Page 22 of The Mating Game
The way his expression tightens…I almost feel bad for asking.
“It’s…complicated.”
“I can do complicated,” I assure him.
“I suppose…it has a lot to do with my parents.”
He looks like he’d rather be talking about anything else, but I can’t help it. Strangely, I have this overwhelming desire toknowwhat it is that makes the grumpy innkeeper tick.
“Your parents?”
He glances at me from the side. “They died. Car accident. Ten years ago now.”
“Oh,” I answer quietly. I feel like a dick for asking. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”
The pup has had a rough go of it these last few years. Last decade, really.
Well, shit.
I didnotneed to hear anything that would endear me to the grumpy innkeeper.
“Now I’m feeling evenmoreshitty for calling the place dingy.”
He surprises me with a barely there grin, the action making the scruff on his face crease with whatmightbe a dimple hiding underneath.
“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “It wasn’t really me you insulted, just my dead parents.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you actually kind of a shit?”
“Maybe a little.”
I can feel myself grinning too now, and I wonder if maybe Jeannie was right—if Hunter isn’t as mean as he seems.
“I forgive you for being so oblivious,” he teases.
His phrasing gives me pause, and without even thinking, I laugh bitterly, replying, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
He eyes me curiously, and I feel a sudden wave of embarrassment, something that’s commonplace when I think about my dad and all the things I’ve missed this last year. How I could have been so oblivious to how he’s been struggling. Hunter is still looking at me from the corner of his eye as if he’d like to say more, but for some reason, the idea of spilling my guts about my family woes makes my stomach twist with distaste.
My eyes flick to the radio, and I suddenly reach to turn up the knob. “I like this song.”
Hunter doesn’t prod at my blatant diversion, thankfully, but I can feel him watching me from the driver’s seat as I keep my eyes trained out the opposite window. He doesn’t ask me any more questions while we continue on the winding path that takes us down the mountain toward town, leaving me with nothing but my own thoughts for company.
“I have topick up a few things,” Hunter tells me when we both step out of the Bronco on Main Street. He points in the opposite direction. “The pharmacy is down that way.”
“How do I find you again when I’m done?”
Hunter’s mouth tilts up in a lazy grin, that hint of a dimple now obvious beneath the scruff on his cheek. I feel a brief flash of curiosity as to what it might feel like under my palm, which I quickly shake away.
“It’s not exactly a big place,” he assures me. “I’ll find you.”
“Well, let me give you my number. Just in case.”
Hunter’s brow furrows as if he thinks this is unnecessary, but after a moment he reaches down into his pocket to fish out his own phone. Something that immediately makes me reel.
“What isthat?”
