My jaw drops. “You didn’t!”
“It was a stressful shift!” she says, batting her lashes.
I shake my head, laughing. “You are the best trainer ever.”
“Thank you. I take great pride in my mentoring skills.”
“But seriously…” she eyes me. “A truck bed? Not even his house?”
“I don’t know where he lives,” I admit. “But honestly? Hooking up in a truck bed with Thor sounds…hot.”
She snorts. “If he’s as hot as that picture, I’d let him ruin me in the middle of Mont du Marquette with a live audience.”
My face flushes with heat. A sudden memory of our creekside phone call hits me—and the way my own hand had mimicked the things he described in that low, velvet voice.
I place my final roll-up on the pile, heart pounding.
“You’re totally thinking about him right now, aren’t you?” Daphne says, catching the glazed look in my eyes.
“Maybe,” I smirk.
Just then, the kitchen doors swing open. Hunter Holloway strides in.
“Hey, Sugar,” Daphne greets him like she owns the place, totally unbothered. It’s not flirty—it’s more like teasing your favorite younger cousin. A rite of passage, maybe. And somehow, itfitsher.
Hunter doesn’t say a word. He gives her the faintest smile, then nods at her stack of roll-ups.
I hold up mine too. “I’m done,” I say, bracing for even a glance.
He gives a quick thumbs-up without even looking at me and keeps walking. Straight through the double doors.
“See?” I mutter. “He’s a dick.”
Daphne grins. “He doesn’t play by anyone’s rules. Never has. Come on, I’ll vouch for your roll-ups. Let’s go set the tables.”
As we head to the floor, I glance at her. “Actually… I need one more favor.”
She raises a brow. “What now?”
“I’m telling my daddy I’m staying at your place tonight.”
Daphne bursts out laughing. “So you can sneak off for a late-night truck-bed tryst with the faceless wonder. You’re scandalous.”
I blush. “It sounds worse when you say it.”
“Oh, itisbad. But I support it. Fully. I will be your alibi.”
I grin, feeling a giddy swirl of nerves. Maybe Iamacting like a rebellious teenager.
But this time, it’s not about rebelling.
It’s about choosing something. Someone.Me.
Tonight, that something is Thor.
And whatever he’s planning for me in that field.
Every day, I feel it more clearly—how stifled I’d been. How easy it was to let Keith’s expectations become my compass. Or my parents’. How quietly I tucked myself into their ideas of what was best without ever asking whatIwanted.
