Sighing, I met her gaze. “I know. It makes me furious. Like, I know that my dad isn’t perfect. He says stupid shit sometimes, but he isn’t malicious. What he said…” I bit my lip, shaking my head. “It reminded me of yesterday when Georgette was talking down about Hux. And that’s not him.”
Whit offered me a sympathetic look. “You sure you want him marrying her?”
“It’s not about what I want,” I replied with a shrug. “What I think of Georgette doesn’t matter in the end. It’s his life. He deserves to be happy, and if she does that, well, that’s all I can ask for my dad. I don’t have to like her.”
“You’re a hell of a lot more mature about it than I’d be. She’s…” Whit took another bite of her oatmeal. “About as awful as this oatmeal.” Scrunching her nose up, she finally pushed the bowl away from her.
I laughed. “I don’t know how you even ate that much of it.”
She grimaced and grabbed her coffee, downing a few large gulps. “Sheer force of will, I guess.” She steepled her cup between her fingers and pegged me with a knowing smirk. “So, onto more interesting things… Hux is famous?”
I nodded. “Yeah, at least that’s what the bartender said. I guess he was a pretty big bull rider.”
“That’s so cool! I wonder why he doesn’t do it anymore.”
I frowned, my head cocking to the side. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious. He can’t see, Whit.”
She gave me a no-shit kind of look. “Obvi! But likehowdid he go blind?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, when I asked, he shut down. He was really closed off about it and I didn’t want to press.” It made me sad though. Sad that he couldn’t talk about it. Thathe struggled with trying to find a place in this world after his accident.
“Have you looked him up at all online?”
I huffed a laugh. “No, I haven’t really had time.”
Whit’s lips pulled up into a wolfish smirk, her brown eyes twinkling with mischief as she pulled out her phone. “Well, now we do.”
I swear, if Whit wasn’t a phenomenal hairdresser, she’d make an amazing detective…or a stalker. In less than a minute, she’d managed to find all of his social media accounts—all of which hadn’t been updated in about three years—as well as some of his most noteworthy rides, and an entire google search worth of articles about his accident. She even managed to find the video of said accident. Placing the phone sideways on the table, she pressed the play button.
It was him riding a bull. My heart thumped ridiculously fast as I watched him. I didn’t know the first thing about what he was doing, but it looked amazing.Helooked amazing. But then all of a sudden the bull moved and bucked in a way that threw Hux with so much force that he launched forward and smacked into the bull’s horns. I think he lost consciousness at that point, because he didn’t move. Didn’t try to disentangle his hand. The bull ran and bucked and tried to get him off, and Hux just hung there, looking like he was a ragdoll. Looking like he was dead.
My heart faltered and my stomach clenched into tight knots as I clapped a hand over my mouth—to hide my gasp or to stop the nausea rolling through me in waves, I wasn’t quite sure. The clip ended and Whit looked up from her phone to me.
“Are you crying?” she asked, though the words were merely curious and not judgmental.
I frowned, pressing a hand to my cheek. Wetness clung to my fingertips. “I guess so,” I replied with a sad huff.
“That was crazy,” Whit said. “I never realized bull riding was so brutal.”
I nodded, still trying to fight the wave of unease pounding through me. I don’t even know why I was so upset and emotional over it. It’s not like I’d been there. Not like I’d dated him at that point or even known he’d existed. But maybe it was seeing just how much that moment changed him. From videos and reels and photos on social media he’d seemed outgoing, lively, a bit reckless. But the Hux I knew was not like that at all. The Hux I knew was closed off, harsh, brutally honest.
“More days than not, I think of how much I hate what’s become of my life…”
I understood why he didn’t want to talk about it now. I think if I’d gone through something like that, I’d want to forget about it too.
“I can’t believe that happened to him.” I sighed, grabbing Whit’s phone and clicking on her Instagram to scroll back through his page. My heart cracked and shattered a bit more at each photo or video I saw of him. He smiled so easily, he looked so happy and carefree.
I wondered if he’d still be like that now had he never gotten hurt.
But then I’d probably never have met him. And the Hux I’d met was just as intriguing, just as amazing—probably even more so—than the version of him before the accident. And at the risk of sounding callous, I was glad to have met this version of him. Because he was broken and raw and beautiful. He was honest and attentive and kind, and he made my heart race in a way I’d never known before. Didn’t even know was possible.
“You like him, don’t you?” Whit asked, her tone and gaze turning serious—oddly unlike her. “Like, really like him.”
“I just met him.” I placed her phone back on the table and reached for my iced coffee, though I made no attempt to drink it. My stomach was still in knots.
“And you didn’t answer my question.” She pegged me with a knowing look.
But I didn’t want to talk about the emotions that fluttered to life in my chest at the thought of Hux right at the moment. Because I did like him. Probably a little—okay, way too much, considering I just met him. And if I already felt this much after one night, what was going to happen after our date?
