On one side I am over the moon that Hunter would give up anything just to stay with me. On the other, I know I can’t let him do it. Not when it is his dream, and not when I can’t leave my mother to go with him, even if he’d want me to.
Melissa gives me a sad look before she reaches to her right and pulls up a blow dryer to start styling Gwen’s hair. I take a moment before following suit and doing the same. With tears in my eyes, I attempt to lose myself in my work but know what I just heard changes everything.
I can’t let Hunter give up his dream. Worse, I can’t keep him if I am not willing, or able to follow.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hunter
Walking along the beach later that night, I reach over and take Rochelle’s’ hand and pull her closer. She’s been silent since I picked her up from the salon. I can’t get her to open up to me, no matter how hard I try. I had envisioned this night going an entirely different way. Seeing it’s been three months since she walked into my life and forever changed my world, I had planned a romantic evening, just the two of us upstairs in my apartment.
I had decked the place out before going to the game. Candles, wine, dinner for two, followed by the most beautiful lovemaking. Not only that, but I had stashed a ring in my nightstand a little over a week ago and hoped to put it on her finger tonight.
I know we are both young, but hell, when you know, you just fucking know. The road ahead of us is unsure. But there is no doubt in my mind that she is the one that I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t want to wait another day not knowing if she feels the same way.
When we arrived back at my place, her solemn mood was no match for what waited upstairs. So I asked her to walk with me along the waves, much like we spent that first night together only a few months back, in hopes that somehow, someway I could fix whatever was on her mind and get us back to the way things were earlier. Back when I held her in my arms at the salon and felt more connected to her than I ever have before.
“Penny for your thoughts, Angel?” I say, repeating the line I said to her on Balboa Island a few months back, when her thoughts were too heavy for her to carry that night, too. She sighs. It settles like a weight on my shoulders and makes me worry that we won’t be able to get back to where we were, and where I wanted this night to end.
“Did you ever have plans, Hunter?” She asks, completely throwing me as to what I thought she might be worried about.
“Yeah,” I mutter, as my free hand that is not holding hers comes up and runs through my hair. “I guess we all do, right? But, you see the funny thing about life is it’s always changing. The smartest thing we can all do is hold on for the ride.”
I bump my shoulder against hers attempting a joke. When I look over, I see her frown.
“Why,” I ask more seriously. “What’s on your mind, Rochelle?”
She stops and looks at me. Worry etches itself across her beautiful features. “Why would there be something on my mind?” she asks bitterly.
“Because, people don’t ask questions like that and then frown when they get the answers they were looking for.” She adverts her stare to the ground but I slump lower and attempt to make her look at me. “What’s got you all twisted, Angel? I’d like to get us back on the right track, but I can’t unless you help me understand.”
“I never had any big plans, you know?” She states sharply, as she looks out to her right across the sand. “I never knew where my life was headed, just that I needed to survive. I guess that is what the rest of us do that don’t have plans.” She looks back at me and tears fill her eyes. “All my life I have only lived under one mantra. Make it through another day. That isn’t the life any kind of special dreams come out of.”
“Okay,” I begin hesitantly, knowing I am treading on thin water. “I’m not going to stand here and make light of any of that, Rochelle, because you know how I feel about what you have had to endure. Angel, I would give anything to change what you’ve been through and make sure you never have to just ‘survive’ again. You know that…”
“But that’s just it!”
“What is?” I ask annoyed, because hell she has lost me here. I am a smart man, but between the way we were just 24 hours ago, and the plans I anxiously plotted for tonight, her whole demeanor is completely throwing me and making me wonder just exactly where I went wrong.
“You shouldn’t have to be the one changing anything for me, Hunter. Especially…” she trails off as tears fall from her eyes. “Especially if it means giving up and sacrificing your life.”
“Who said anything about me giving up anything? And Rochelle, just for the damn record, you are the only one … the only thing I can’t stand to give up, ever.”
I pull her towards me but her stance stiffens and she pulls away.
“Where is all of this coming from?” I ask angrily.
“I know,” she whispers as she looks at the floor.
“Know what?” I ask entirely fucking confused, because being honest, I don’t pin my Angel as the drama type, it’s one of the things I love most about her. But right now, her back and forth, up and down, roller coaster of emotions I can’t catch onto fast enough, is thoroughly putting me through the damn wringer.
“Ole Miss,” she says, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. “Your scholarship.” Her eyes come up to finally find mine and I smile. “Hunter I can’t let you give up your future just because you bumped into me one day after losing a bet, no matter how much we both…” she reaches up and puts her hand over her mouth, stifling a sob. I reach out to her, to stop this madness, but she holds up her hand. “No matter how much we both fell in love with each other.”
For the first time in a long time standing in her presence, my nerves shake, strong and fucking hard, as I realize where this might be headed. Anxiety bubbles in the pit of my stomach. I feel sick, weak having to stomach just an ounce of the thought she is thinking. I don’t care who told her, I’ll get to the bottom of that later. But if this is going where I think it might be going, I’d rather die before hearing another word fall from her lips.
“Don’t you think that is a decision we get to make together?” I counter, hoping I said the right thing because I might only have a slim chance of turning this evening around.
“And I can’t go with you,” she turns her back to me. I grab her shoulders immediately. Pulling her against me, I wrap my arms around her waist as my hands begin to shake.
