Irritatingly, butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I ignored them and quickly wrote back: “And going BLIND?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I told you—the guys on my hockey team wouldn’t like that.”
Then he added, “—they’d be mad.”
I couldn’t help smiling at his dry wit. (I’m a sap.) I wrote back: “Sigh. So I guess no marriage.”
“But we could kiss.” He added a bunch of smiley emojis after that.
“No, I think that would lead to Mr. Rochester’s blindness.”
Hunter wrote back immediately: “I’m willing to take that chance.”
“Well, I’m not. I need this job.” Then I added, “And I guess your teammates need you to be able to see.”
He laid his head on the table, giving me puppy dog eyes. But then he immediately got a text.
“Oh, it’s from Violin Girl,” Hunter informed his mom. “She wants me to come over for that private recital. She said no shirt required, so I guess that means I don’t need a tie, right?”
His mom didn’t even look up from her soup, and didn’t seem to be buying her son’s “private recital” story. She said dryly, “Hey, as long as you actually play the violin—I don’t care what you wear.”
“Then I suggest your clown costume,” Tommy said. “Girls love clowns.”
“When they’re six, Tommy,” Hunter said, mussing up his brother’s hair. “But when they’re sixteen, they go for muscles.”
Hunter struck a dramatic pose—a very funny one that made Tia and Tommy crack up laughing. Well, his mom and me too—but not as loud. (Though he was hilarious.) (Sigh.)
His mother drew out an exasperated breath. “Did I hear you say the girl is sixteen?”
Hunter caressed his chin as though he had a beard, a grin spreading on his gorgeous lips. “You also heard she wants to see me without a shirt and she wants to seduce me at a private recital, where clothes are optional—but yes, she’s sixteen. An older woman. And she just got off her braces. She’s very excited to kiss without having to worry about slashing a guy’s tongue with her metal spikes—or so she says.”
His mother drew out another breath. “I’m going to have to meet her parents Hunter before you dash off to her house.”
Hunter’s eyes grew wide in mock confusion. “Her parents? I don’t think she has those. She has a driver. Will that do?—he’s on his way to fetch me as we speak.”
Mrs. Gilly sighed. “Give me her parent’s phone number Hunter—or you can stay home tonight.”
He covertly glanced at me and winked again.
Quickly Hunter looked back to his mom. “Are you suggesting I give Jane a private recital instead?” He scrubbed his chin in mock-thought, though he knew nobody was buying his dramatics. “I guess I would be safer here. I mean, in the safety of my own home … though really, I don’t know if Jane can take seeing me without a shirt.”
He did another pose as he said this, making Tommy and Tia crack up laughing again. His mother smiled, rolling her eyes.
I believe I might have possibly smiled too, perhaps, and definitely rolled my eyes as I informed him, “I assure you, I don’t want to see you without your shirt.”
“—and you don’t want to hear him play the violin either,” Tommy said. After a moment, he added, “Unless he’s wearing the clown costume—because it is pretty funny.”
Just then there was a knock at the door. Hunter raised his eyebrows at his mom, “That’s the driver. Should I send him away?”
“No, no, by all means—go,” his mother said. “I just got a text from the girl’s parents. They’re members of the tennis club I just joined. Lovely people! And they are looking forward to you and their daughter playing a violin duet.”
Hunter rolled his eyes, then said with a sly smile, “I’m willing to stay home.”
“No, I wouldn’t dream of it!” his mother said wryly. “But I do suggest you wear a tie.”
“I’m still going with the clown costume!” Tommy said to Hunter as Hunter headed to the front door. But Hunter turned back to them and said, “No way—I’m going with the no shirt.”
He quickly threw it off and did another pose—then left the house without a shirt.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
As soon as Hunter was out the door, his mother told Tia to pick up Hunter’s shirt and race it out to her brother.
Tia rolled her eyes. “Can’t I give him his clown costume instead?”
“You could if you could get it to him fast enough, but I believe he is going to have the driver speed away with him shirtless as quickly as possible, so grab the shirt and go—now.”
With a sigh, Tia grabbed the shirt. She did do it quickly though, as her mother hadn’t been fooling around. However, Tia came back into the house only moments later—with the shirt still in her hands. “They got away,” she told her mom.
“I see that,” her mother said, then went back to her soup as though she didn’t really expect anything other than her oldest son going to her fancy tennis acquaintance’s house without a shirt on—and without his violin.
Meanwhile, I got a text from Hunter. “How did you like that?”
“What? Your failed plan?”
“No. Me, without a shirt on?”
Oh … that.
It had been nice actually. Very, very nice.
Heat swamped my cheeks. “I’ve seen better,” I lied.
“In your dreams—right? Dreams of me?” He did a wink emoji.
But alas, it was true. Ever since the dude kissed me, I’d dreamed of him. Steamy, mushy dreams. (Though he’d always been in a shirt.) (He probably wouldn’t now though.)
He quickly texted, “Jane, I have to be truthful with you—okay? I mean, I know we’re both worried about me going blind, and you don’t want to lose your job and have my mom throw you out on the streets—or worse, send you back to your evil aunt’s, but Jane, I’m tired of trying to make you jealous. Please just tell me that you’re jealous of all these lucky girls that get to hang out with me—and that you want me to only hang out with you, and that you dream about our kiss as much as I do. Please, Jane—man, just tell me this stuff, okay? Even if it’s just partly true. Because my heart can’t take anymore of this. I mean, I’m going to have to fight off this girl and her newly no-braces mouth—and now I’m going to have to do it without a shirt on—since you skillfully, master-mindedly got me to take off my shirt for you—but now I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get her to resist me and all this hot manliness that are going to be flaunting her lust-crazed eyes.”
I quickly wrote back: “Hmmm. Were you shirtless when you left? I thought you put on your clown outfit. I’m pretty sure that’s what ‘flaunted’ my eyes when you left. After all, I recall laughing hysterically.”
“Knife. In. Heart.”
“I think you’re safe, Rochester.”
“I didn’t even bring my violin to fight her off with.”
“Try using your singing. I heard it while you were in the shower this morning.”
“Yeah. That was for your entertainment.”
Oh.
… It had been entertaining.
And all the stories about girls he had been telling over the dinner table these past few weeks—they were for me too? Really?
Was the dude really being sincere? It was hard to tell with him. I wasn’t used to boys. Only creepy Stephen—Gia’s creepy boyfriend. And he was, you know … creepy. But Hunter was entertaining. So it left me unsure when he was just being whimsical, or when he actually added sincerity in with it. I couldn’t be sure. So I quickly told Mrs. Gilly, “I need to be excused.”
Then I ran upstairs to talk to my friend Ally about it.
I’d only gotten to my worries about what Hunter’s mother said—about me being a “conquest” to him, and that I would have to leave if he got “romantic” with me. I was just in the middle of that stuff—then I got another call. I clicked on the button to check who the call was from, then instantly
gasped to Ally, “I’m not going to answer it—it’s Hunter, the boy I was telling you about. I just don’t know what to say to him. I mean, he’s mega rich and gorgeous with a mansion. Why did he even have me come here?—a girl he doesn’t even know? And why does he act the way he does? I mean, he kissed me, and flirts with me, and he sort of, somewhat, seems sincere. Maybe. I swear, he doesn’t act anything like you’d expect from a boy that lives in a house like this, and is incredibly, gorgeously hot.”
“Um, Jane—this is me.”
Face-palm.
I go up in flames.
“Who-o?” I ask, though of course I already know. And it has me wanting to crawl into a hole and die.
“The gorgeously hot guy with a mansion.”
“I’m here too,” Ally says really fast, and I can tell she wants to die for me too. “You must have accidently hit the button for a three-way call,” she says. “I’m going to, um, go—and let you two talk. ‘Bye Jane.”
I hear the sympathy in her voice as she hangs up.
Did I mention I want to die?
“I used to be fat,” Hunter says.
“Huh?”
“Maybe that’s why—even though I’m so amazingly hot—maybe that’s why I don’t act like it: because I used to be fat and bald and pathetically, terminally not-hot.”
It was like he was talking a completely different language. I had no idea what he was talking about. My brain was having seizures still trying to get over the devastating, heart-stomping knowledge he had heard every word I’d blathered to Ally.
I stammered out, “What?”
There was a pause. “I’m coming over.”
“Over?”
“Back home—to my house.”
‘Shirtless?!’ I didn’t say it out loud, but I screamed it in my head. No, I couldn’t have him come back here. Not after what he heard me say about him. And definitely not while he was shirtless.
“Look, I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Not unless you wear your clown outfit,” I whisper.
He laughs softly. “Okay. It’s a deal. Besides, according to Tommy, girls love clowns—and my bare chest made you laugh hysterically. What will me in a clown outfit do to you?”
“Um, your chest didn’t make me laugh.”
“I know. I saw your face—plus, I’ve now heard you think I’m incredibly hot. That’s why I’m coming back.”
“… oh.”
There’s a long pause. Awkward, awkward, AWKWARD!! “Jane, you like me as much as I like you, right? Right? Okay, well, we’ll talk about it when I safely have a clown outfit on—it will be my protection from you … the thing that helps me from going blind.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m going to need it. Since now—after hearing what you told your friend, I want to marry you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Once I finished my mortifying phone call with Hunter, I quickly re-called Ally and proceeded to gush to her for the next ten minutes about everything that had transpired with Hunter since I arrived at his mansion.
As I was blathering on and on, suddenly I practically had a heart attack, because I heard a noise at my window. (Eeek!)
With a shriek, I turned and then about had another heart attack, because the noise at my window—it was Hunter!
My heart exploded. (He still didn’t have a shirt on!)
I quickly opened the window for him. “W—what are you doing?”
My face was on fire since he probably heard through the window everything I was gushing to Ally—also, you know, he didn’t have a shirt on. (Yum!)
He grinned. “I’m an adorable flirt?”
“No,” I grumbled, since—ugh!—I’d just said that to Ally. Grrr! “What you are is a deplorable eavesdropper.”
His eyes twinkled. “I’m not an eavesdropper. I had to break into my house somehow. My mom would be suspicious if I came home when I was on my way to a girl’s house.”
“She’s suspicious anyway, I’m sure. Since you basically said you’d rather stay home and give me a violin concert without your shirt on than go to a girl’s house who just got off her braces and seems to want to do tongue things to you.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Tongue things?”
“Well, not rip up your tongue with the metal spikes on her braces.”
He grinned happily. “You hung on every word I said, huh? Were you jealous? You wanted to do tongue things to me? You can Jane, anything you want. Let’s tear up that kissing contract.”
“Go put on your clown costume.”
He grinned. “What? You can’t take this hot manliness?”
I grunted. “I can’t take the thought of your mom catching you in my room like this.” I gestured to his hot manliness. “Go clown yourself.”
His grin grew, like I was adorable. “I don’t actually think I can fit into the costume anymore. It’s been a few months since I wore it—actually, almost a year. I’ve grown a lot since then.”
“Why exactly did you have a clown costume?”
His jaw muscles flickered. He stared into my eyes and seemed to be weighing what to tell me. Hesitantly he finally said, “I’ll explain everything to you, Jane. Tonight. But first you have to promise that if I tell you, you’ll keep seeing me like this. Well, you can pretend I have a shirt on, if it will help you breathe—since I heard you tell your friend you can’t breathe when you see me without a shirt—”
“That’s not what I said!” (Okay, it was.)
He went on, like I didn’t lie, or utter a word, “But you have to promise to keep seeing me like this—hot and everything—and not like how you’re going to suddenly remember seeing me.”
“I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.”
“I know, and I love it.”
“Wha—??”
He put two warm fingers over my lips, stopping me from talking. Or my heart from beating. He looked into my eyes, making me swoon. “I’ll be right back.”
He left, but only a few moments later I heard voices in the hallway. I rushed to my door and peeked.
“I knew you would come back!” Hunter’s mom said incredulously, not exactly sounding mad, just sounding … well, I don’t know—exasperated?—wary? Something not altogether pleased, that’s for sure.
“I only came back for this,” Hunter showed his mom his clown outfit he had wadded up in his hands. “I thought I’d put it on for Tommy and give you guys a private violin recital—since Tommy thought the idea was so hilarious—and since it’s my fault he broke his legs and everything.”
Mrs. Gilly folded her arms looking sardonically suspicious. “You’re going to give us a violin concert?”
Hunter nodded. “As a clown.”
… and then he did it!
He put on his costume—which was tight and ridiculous—yet somehow, dead sexy (to me), since he didn’t put on any face paint and his long-lashed eyes stayed glued on me as he played.
… And he played awesome. So not like a clown. But like a hot guy that put on a clown outfit to make his brother laugh.
And make me swoon.
After he was done playing his (hotly performed) violin, Hunter suddenly started to choke! He held on to his throat, turning bright red, then—!!
—he coughed out a handkerchief! To Tia and Tommy’s delight Hunter quizzically started to pull, and then pull and pull and pull the colorful material from his mouth, pulling and pulling, the material going on and on and on, the long strand piling to an enormous height on the floor. Finally reaching the end, tied to the very, very finale of the handkerchief was a tiny thumb-drive of a computer game—the game Tommy had been begging his mom to buy for him.
“What the—??” Hunter said as he stared at it in dramatic wonder. “Man, I swallowed another game?”
He tossed it to Tommy. “Here, you can have it. It didn’t taste very good.”
“That’s because you don’t have good taste,” Tommy said with a happy
grin, thrilled to have the game—plus the fact his brother, who he idolized, had just coughed it out for him. Trying to hide his pleased smile, Tommy went on, trying to sound indignant and serious, “The critics loved this game.”
“Well, they obviously didn’t regurgitate it,” Hunter said, mussing up his brother’s hair.
“No, probably not,” Tommy said, wheeling back from his brother’s ruffling. “But then, they didn’t have to make up for forcing fellow creatures to listen to a ‘private recital’ of a violin.”
“Which you played exquisitely,” Mrs. Gilly said, giving her son an affectionate kiss on his forehead, obviously quite touched that Hunter had bought Tommy the gift of his own accord—and with his own money.
Hunter backed away from his mom the same way Tommy had backed away from his brother.
Hunter turned to me with an almost shy smile. “How did you like the show?”
I reddened, inexplicably mortified/terrified he would know just how much I liked it. I swallowed, trying to manage to speak, but my mouth felt like it was full of cotton. Still, I did my best, tried to sound breezy, and non-love-struck. “You’re a great clown.”
His eyes twinkled as his smile grew. “I learned from the best.”
Oh my gosh! He saw me be a clown.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
“Okay, spill,” I told Hunter when we were once again alone in my room. (Him safely dressed as a clown this time, rather than shirtless.)
Hunter groaned slightly, like he didn’t really want to spill. He drew in a breath. “I was at the hospital your brother was staying in,” he explained softly.
I gawked at him. Couldn’t process. Or breathe. “You were at my brother’s hospital?!”
Hunter’s answer was a slow nod. “He was in a coma—I realize. I was right next-door. But I’d hear you through the wall of his room, reading to him and visiting with him. You seemed so nice, I wanted someone like you to visit me.”
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