“I was afraid. I was so afraid, HB. I thought I’d lost you forever. That the necromancer would stay in you and the thought of him walking around in your beautiful body, doing normal everyday things and smiling with your smile, looking at me the way…well, not the way you are now, but the way you have looked at me before. Like you can truly see me. My soul. The idea of never seeing that look again broke me.”
Silence. I held my breath, smoothed my hands along the sides of my best jeans. The moment was so long I was about to step away when he made a sound. Just a small noise in the back of his throat. He still stared, his arms still crossed, but a faint softening happened around his eyes.
“Quite the apology.”
“Do you forgive me?”
He didn’t answer. But his mouth twitched. “Beautiful body? Really?” He glanced down at himself, at his faded jeans with the hole in the knee, his scuffed shoes he was so fond of thathe named them. I searched for the name. Chuck Taylors. Yes, that was it.Gotta get my Chuck Taylors. Slip on the old Chucks.
His dark green T-shirt with Nirvana plastered in faded letters on the front stretched across his chest. I remembered it being loose on his slender frame, but he’d definitely filled out. Quite nicely.
“Shut up. You are glorious.” My face grew warm at his look. “I didn’t know how to tell you. It was my fault. I wanted to help Nigel. And afterward, I panicked.”
“You didn’t think I could handle it?”
“I’m a stupid blighter. I should have trusted you.”
“You have trust issues.”
“I do. I know. And I’m working on it. I’d like to work on it with you. If you’d let me.”
Hunter frowned, thinking. “I get it. You made a judgment call. What about the other thing?”
I frowned at him.
“You know. We have sex, it’s glorious, to use your word. Life is great. And then you basically cold shoulder me out the door like a Grindr hookup with bad breath.”
“You don’t have bad breath. Except of course after you eat those Doritos you like. Cool Ranch, what kind of name is that?”
“Don’t judge the Cool Ranch snacks. And don’t change the subject.”
I stepped back, studying my feet. “I…I falter at affection. The parts that come after.”
“Bullshit.” The word was hot enough to burn. “Bullshit, Reg. You mean to tell me you never hugged Charlie?” My mouth dropped open at the mention of my old love. “That you didn’t whisper little nothings in his ear just to make him blush? Or want him so badly you couldn’t help but touch him all the time you were together? You can do that shit. Just, apparently, not with me.”
I was losing him again. “Stop, no. Wait.” I reached for him—stopping myself just before we touched. God, I wanted so badly to touch him. Gather him up and hold him to me, put my lips against his hair, run my hands under his shirt.
“Yes. I could do that with Charlie. My past is complicated. You know all of this. After I found Theo, my life became much easier, but showing affection was still hard for me. Charlie was my first love. The first person I was really, truly intimate with. When he died, I closed up. It was the only way not to fall apart.”
Hunter’s eyes squinted down the street beyond me. When he spoke, the words carried softly on the night air.
“I know I come off as all life is a breeze, fun and games kind of guy, but I can’t do the casual sex thing. Not with you. I thought maybe that I could but—”
“No. No. I don’t want that. I guess… Bloody hell, I don’t know why I do half the shit I do. Things with us could be amazing, but in my head, I think it’s only a matter of time.”
“For what?”
“For you to come to your senses and realize what a plonker I am. And that you can’t take it anymore. And you’ll leave me. Or that if I let myself—something bad will happen. Something bad always happens.” I ran a hand over my face.
“Wait. Back up. Let yourself… what?”
“Fall for you,” I whispered.
The biggest secret of my life. Falling in love with Hunter. Silence stretched across the cement porch, heavy with hope.
Hunter cleared his throat. “Yeah. I get that. You know how I get that? Because I’m there. I’ve already fallen for you. And then you brush me off—fucking friends. With benefits. Well, fuck that.”
He looked away then. Angry. Hurt.
