“I do believe you ca?—”
JJ’s harsh laugh cuts Hunter off. “No, I don’t think you do. I was honest with everyone yesterday about why I couldn’t go to the hospital. I get that I’ve given everyoneplenty of reasons not to trust me, but I’mtryingto do better.”
“We all see how good you’re doing. I don’t think that’s what Hunter meant,” Thalia says, and JJ shakes his head.
“I’m going to find a meeting, but in case I think about stopping for drugs along the way, do you want to chaperone?” JJ asks, stepping back.
Hunter tugs a hand through his hair, looking away from his brother, and his eyes widen when they land on me. “Kait, how much did you hear?”
My mouth opens and then closes because I don’t know what to say. His face falls and JJ walks through the doorway past me without saying a word. The front door slams behind him, and Hunter just stares at me.
“Do we go after him?” Sebastian asks, and I step into the kitchen seeing Marley fiddling with her rings as Thalia twists her hair back into a bun.
“I think he just needs some space right now,” Marley says quietly, sighing as she looks at Hunter. “JJ’s upset, and you probably won’t hear it from him for a while, but thank you for what you did. I hope you get the waiver.”
“Thanks, Marley,” Hunter says, his face paling by the second. Whatever bravado he had when facing JJ is now slipping away as he watches me.
“Um, Bash, we should probably head back to the hospital. The doctor is going to want to talk to us about Javi’s progress,” Thalia says, giving me a faint smile as she reaches to squeeze my arm gently. “We’ll see you at the hospital in a bit?”
I swallow the acid forming in my mouth, nodding as I try to smile.
She squeezes my arm again, probably trying to reassure me everything is going to be okay, but I’m not sure it will be.
“You coming with us?” Sebastian asks Marley, and I’m kind of hoping she is because I’d prefer if Hunter and I didn’thave an audience for however this is going to go down between us.
“Thank you, but I’m going to wait for JJ to get back. I’ll just probably go upstairs and see if I can get ahold of him,” she says, grabbing her phone to follow them out of the kitchen.
The tension in the air is thick, and I’m very aware of the space between Hunter and me. “Can we please talk?” Hunter asks, his voice hoarse. I bite my lip, trying to figure out how to react to this better than he did to my change of plans.
I want to look anywhere but at him. I don’t even know what question to ask first. When did he decide this? Was it before our conversation the other night, or was it a spur of the moment decision yesterday during Javi’s surgery?
How is this going to work with me here and Hunter all the way in California?
An ugly thought intrudes from the devil standing on my shoulder.Do I want it to work?
He said he should have done this months ago when he got in.
“When did you apply?” I ask, reaching behind me for the counter to help stabilize myself.
“January.”
My lungs deflate, and I wish I could pretend this was a bad dream. “You applied to Beaumont in January, and never said anything? Yet, when I said I was taking a gap year, you lost your shit about how I was changing our plans?”
Hunter pushes his blond locks out of his face, his movements stiff. “I applied after the accident. I didn’t know what was going to happen with JJ, so it was a contingency plan. I didn’t start thinking about it again until after you deferred.”
We were barely speaking, and I felt sick the whole time for how he found out. “You made me feel like shit, Hunter. The whole time you iced me out and then let me apologize over and over, you were thinking about leaving?”
“God, you’re making it sound like I set out to do this as some revenge plot when that’s not what it was,” Hunter says, but when I say nothing, his eyes widen. “Do you think I did this to get revenge?”
I hesitate, and the little hesitation causes a shift in Hunter I can only recognize from years as his best friend before becoming his girlfriend. “I don’t want to think it, but can you blame me?” I ask, and he looks like I struck him. “I know you love your brother, but you said it yourself. You didn’t think about it again until after I deferred.”
His green eyes flash with hurt as he takes a step back. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I-I’m not sure I do,” I stammer, trying to figure out how this is what we’ve become. “I love you, but lately it’s like I have no idea what’s going on with us. I feel like I’m going insane, trying to put you and our relationship first, but how could you not say something?”
“How couldInot say something?” Hunter asks, his voice tinged with bitterness. I swallow the lump forming in my throat, and I’m not sure what he means by that. “So were you putting me first by not telling me you kissed Bailey before me?”
My breath catches, my heart absorbing the verbal blow. How . . .how does Hunter know?Bailey wouldn’t have told him, not without giving me a heads up, especially after our conversation yesterday, when I fortified the lines between us. The only other person who knew was my brother, but Henry’s never brought it up again, and I can only assume he didn’t tell Mirabelle since she’s never mentioned it.
