Page 150 of Falling Overboard

I waited for him to answer. I calculated the time difference. I knew he was probably working at that moment but I was too impatient, wanting to hear back from him immediately. So I added:

I miss you. Can you call me?

But hours later, I still didn’t have a response. I went to bed that night terrified that I had destroyed whatever it was that we’d had.

Chapter Fifty

Lucky

The next afternoon I took Chauncy for a long walk. I had waited all day for Hunter to send back something. I would have been happy with even an emoji. But total radio silence.

I worried that he might have blocked me. I couldn’t imagine him doing that, though. I didn’t let myself get sucked into a spiral. Things would work out the way they were supposed to. And if Hunter and I were over, well, my heart would be broken but I would pick myself up and keep going. I had a new and improved relationship with my sisters and the bakery to look forward to.

It didn’t stop me from wanting him to be a part of it.

My brain tried to fixate on the fact that I deserved not to hear from him. That I had basically abandoned him and accused him of terrible things and now he didn’t want to talk to me. I was not going to allow myself to go down that path. If nothing else, I had learned to redirect myself to more positive thoughts.

Losing Hunter was an awful price to pay for that internal change.

When I entered the apartment, I called out, “Lily? I’m back.” I put my keys on the ring and undid Chauncy’s leash. He ran into the living room. “I found a recipe for that babka you asked me to make. Of course, first I had to read through thirty paragraphs of the baker’sautumn in New York in 2010 right after her boyfriend ended their relationship and how she made this to—”

I came around the corner and saw Hunter standing there.

“Hello, Lucky.”

For a full ten seconds, I thought I was hallucinating. That I had missed him so much that my mind was imagining him being here.

But no, he was standing next to Lily, who was on her crutches. He looked scruffy, tired, worn down.

“Hunter?”

He smiled at me and I put a hand over my fluttering stomach.

“So I was just going to take Chauncy for a walk,” Lily announced loudly.

I held up the leash. “I just—”

“Come on, Chauncy! Let’s go to the park.” She took the leash from me, got it on Chauncy, and then hobbled out of the apartment.

Hunter was here. Rodney must have given him the address.

When she closed the door, I said to him, “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me. You didn’t answer my text.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “How could it be a romantic surprise if I gave you a heads-up?”

“Romantic?” I echoed, unable to help myself. My heart surged with hope. It was a good thing that he was here. He wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world just to end things, would he?

But if he was here and not on theMio Tesoro... “Did you quit the ship?”

“When I got your message I told the captain that I quit, effective immediately. Then I flew home to New York to talk to my parents, and then I came straight here. I haven’t slept in like, two days.”

He looked like it. “What did you say to your parents?” I was so worried for him and his future. This was the last thing I had wanted him to do.

“I explained everything to them. I told them that you meant more to me than their offer and I left.”

“But your dream,” I protested softly.

“You’re my dream,” he countered, his words filling me with lightness and hope. “I told them that if the only way they were willing to fund the center was if I stayed on the boat, I would figure out a way to do it on my own. Plus, I know lots of rich people who are looking for tax breaks.”

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