Page 55 of Playing the Field
“Listen,” I say at the same time he says, “Look?—”
At least it breaks the ice. He tips his head toward me. “You want to go first?”
“Sure.” I clear my throat even though it doesn’t need clearing. “I wanted to pick up from where we went off-track yesterday morning. I could tell I made you feel bad when I kept thanking you for rescuing me, but I’m bad at these things, so I don’t totally know why it bothered you.”
He shoves a hand in his pocket. “Okay. Well, it’s pretty damn simple.” He blows out a breath. “What I was trying to explain was that I didn’t come to the restaurant out of some feeling of pity or obligation. I came because I was jealous as hell when I saw you leave the house with that douchebag, and I thought…” He looks at the sky for a moment, finding the right words. “I want to be the guy taking you out. I want to be the one you kiss at the end of the night. And I thought that if there was a shred of hope that you felt the same way about me, I needed to show up there and find out. So if it felt like a rescue, I assure you my motives were a hundred percent self-centered. I fucking wanted you, pure and simple.”
My jaw hangs open. I try to get it working, but it feels slack and weak. “I…that’s not at all what I was expecting you to say.”
His laugh heals me. “Well, what in the hell were you expecting?”
Bogie spots a squirrel and attempts to dart after it, but Hunter holds him tight. Bogie strains at the leash, but there’s no question who’s in charge. When he reels him back in, Hunter bends down and kisses the top of Bogie’s head.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Good boy. No squirrels for lunch.”
I think back on all the conversations in my head over the past twenty-four hours. They all involve a version of him explaining that he doesn’t do relationships. He’s been quoted as saying that, for heaven’s sake. So it’s taking me a minute to let this new information sink in.
“I guess I was preparing myself for you to let me down easy. Tell me you don’t do situation-ships or whatever.”
He presses two fingers against his forehead as though his brain aches. Or maybe that’s me. “I don’t even know what that means. But if you’re saying you thought I was only into hookups, I guess I had that coming. I know that’s what people think about me. I just didn’t think it’s whatyouthought.” His voice breaks a tiny bit, and I feel how much it hurts him that I’ve jumped to a conclusion.
We reach a fork in the road, and he points us to the right, which will take us down Beachwood Canyon toward the flats. Bogie walks ahead of us like there was never any chance of a different decision.
“Hunter, you have to understand something about me. I live in a world governed by data. I use my instincts, but only after I’vedone a really good job of loading the deck in my favor. So I went with the odds—that you were interested in me for a fling. Because no offense, but you’re known as a guy who dates a lot of women, so…”
He stops walking. “I hate that you know that.”
“I’m sorry. I know I’m a scientist and all, but I don’t live under a rock.”
“Fair enough.”
“It wasn’t so much that I was judging you as much as protecting myself,” I admit. Letting go of that information feels as cleansing as a long exhale.
Hunter’s hand wraps around mine. “You don’t need to protect yourself with me.”
My heart skips a beat. It feels like the breath has been knocked from my lungs, and when I figure out how to breathe again, my heart races like a hummingbird.
“Thank you.” It hardly feels like a sufficient answer.
“I don’t expect you to take me at my word, but if you give me a chance, I’ll prove it to you. I don’t want something temporary with you. It’s just hard to live down the past.”
I cast him a side-eye, not wanting him to go overboard in protesting his old ways. “It’s okay. I get what it must be like to be you. I’d hook up with a lot of women too.”
He comes to an abrupt stop. Even Bogie knows not to continue, plopping himself down in the shade like he’s happy to have a break while we adults sort through our miscommunications.
“Two years,” he says flatly.
I give him a blank stare.
“I haven’t been with a woman at all in two years. I don’t care what you think you know from whatever social media bullshit is out there, but I want you to hear it from me. Two years, and that’s because I haven’t been interested.”
I bite down on my lip, debating what to say.
He shrugs. “I’m not trying to impress you, in case that’s why you look like you’re about to laugh in my face. Just stating a fact.”
Shaking my head, I lean against him, smiling to myself at the depth of our misunderstanding of each other. “Never,” I say, finally. I’m diving in deep because this is what I do. I tell myself to hold back and protect myself, and then I have big feels and go for broke. “I’ve never felt like myself with a man as much as I did the other night. Not ever. Until you.”
