by Eden Finley
“Uh … yeah. I am,” I stammered.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
I tore my eyes from Ryan and forced a smile on my face and my feet to move.
“Sara, this is Hunter.”
Hunter. Pfft.
He nodded once and averted his gaze.
A head nod. That was all I got. The guy who took my virginity didn’t even recognise me.
All those years of fantasising about what we had. I was stupid to believe it would’ve made a difference. I was nothing to him. That much was clear by the vacant expression on his face.
A burning sensation crept up my neck. I was angry. No, I was fucking pissed.
I’d spent the last four years wishing I’d never met him. In one night, he broke me. He was the guy I compared all my dates against, and the one guy no one could measure up to. But he was an asshole, and this was the reminder I needed.
“Sara?” Paige asked, her face a mask of concern.
I didn’t know what to do. My mouth was dry; I was unable to respond. I tried smiling but ended up gritting my teeth instead.
“Okay, what’s going on? I’ve not known either of you to be so quiet before,” she said.
We both stared at each other for a moment, and I saw something beginning to crack in him. His gaze was no longer hardened. Did he recognise me after all?
“I know him,” I finally managed to mumble.
“You know him? How?”
Cole interrupted us, walking in from the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“Uh … yeah …” Ryan said. “Turns out I know Sara.” He tore his eyes from mine, looking at Cole.
“And?”
“Apparently we’ve fucked.”
“Apparently?” Paige yelled at him. “You apparently fucked?”
I couldn’t have been more thankful to have her in my corner—saying the things I should’ve been saying but couldn’t because I was still in shock.
“You can’t remember it?” Cole asked.
The fact Cole didn’t even sound surprised made something in me finally snap. I was just another notch on Ry— no, Hunter’s belt. I felt the rambling come out of my mouth but couldn’t do anything to stop it. “Maybe if you’d given me your real name four years ago, I would’ve put two and two together. I wouldn’t have come tonight, and we could’ve avoided this.” I waved my hand between us both. “When Paige told me you were an underwear model—”
“Model. Just model. I’m not always in my underwear, and it pisses me off when people pigeonhole me like that.”
Before I could yell at him some more, Paige beat me to it. “You gave her a fake name?”
He threw his hands up in surrender. “No, I didn’t. I happened to have just landed my first major modelling gig, and it was for Calvin Klein. I met her out while celebrating, and she started calling me Calvin.”
“Oh, so you do remember me?” I snapped. He clearly remembered; he just didn’t care.
“Wait … he’s Calvin?” Paige asked me in shock.
Hunter’s lips turned up into a smirk at the fact I’d told Paige about him.
“Don’t get too cocky. You don’t know what I’ve heard about you,” Paige said, looking at Hunter.
She knew the whole story. I’d told her when she asked me why I was so inept at love.
He shook his head. “I did nothing wrong back then.”
“Nothing wrong?” I yelled. Is he fucking kidding me?
“No,” he said, staring directly at me. I could’ve sworn his eyes were trying to burn holes in me.
Oh, hell no. There was no way I wasn’t going to call him on his shit. “Nothing at all, Ryan? I may’ve nicknamed you Calvin, but I do remember the fake name you gave me.”
Cole stepped in front of me. “Sara, umm … there’s been a misunderstanding. Hunter’s name is Ryan.”
“Huh?” Paige asked for me. My mouth seemed to be glued shut again.
“Hunter’s my middle name, and everyone has called me that since before I can remember, except for my brother who always calls me Ryan to piss me off. He was the one who introduced me to you that night, if you remember at all.”
I was shrinking under his gaze and his words, and the world seemed to fade around me for a moment.
No, it wasn’t like he couldn’t have told me during that night. We spent the whole night together, and he couldn’t even tell me his name?
“Is there any way we can put this all behind us and go out to dinner? It was four years ago,” Cole asked.
Hunter and I stared at each other, neither one of us willing to back down first. My head was spinning, but I wasn’t going to cave.
“I have no problem with her,” Hunter eventually said. “If she can’t even handle sitting at the same table as me, then that’s all on her.” Even though he was replying to Cole, he continued to pin me with his stare.
I narrowed my eyes while my head continued to fill with obscenities I wanted to throw at him. “No issues here,” I lied. I tried to make it convincing, but the look Paige gave me let me know I wasn’t successful.
***
The drive to dinner was quiet. Cole was the designated driver—apparently, he had issues with alcohol so he abstained. When Paige told me that, I got worried for her. Her last boyfriend was controlling and verbally abusive, and I didn’t think getting involved with an alcoholic was going to be any better, but she assured me Cole’s problem was under control. She told me it wasn’t really a problem at all, but I didn’t want to crush her by telling her she was being naïve.
Not that I was a big expert on love. Here I was, sitting in the back seat with a guy I had a one-night stand with four years ago, and I couldn’t get my heart to stop hammering in my chest. The car seemed way too small for four people, and I started thinking we should’ve taken two cars. There wasn’t enough air in this one. Hunter was sucking it all out. He took my virginity, and now he was taking my damn oxygen.
“So where should we go for dinner?” Cole asked from the front seat.
I gave a noncommittal shrug and stared out the window, refusing to look in Hunter’s direction.
“You know where I haven’t been for a while?” Hunter said. “The marina.”
My eyes snapped to him and I found him smirking.
“Works for me,” Cole said.
“Me too. Sara?” Paige asked.
“Whatever,” I muttered.
I should’ve protested. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, memories of that night came flooding back to me. I tried to shake them free, but one look at Hunter and they came straight back. After that, I made it a point to avoid looking in his direction.
Hunter and I were making Cole and Paige nervous. It was obvious by their lack of conversation and awkward glances at each other. We were all silent as we found a table at one of the hipster restaurants. The walls were black, and the waterfront seating area had rustic wooden tables with pretentious arty centrepieces. From that alone, I knew there was a ninety percent chance there’d be a full-bearded hipster making drinks behind the bar. I laughed to myself when I turned and found I was right.
We were all relieved when a waitress came to take our drink order and successfully broke the silence hanging over us. Both Hunter and I ordered a scotch. I had mine on the rocks, and he had his with Coke.
Getting weak in your old age? The quip was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I couldn’t go there with him.
Looking out at the water, I was assaulted by the memory of diving off the docks. I could almost hear his laughter again. I had to turn my head away from the canal, but then that proved to be worse because Ryan was sitting right there, right across from me. My Ryan.
“So, Sara,” Cole started. “Paige tells me you’ve had some pretty disastrous dates lately.”
I officially hated Paige’s new boyfriend.
“Please give me some reassurance here,” he continued, “I need to know that there’s still hope for Paige and me after I
poisoned her on our first date.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t hate him. Laughing, I threw him a bone. “I’ve had a lot worse dates than that.”
“Ooh, tell them about the felon,” Paige said excitedly.
I inwardly groaned. It wasn’t a story I liked reliving.
“Felon?” Ryan asked. His face was grim, and his lips pursed into a tight line.
I had to admonish myself for glancing at him again.
Clearing my throat, I started, “So, this guy asked me out but told me his car was in the shop. I offered to pick him up, and when he got in the car, he asked me to go via his friend’s place first as the guy owed him money and he needed to pay for our date.”
Cole cocked his head to the side. “Drug dealer?”
“You’d think that would’ve tipped me off, right?” I exclaimed. “We pulled up to his friend’s place, he ran in and was back out a couple of minutes later, set to go. We only made it through the next traffic lights when the siren and lights started up behind us.”
Paige laughed her head off at me, and I couldn’t help giggling with her. It was a little funny now after some time had passed. At the time, it was scary as hell.
“Were you arrested?” Cole asked.
I shook my head. “I pulled over and then the guy started freaking out, yelling at me to gun it and outrun the cops. When I refused, he leaned over, opened my door and undid my seatbelt, and then literally pushed me out of the car. Then he took off.”
“He stole your car?” Cole asked.
“Yup, but that ended up being a good thing. If he hadn’t, the cops would’ve suspected I was involved in the drug deal that I was an unwitting accomplice to.”
“Oh my God, what about the married guy—tell that story,” Paige said now I was finished with the felon story.
I winced. “Can we not talk any more about my love life? Please?”
“Okay, I’ll go,” Paige said. “So I was on this date, and things were going well. When we got halfway through our dinner, he turned and said, ‘I need to ask you something now before it gets too serious. You have to know that I’m into some weird stuff …’ Then he proceeded to ask me what I was and wasn’t willing to do in bed. It was the first date.”
The table laughed, and I was thankful for her again for taking the heat off me. Even if that was actually another one of my stories. For some reason, I attracted the worst types of guys. I gave Paige an appreciative smile. Suffering through this night wouldn’t have been possible without her. Then again, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
“Cole? You have any dating horror stories?” I asked.
“I’ve never dated anyone until Paige.”
My brows scrunched in confusion.
“He met Reece in high school,” Paige clarified for me.
That was another thing about Cole. He had an ex-wife and a kid. An ex-wife who happened to be Paige’s soon-to-be stepmother. But again, I wasn’t going to voice my concerns to Paige. If it all fell apart, I’d be there for her to pick up the pieces. It was what we did for each other.
Hunter leaned forwards and put his elbows on the table. “I have a bad date story for you. It might not be as dramatic as either of yours, but it has confused me for years.”
My breath caught in my throat. I prayed he wasn’t talking about me.
“So, I meet this girl, right? Hot, funny—had a smart mouth she didn’t know when to shut.” He half-smiled which knocked the rest of the air out of my lungs. “But she was young, and I guess immature. Despite our small age gap, we spent this incredible night together, and when I said goodbye to her the next morning, I was confident she’d come meet me the following night.”
“Hunter …” Paige warned.
“Only, she didn’t show,” he continued. “She just … didn’t feel what I felt for her, I suppose. I guess she didn’t give a shit.”
He was glaring at me, and I was sure the expression mirrored my own. He wanted a story? He was going to get a fucking story.
5
- HUNTER -
NOW
When I’d opened the door and saw her standing there, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t fucking move.
I understood her anger when she found out my name was actually Hunter, but what I couldn’t wrap my head around was why she was still pissed after she found out I hadn’t lied to her—not really. Ryan was my birth name. She was the one who stood me up four years ago, not the other way around. I was the one who should’ve been pissed.
I may not have handled our reunion well—pretending not to remember her and then letting those stupid words slip out of my mouth. “Apparently we’ve fucked.” Ugh! Why did I say that? But after four years of not understanding what went wrong, I was still hurt. She had no idea how much I’d fallen for her in that one night. I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was love—we’d hung out for all of nine hours or so—but it was the closest thing to a connection I’d ever felt. With anyone. Before or since then. She was the only person I’d ever considered a future with.
It was hard for me not to throw her over my shoulder and take her into my room like some sort of caveman and demand she explain herself when she turned up on my doorstep.
I hated that she didn’t turn up all those years ago, but I hated myself more for not getting the courage to go knock on her door. I was always tempted to go see her. At first, I thought something might’ve happened to her—like an accident or something horrible that prevented her from meeting me. I knew nothing short of death would’ve kept me from seeing her that night. But in one of my not so better moments, I sat outside her apartment until she showed up, just to be sure. As soon as I saw her, I wanted to approach her, but all her limbs were working and she looked healthy. As if she didn’t have a care in the world.
So when she started talking at dinner tonight about her string of dates with other guys, I saw red. I didn’t want to hear about her with other men. Disastrous stories or not. She should’ve been mine for all those years, not some loser’s, who took her on drug runs.
Bringing up our date while sitting at the table with two other people probably wasn’t the best course of action, but I wanted answers. I’d done a pretty good job of shutting my mouth so far, considering all I wanted to do since seeing her was ask her why.
From what I could tell, Cole hadn’t realised we were talking about Sara and me, but by Paige’s warning, and the glare she was giving me, I was pretty sure she knew everything. If Sara wasn’t willing to give me the answers, at least I could ask Paige.
“I have a similar story, really,” Sara said. “So, I meet this guy in a bar, and somehow we end up going on this night-long quest to do really stupid things. He was charming, somewhat crass, but he seemed like the perfect gentleman.”
My lips turned up into a smile before I could stop them.
“Even while he took my virginity on a beach.”
That made my face fall, and I straightened in my seat. “What?” My tone was more rigid than I aimed for, but what did she expect? Did she really just say what I think she said?
“Anyway,” she continued, ignoring me, “I had every intention of seeing him again the following night. However, my mother woke me that day by banging on my front door. The friend who ditched me the night before was in a car accident, and my parents couldn’t get a hold of me because my phone was broken. My mum was frantic, thinking I’d been in the accident too. They didn’t know if my best friend was going to make it. So when I had to make a choice between meeting some guy or being there for my friend at the hospital, it was no contest.”
My mouth was agape, and by now, Cole had caught on, too.
She shrugged. “You had my address. You could’ve come found me and asked me why I didn’t turn up.”
Was that why she was pissed after all these years? Because I didn’t fight for her?
The table was completely silent for what felt like an impossible amount of time. I should’ve been on my knees grovelling fo
r her forgiveness for being an ass, but there was something holding me back.
Was it irrational of me to be pissed that she hadn’t told me she was a virgin? Isn’t that like a rule or something? What the fuck?
Sara stood from the table and addressed Paige. “I want to go home now.”
“I’ll go with you,” Paige said.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll catch a cab. It’s practically around the corner.” She was through the door before my brain could scream at me to stop her.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” Paige said, standing to follow Sara.
I leaned back in my seat and ran my hands through my hair.
“She was the one?” Cole asked.
“What?”
“She’s the one who turned you into a manwhore. You were already pretty bad, but something made you worse a few years ago. I thought it was that your career took off, but …”
I huffed a laugh. I didn’t think he noticed that shit. If anything, I was always the one harping on about his state of mental health.
“She’s no one. Just a one-night stand.”
“All of your conquests are one-night stands.”
But she was the only girl who wasn’t meant to be one.
***
When we arrived home, I was emotionally drained, and I didn’t want to deal with overhearing Cole and Paige go at it like they had been for the last six weeks.
“I’m going to bed. Please try to fuck quietly, I’m really not in the mood to be hearing that.” Was I being rude? Yes. Did I care? No.
Slamming my bedroom door, I paced my room.
She was a virgin?
As I replayed that night over and over in my head, the details came back to me as if it was only a few days ago. In some ways it felt like a lifetime had passed. In other ways it was insane that four years were already gone.
The memory of her was burned into my brain. I’d never been able to get rid of it completely, but taking random girls home regularly helped dim her ever-present ghost in my mind. That worked most times, anyway, but it was usually followed up by an overwhelming feeling of guilt. It felt dirty and wrong most times. None of them had that spark. I’d never shared a connection with anyone else—not deep enough to want to be explored past a few dates, and even then, they were considered long-term relationships for me.
