Page 47 of Playing the Field
I realize that for as intimate as the night with him felt, I don’t know Hunter that well. I understand what I’ve studied in order to evaluate his player prospects, and I’ve seen him go from zero to full-on rage on the field in seconds, but that’s athletic instinct. Testosterone. Fierce competitiveness. I don’t know if any of that applies to how he processes stuff off the field.
He signals for our server to bring the check. He gives her a nice smile and throws down some bills without even looking at it. “Thanks.” Then he looks at me. “D’you want to take that to go or should we sit a while?”
From the antsy thump of his thigh, I don’t get the impression he wants to do anything “for a while,” and my mind races trying to figure out why his mood just changed so much. I replay the last two minutes of our conversation and try to see what I said that seems to have bothered him so much.
“I guess I can take it home.”
He signals to the server to bring a box by pointing at my pancakes and pantomiming a square. She smiles at him. Her dark ponytail swishes and her hips sway as she shuttles to the kitchen. Why can’t I be so free and easy? Why does everything I say and do feel impossibly uncool?
I reach across the table and put my hand on top of his, half expecting him to pull his away. But he doesn’t. If anything, my hand seems to calm him a tiny bit, but he doesn’t look at me.
“What just happened?” I try to get a view of his eyes, but with his head tipped down beneath the baseball cap brim, I can’t get a glimpse. “I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. It’s not a smile, but it’s a step in that direction. He blows a long breath between his lips like maybe he’s trying to take a beat before saying the wrong thing. Like I should have done, apparently.
There’s determination in his gray eyes when he looks up. “You said you don’t go to hotels for hookups. Well, neither do I.”
“I, um…” My brain sputters because, even though Hunter has treated me well, he and I don’t have a future together. I’m only here in LA temporarily, and he’s still a player.
The server returns with a to-go box, and I load in my pancakes, feeling defeated.
“I-I’m sorry. I guess I had the wrong impression.”
“I guess you did.”
He doesn’t seem angry. More disappointed. Resigned. Like this is the world he lives in, where the truth gets blurred by surface impressions, and he deserves what he gets.
“Hunter, I?—”
He cuts me off with the scrape of his chair on the floor when he stands. He points at my pancakes. “Should we go?”
We drive home in silence. I want to apologize, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m still so confused because I really thought he was just doing me a favor last night, getting me out of a jam. Is he saying it meant more than that?
The urban sprawl of Hollywood Boulevard sweeps past with its mixture of trendy new restaurants, office buildings, and hole-in-the-wall nail salons until we turn up the hill. I’ve begun to understand what Kyler likes about living in the hills up above the city. As soon as we leave the busy boulevard, the air seems to change. The streets get greener. Trees offer dappled shade over streets with fewer cars, and the Hollywood sign peeks through intermittently on the peak ahead.
I roll my window down and try to inhale some bit of calm from the surroundings, still unsure how I managed to offend Hunter when all I was doing was attempting to thank him.
I know I need to fix this before either one of us goes into the house and we proceed with our lives. “Hunter, can we roll this conversation back so I can apologize properly and explain what I was thinking?”
Even from the side, I see the hard line of his jaw go slack. Hischeek muscles unclench. His lips soften. “Sure. Maybe I jumped to some conclusions too.”
We turn up the driveway to Kyler’s house, and I swivel in my seat to get a better look at him. A new fleet of butterflies takes flight under my skin at the reality of how we spent last night and that we’re here together now.
I feel the same magnetic pull, the sense of needing to touch him and have him touch me. I put a hand on his thigh, which is larger than my palm and taut with muscle.
“Last night was incredible and I?—"
I stop midsentence because Kyler is standing on his porch, phone in hand. He cups a hand over his eyes to see through the windshield glare and gazes at us quizzically.
Hunter pulls the car to a short stop in front of the house and yanks on the parking brake. The spell between us dissipates with the abrupt halt of the motor. I hurriedly open the passenger door with an overly excited greeting.
“Welcome back!” I rush over and give my brother a hug, all but ignoring Hunter in hopes that Kyler won’t pick up on the tension between us or the spark I can’t drown.
Hunter slams the car door and comes over for a stiff bro hug. “How was the trip?”
“Good. Great, actually. I met some nice people,” Kyler says. He holds a mug of coffee that wafts steam into the morning air. I check the time. It’s close to noon. “I was just about to send out a search party when neither of you answered your phones. Where are you two coming from?”
“Breakfast,” I blurt out just as Hunter says, “Errands.”
