my phone. I needed to call Color. That was at least something I could do. There was no way I was tending bar on my usual shift. I called and they swapped it for Wednesday without too much whining.

When that was done, I toyed for a few seconds with the idea of calling Hunter, desperate for his voice. For him to tell me everything was going to be okay. Thatwewere going to be okay. But at the same time, I knew thatnothingwas really going to be the same again. In ten minutes, Darcy Fenchurch had flipped everything in my life, and that included Hunter and me. The cracks had shown straight away. I was alone, not answering his calls, and he was planning to take Darcy down. What did that say about what we had? Maybe I’d been wrong about us.

Or maybe it was just me.

Waking to Hunter curled around me with his arm draped over my waist had meant everything. I’d rolled onto my back and feasted my eyes on the rugged lines of his face. I’d run my fingertips through that thick prickly black scruff I loved so much and along his rose lips. He had a small round scar just beside his nose and another couple by his jaw, and I’d imagined a young Hunter bemoaning the acne of his teenage years in the mirror every day before school. I’d have to ask him.

Ifwe survived. If this didn’t blow us apart. Not just the assault, but all the things he clearly wanted me to do about it.

If I could get my shit together.

If I could even think.

We might’ve known each other before but we’d only been lovers a few freaking weeks. Was it fair to drag Hunter into this mess?Shit.What if he confronted Darcy? What if I did? Could it blow back on Hunter as well?

My heart leaped in my throat because I hadn’t even really considered that.

I pushed my half-empty coffee aside and forced another couple of bites of cruller into my protesting stomach. Then I pulled on my gloves and jacket, grabbed my knapsack, and headed for the door.

“Wait.” The young server hurried after me. “Take this. You look like you need it.” She handed me a second hot coffee and a paper bag with something inside. “I added a little sugar for you,” she said, a blush painting her cheeks.

I stared at the coffee, then back to her sweet face and nodded. “Thanks. I, um—”

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