“Relax. Harper’s good. She’s over here with Cami, Dani, and the kids,” Hunter went on. “They’re in the backyard. Chalk, bubbles, something involving a hose I explicitly said not to turn on.”
I could picture it without trying. Harper barefoot, laughing too loudly. Dani, with her hair down, pretending she wasn’t the center of the chaos while fully encouraging it.
I shifted my weight, fingers tapping against the railing as if the rhythm could distract me. “She good with her?”
Hunter didn’t tease me for that one. “Yeah. She’s great with her. But you know that already.”
That landed heavier than it should’ve, because he was right, and Hunter never backed down from calling me out on things I tried to ignore.
“She’s not some random,” he added. “and you wouldn’t have left Harper if you didn’t trust her.”
I had known that Cami and Dani had been close friends since high school. Dani wasn’t just around because she helped with Harper while I was gone. She’d always been around for Cami and her three kids. Birthday parties. Soccer games. Movie nights. The kids had known her their whole lives.
“I know that,” I muttered.
“Do you?”
I leaned my forearms against the railing, staring out at the city. In front of me, the skyline spilled out in a monotonous stretch; buildings stacked up like dominoes under the heavy sky.
“She’s helping out. That’s all.”
Hunter let out a deep laughter at that, “You keep telling yourself that.”
I straightened. “Don’t start with me today, Bennett.”
“What?” he said, too innocent. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll say it straight. Dani’s been around a lot. Harper’s happy. Cami says she’s beaming. But you’re down there in Tampa calling me every night.”
“I know where this is going and the answer is no,” I shot back. “She’s too young.”
“She’s twenty-nine,” he quipped.
“Still too young.”
Hunter laughed outright now. “Dude, you’re thirty-nine, not sixty.”
“Hunter.”
“No, listen. You sound like you’re making a lot of excuses.”
“Excuses?”
“Yeah. Too young. Too complicated. Too busy. Too much history.” He paused. “You know who else sounded like that?”
I didn’t answer because I knew.
“Cami,” he said anyway. “Before I convinced her to give me a chance.”
“This isn’t the same,” I said, because it wasn’t. Hunter was older, ready to settle down, when he met Cami and decided to date a single mom with three kids. Dani was just starting to live life after law school. “She’s got her whole life ahead of her. A career, freedom. She doesn’t need to get tangled up with a widowed guy, a kid, and a schedule built around school pickup.”
“Didn’t say a thing about settling down,” Hunter said. “Plus, from what I’ve seen. She’s enjoying being a part of it all.”
My throat suddenly felt dry, and the silence stretched between us, filled only by distant traffic and my own thoughts too loud, too sharp.
“I don’t date,” I said finally. “Haven’t. Not since…”
