“It’s fine. It startled me more than anything.” He rose up to his full height, which was definitely over six feet tall, and looked down at me with clear blue eyes that crinkled a little at the corners. He smiled slightly, and I was almost hypnotized by his gleaming white teeth. Surely this guy wasn’t an actual human?
“I’m Hunter,” he said, holding his hand out toward me.
His words interrupted my staring, and I blinked at him. “No, you’re not.”
Shifting on his feet, he withdrew his hand and pushed his hands into the pockets of his charcoal-gray slacks. “Uh, I’m not?”
I shook my head as if to clear it to get my brain back online. “Sorry. Again. I actually just met a Hunter a couple of days ago, and so when you said you were Hunter, it threw me a little.” In an attempt to salvage this meet-cute moment I was destroying, I extended my hand to him. “Isla.”
He grasped my hand firmly with his and gave it a gentle shake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too. Though I wish the circumstances had been a little less painful.”
He thankfully laughed, and I wanted to hear the sound again. It was deep, like a rich baritone. If a laugh could be polished, that was how Hunter’s would be. I was struck by how different it was from Gray’s rawer, grittier voice, as if his laugh had to make its way through barbed wire before it could leave his mouth.
“So do you shop here often?” he asked. We stared at each other before we both broke into more laughter. “Wow, that was an epically horrible line,” he said, his tone somehow both self-deprecating and confident. Like he knew he sounded foolish but also knew no one would ever think him a fool.
“It was pretty bad. But, yes, I do shop here often.”
“Me too. Well, now. I just moved here not so long ago.”
Seemed I was getting to meet all the new boys in town. Not that I was complaining. “Then maybe I’ll see you around again.” I smiled with the words, hoping I was coming across coy and demure and not like a crazed cat lady. Even though I’d already established with the other Hunter that I didn’t like cats.
“Yeah, maybe.” His smile widened and his tone sounded hopeful, though that could’ve been wishful thinking on my part.
Excusing myself, I made sure to give him a wide berth as I pushed my cart around him. I filled with pride at the fact that I only looked back over my shoulder once, a pride that only grew when I saw that he hadn’t moved and was still watching me.
I ignored my inner voice, which sounded suspiciously like Gray, warning me that the man could be a serial killer, and basked in the feeling that even after years in dating hibernation, I still had some appeal.
The rest of my shopping went quickly. I kept the OREOs but made better food choices after my run-in with Hunter Number Two. Well, except for the ice cream. And the jug of sweet tea. And the REESE’S Pieces I bought at checkout because ice cream was so much better when those were liberally sprinkled on top.
When I put the last item on the belt, I heard a throat clear behind me. Thinking it was someone who was impatiently waiting for me to put the little bar that separated orders on the belt, I spun around ready for war. Until I saw Hunter Number Two smiling at me in all his golden boy glory.
“I realized I didn’t want to leave our next meeting to chance,” he said. “Would it be possible for me to get your number so I can give you a call sometime? Or I can give you mine if you prefer.”
There was no way I wanted the stress of having to be the one to reach out first, and there was also no way I wasn’t going to give this man my number. The best the dating app had done for me was introduce me to a lesbian. And I guess, in a roundabout way, to Gray. But maybe this was the universe’s way of making all the other bad experiences up to me—Just kidding with the last Hunter. Here’s the real one for you to enjoy.
“Sure, I’ll give you mine,” I said. He withdrew his phone and then looked at me expectantly, so I recited my phone number to him. Then he texted me so I’d have his.
“Okay, well, I’d probably better get back to my shopping. But I’ll call you soon,” he promised.
“Sounds good.”
We smiled at each other like goofballs for a moment longer before he went back to his shopping and I paid for my groceries. And as I left the store with some pep in my step, I couldn’t wait to get home and call Gray. I bet a drawing of me mowing someone down with a shopping cart was something he didn’t even know was missing from the paper’s social media.
GRAYSON
My cell rang, and unlike most normal humans nowadays, I didn’t look at the display before answering. I blamed the fact that I’d just stepped out of the shower, but the truth was, Isla was the only one who called me with any regularity recently, and I’d started to take it for granted that it was her.
“Hello,” I said as I struggled to put on my boxers with one hand.
“Grayson, hi, um, hey, it’s…it’s Miranda.” The hesitant voice of my ex-wife sliced through me like a serrated blade.
I gave up on the boxers and let them pool at my feet. But I quickly realized standing there naked while on the phone with her wasn’t exactly preferable either.
“Oh. Hi.”
“How have you been?”
“Does it matter?” My words weren’t intended to hurt her but rather born from genuine curiosity. She hadn’t seemed to care how I was when she’d been fucking my best friend, so the sentiment felt a little hollow now.
She exhaled a large put-upon sigh that had become so regular, it had basically doubled as the soundtrack to our marriage at the end.
“I’m trying to be civil.”
“Maybe you could try to be succinct. What did you need?” With the shock gone and the anger and resentment I thought I’d buried months ago bubbling back up, I decided being curt was the best course of action to get this conversation over with before it devolved into a heated exchange where we each listed all the things we hated about each other.
It wasn’t quite the rousing fun I’d been thinking of when my phone had first rung and I’d assumed it was Isla.
“I was cleaning out the attic and found a box of your things. A couple photo albums from college, some old clothes that I’m assuming you kept because they meant something to you, and a few other knickknacks.”
I knew the box she was talking about. The photo albums were filled with pictures of the two of us when we’d been younger. The clothes and other keepsakes were all tied up in her in some way, either because they were from her or I’d acquired them in her presence. There was no way she didn’t know that I’d intentionally left that box behind, since I’d dragged every other thing I’d owned out of the attic.
No, there was more to this call than Miranda was letting on, but fuck all if I cared.
“Nah, none of that sounds like anything I need. Maybe Dennis could fit in some of the clothes.” The urge to mention his name, to speak of the thing she’d kept secret for over a year, was something I couldn’t repress.
This time, her sigh was less agitated and more sad. “Why do you always have to say his name like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s a disease or something.”
“If the inflection fits,” I muttered.
“We were all friends for a lot of years, Grayson. We could—”
“If you say we could all be friends again, I’m hanging up.”
“Always so dramatic.”
That was a point I couldn’t necessarily argue, so I didn’t bother trying. I was an artist—wasn’t making something from nothing kind of our whole purpose?
“Anything else?” I asked.
“No. No, I guess not.” The sadness was still there, and not too long ago it would’ve eaten at me to know what was upsetting her. I hadn’t always been the most present husband, but I’d always cared about her. If I could have fixed a problem for her, I would’ve. But when the problem became me, there was little I could do. Or maybe just little I was willing to do. Either
way, the result was the same.
“Okay, then. Take care of yourself.”
“Bye, Grayson.”
I disconnected the call and tossed the phone on my bed. After finishing dressing, I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Then I slammed the door shut because I refused to let Miranda drive me to stress eating.
I was…unsettled. One conversation with her, and all the feelings I’d tried to bury rose up and clouded my brain. What I needed was a distraction, preferably of the beautiful, black-haired variety. Returning to my room, I picked up my phone and fired off a text to Isla.
What are you up to?
The reply came almost immediately.
Plotting whether my stomach will
revolt if I eat an entire carton of ice
cream for dinner.
Come share it with me!
Hmm, that is a tempting offer.
However, I have become one with
my couch, and moving doesn’t hold
much appeal.
Ugh, come on. I need someone
to get my mind off things.
What things?
Ex-wife things.
And then because being transparent might tip the scales of her coming over in my favor, I added:
She called me a little while ago.
While I had been expecting Isla to sympathize with me, what I didn’t expect was for my phone to ring. In the interest of caution, I made sure it was her before I answered.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“So…a chat with the ex, huh? How’d that go?”
“About as well as attempting to baptize Rosemary’s baby.”
“Stop deflecting with humor. Tell me.”
And damn her for knowing I did that, and damn me for liking that she knew. “It’s tough…hearing from her. There are a lot of hurt feelings between us.” When she didn’t say anything, I sighed and rubbed my forehead with my hand. “It’s too complicated to get into. Especially over the phone.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I’d expected her to push. A masochistic part of me might even admit to hoping she would have.
“Yeah. Okay.” She sounded like she was struggling.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting dressed. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. With ice cream and wine. Be ready to share all the sordid details.” Then she hung up, leaving me staring at the phone, wondering how I’d both gotten exactly what I wanted and what I didn’t all at once.
Chapter Fourteen
ISLA
The trip to Gray’s was quick, and I found him waiting outside for me when I arrived.
“Such a gentleman,” I said with a teasing smile.
“I wanted to make sure nothing happened to the ice cream,” he deadpanned as he held the door open so I could walk inside.
“Hey, don’t forget about the wine.”
He closed the door behind us and I waited for him to lead the way up the stairs.
“Trust me, I’m not.”
We trekked the rest of the way to his apartment in silence. Once inside, I put the ice cream in the freezer, dropped the REESE’S Pieces onto the counter, and then withdrew the wine from the bag I’d put it in.
“Where’s your opener?”
He wordlessly retrieved that as well as two glasses and set them down in front of me. I poured us some wine and handed him one before saying, “Spill.”
“The wine? That seems very wasteful.”
“Smartass. The phone call. I need the deets.”
“Deets? Are you fourteen?”
“If I were, you’d probably be looking at a long prison term.” Taking a sip of my wine, I watched him chuckle. “Stop trying to change the subject.”
“It really isn’t a big deal. It definitely didn’t need a sugar and alcohol intervention,” he said right before taking a drink.
“Then give it back,” I said, making grabby hands at his glass.
“Not on your life,” he muttered, draining his glass and then grabbing the bottle to refill it.
“See! This is a problem that requires drinking.”
“It’s not a problem at all. More of a nuisance.” He sighed. “I haven’t heard from Miranda since I moved here. It was just…jarring. To hear her voice. The past few weeks have felt like a whole new life for me, and it was weird to have my old life collide with my new one.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what was different about the last few weeks. Not because I didn’t think I had a role in the change, but because the selfish part of me wanted to hear it from him. But this moment wasn’t about me, so I let the question drop.
“That makes sense.”
“She’s… Miranda was my first love. We met in college, and things were great for years. Until they weren’t. I don’t even know exactly how or when they went bad. But before I knew it, I was accepting every job that was sent my way to keep myself busy and away from home, and she was fucking my best friend Dennis every chance she got.”
“That’s…wow.”
He rubbed his forehead with his hand, something I’d begun to think of as a very Gray thing to do. “We both played a part in the marriage failing. But her fucking around with him of all people, it was a double-edged betrayal.”
Nodding, I thought about how glad I was that I’d never been mistreated like that. I’d had a tough life with my parents dying and having to raise Liv on my own, but no one had chosen to hurt me. Somehow that thought eased a bit of the ache inside of me that I’d carried around since the day I lost my parents. If they could’ve picked whether to go or stay, they would have stayed. And there was solace to be found in that truth.
“They sound like real gems.”
“I thought they were—once.”
“I mean, let’s be honest, nothing good ever comes out of a guy named Dennis.”
Gray had been taking a sip of his wine, and he snorted and choked slightly at my words.
“Seriously,” I continued. “Dennis the Menace, Dennis Rodman, Dennis Nilsen—”
“Who the hell is Dennis Nilsen?”
“He’s a serial killer from England or Scotland. Somewhere like that. He killed his victims and then dismembered them. I think he got off on it sexually, but that part’s fuzzy.”
His expression was somewhat horrified. “How do you know that?”
Shrugging, I poured myself more wine. “I’m a fount of useless knowledge. And I’m really into serial killers. I mean, not into them into them. I don’t want to date one or anything.”
“Maybe you’re the one who needs an intervention.”
Raising my glass as a salute, I said, “From your mouth to God’s ears.” Then I put my glass down excitedly. “Oh! But I may have already gotten one.”
“An intervention?”
“Yes. Whether or not it was divine or not remains to be seen, but there was some very definite intervening today. I met a guy. Another Hunter, but this one is actually a man.”
He looked bewildered and entertained all at once. “How’d you meet him?”
“I ran him over with my shopping cart.”
“Way to make a strong first impression.”
“I know, right? I bungled the entire ordeal. But he asked for my number anyway, so maybe he likes his women easily flusterable.”
“If you’re going to start inventing words, I’m going to have to cut you off.” He reached for my wineglass, but I smacked his hand away.
“Don’t touch or I won’t tell you the rest of the story.”
Withdrawing his hand, he leaned on his counter, giving me his rapt attention.
After thinking for a moment, I deflated. “I guess there isn’t any more to the story. We exchanged numbers, but he hasn’t texted me yet. We just met a couple of hours ago.”
“You could always text him.”
I scoffed. “I’m not that desperate.”
Gray raised his eyebrows at me.
Rolling my eyes, I g
rabbed my purse from where I’d dropped it on the floor and began to dig through it for my phone.
“What should I say?” I asked, my voice resigned.
Laughing, he grabbed my glass and started walking toward the living room, correctly figuring I’d follow my wine anywhere.
“I’m just fucking with you,” he said. “You can wait for him to make contact first.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then he’s a fucking moron,” Gray replied, his tone resolute.
His words made a warmth spread through me. I was glad I’d met this relationship-phobic man who fucked like a dream. He was turning out to be a damn good friend. Tossing my phone onto the coffee table, I swung my head to look at him.
“What should we do now? Wanna talk about your ex-wife more?”
He shuddered. “Hell no.”
I smiled at his theatrics, settling back into his couch. We didn’t talk for a couple of minutes, but I didn’t feel any need to fill the quiet. But evidently he did.
“Wanna try the feathers?” he asked.
My smile widened. “Now you’re talking.”
GRAYSON
I hadn’t intended to make tonight about sex, but having Isla in my space forced my mind, and body, in that direction. Besides, we did buy the feather duster thing. It would be a shame for it to go to waste. Especially if this new Hunter guy she’d met had half a brain cell and called her soon. Who knew how much longer I’d have to spend with her.
And while I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to get my fill of her before she moved on, I kind of was. Not only sexually, but personally too. I enjoyed her company as much as I enjoyed sleeping with her, and I was going to soak both up while she’d let me.
Misadventures with a Sexpert Page 10
