Page 69 of 2204 Hunter Lane
We spent almost every weekend together with Josh and her little crew of Winter and Cook –Cramer, fuckin’ Cramer. He was good shit, I liked him. Yet another unexpected turn of events.
I showed her the nice hiking trails around here, we went out for ice cream, she spent a lot of mornings at ours before her shift with Payton. It was… Christ, it was the most perfect normal any man could ask for.
Don’t get me wrong, there were nights I’d spend with Bambi that drove me wild. Sometimes she’d wear something a little too nice and my mind would combust. She had a killer bod, and the more I got to know her, the less that became important.
She opened up to me a lot more than I ever thought she could. Not in an overbearing way, but she kicked those shy mannerisms to the curb and was branching out.
Bambi, a deeroutsidethe headlights.
It was crazy to think I ever questioned this girl, ever thought she’d twist my heart and snap it in two. She held it, yeah, carefully, with those tiny little elf hands she had.
Despite the attraction, I didn’t want to fuck up the dynamic. We were no longer treading on rocky waters, but we had something good going on and I wanted to keep it that way. Commitment wasn’t a specialty of mine, and I wasn’t about to start now.
I’d popped into P&D’s to get some fertilizer for the soil when Bambi was on her way out.
“Hey, darlin’,” I said. “We still meeting at Cid’s tonight?”
She nodded her head in a hurry and forced out a smile, shielding her eyes from me.
The fuck?“Whoa, whoa, hey. C’mere.”
I held her wrist in one hand, cupping her cheek in the other as I scanned the puffiness of her face, evidence that she’d been crying.
“What happened?” I asked, keeping her in lock.
“It’s nothing.”
“Bambi.”
I watched her lip quiver as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“My mom won’t get rid of the P.I. she hired when I moved out of Lincoln. She keeps texting me saying that I shouldn’t be spending all my time at bars, and I should be doing more useful things and…fuck!”
She swivelled out of my grasp and took a step back, placing a hand over her mouth as she tried so damn hard to contain herself.
I let her. I let her hammer out her emotions cause I didn’t know what the hell I’d do if I had some rando creeping down my neck every hour of the day and I couldn’t do nothin’ about it.
“You know, a little part of me hoped that she’d come around. That she’d want to be involved in my life again. This… this is not at all what I meant.”
The cold air slapped my face as I surveyed the area, spying out anyone who looked like they could be a fucking private investigator… as if I had the qualifications of seeking that out.
“There’s got to be somethin’ you can do ‘bout this, Bambi. That’s a hundred percent an invasion of privacy, no?”
“Oh it totally is. It totally is but my mom doesn’t care. She just wants to have the rundown on every single part of my life without actually being in it.God! I can’t stand her, I can’t.”
I clicked my tongue, siffling through a variety of words I could say, but probably would do no good in this situation. What her mom was doing was just bonkers and I couldn’t comprehend how that was even legal. But from what Bambi told me about her parents, they had a ton of money and a lot of connections, so. How could you fight fire with the devil?
“Hunter, I will see you tonight.” Bambi let out, exhaling a deep breath and shutting her eyes.
“Yeah?” I almost laughed but it was definitely not the time. Couldn’t help myself, though. She was a puny human with the strength of a bull. It was hysterical.
“Yes. But right now, I need to walk to my car peacefully, drive home and make some chamomile tea so I don’t capsize any sanity I have left.”
I held my hands up and let her pass, watching her practically squeeze the life out of her palm as she got behind the wheel, waved, and drove off.
That fuckin’ girl. A trojan horse she was.Now what the hell am I doin’ here again?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
