Some days, the lonely, empty feeling inside my heart was harder to bear than others.

Today was one of those days.

When I woke up this morning, it was to storm clouds outside my window and a pain in my heart. It felt like the ridge between me and Jordan was spreading at a rapid rate.

I figured this was how all women feel whose husbands had endured what mine had.

In a perfect world, I would be waking up this morning to my husband's smiling face.

Instead, I was waking up to the color of a cloud ridden sky and an empty bed.

A glutton for punishment, I curled up in a ball and took stock of my life.; it was something I did every year on this day.

Career wise, I had peaked at the tender age of twenty-two. Now I was riding the wave of success, having knocked out book after book for the last five years.

My publishing success left me feeling anything but fulfilled though. Most days, I still felt empty inside, and knowing that my marriage wasn’t working the way I had hoped made me want to curl up and die.

Sitting up in bed, I read and then reread the note I had found on my nightstand when I woke up.

Raincheck on dinner tonight.

Got called into work the double shift at the hospital.

I'll see you in the morning.

J. x

I strived to find the part of my brain that was proud of my husband for being such and compassionate and amazing man that gave every waking hour of his time to people in need, but all I came back with was the word typical.

This was so fucking typical.

Scrunching up the handwritten note, I tossed it across the room and dropped back onto my pillow, feeling depressed and wishing I was anywhere but here.

What the hell was I doing with my life?

Where was this going?

Jordan wasn't showing me that he wanted to make this work, and I was losing the will to keep going. I was growing weary of carrying the both of us, and a piece of my heart begged me to call it a day before it got any worse.

Every day since returning from my brief escape to Teagan's, I questioned my decision on coming back here.

I wondered if I was making a mistake.

But what could I do?

How I could I give up now?

I could hear Annabelle and Ryder downstairs, but I didn’t dare go down and join them.

It was still early and, knowing my luck, I would be left with the baby while she rushed off for whatever meeting she had today.

Annabelle was beginning to rely on me for childcare like she did Jordan.

And while I honestly loved Ryder, I didn’t want to become his built-in babysitter any more than I already was.

Feeling cranky and drowning in disappointment, I reached for my phone on the nightstand.

Unlocking the screen, I went straight into my messages and began to type.

Hope: Teagan, I think I've made a huge mistake.

I stared at the words I had typed and prayed for divine intervention, but all I got in response was a huge swell of guilt.

How could I do that to Jordan?

How could I even think those words, let alone type them out with the intention of sending them to Teagan? She was already burning mad at Jordan over our last fight. If she had further confirmation of how unhappy I truly was, she'd reign hell down on him.

Thoroughly disgusted with myself, I erased the message and tossed my phone on the bed before wrapping my arms around my knees.

I was a horrible human being.

I had to be to think the things I did.

Releasing a heavy sigh, I clenched my eyes shut and tried in vain to calm my racing mind.

It didn’t work though.

The silence around me only seemed to make matters a million times worse, and when I heard the sound of the doorbell ring around an hour later, I was still drowning in my rampant thoughts.

I paused mid-meltdown and decided that the walls and flooring in this house must have been pathetically thin because I could hear Annabelle clearly as she greeted the person at the door. "Hello, you!"

"Oh, hey… is Hope here?"

Oh my god.

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

The minute I heard the familiar male voice, I leapt clean out of my bed in wide-eyed horror.

"Omigod. What the hell is he doing here?" I yelped as I dove towards the chest of drawers across the room, only to stub my toe on the foot of the bed, and almost killing myself in the process.

"Shit," I squealed, hopping to my destination on one foot. Throwing open the top drawer, I grabbed the first pair of pajama pants that came my way and roughly yanked them on. I grabbed a tank top and quickly pulled it on before hobbling out of the room.

Weeks had passed since my meltdown at South Peak Road, and while we had fallen back into platonic-friends territory and had hung out on several occasions since, things were different now. Everything had intensified and I found myself more aware of him; how he moved, the different smiles he wore, his laugh, the color of his eyes, and how they changed slightly with his moods.

When I reached the top of the stairs I was greeted by the sound of Annabelle's girlish laugh coming from the kitchen. "I can't believe how good you are with him, Lucky! He really loves your facial hair."

"Yeah well, I love kids."

"I can tell… do you have any kids of your own?"

"Um, no."

"But you want kids?"

"Uh, sure. When the time comes."

"That's really good to know…"

Ugh.

That skank was laying it on thick.

With my bitch-mode in full force and my stubbed toe forgotten, I stomped down the stairs, fully prepared to shut this shit down.

It was bad enough that I had to suffer sharing my husband with the woman, I was not sharing my Lucky, too!

Okay, so I knew that made zero sense and Hunter wasn’t my anything, but dammit, she couldn’t have him.

No fricking way.

Like a woman on a mission, I marched towards the kitchen and slung the door open, feeling frazzled and, if I was being honest, a little territorial and deranged.

However, the moment my eyes landed on Hunter standing in the middle of our tiny kitchen bouncing Ryder up and down in his arms, my annoyance evaporated and my ovaries exploded.

No joke.

The sight of this bad-ass man, covered in tatts and, let's be real, oozing sex appeal, holding a freaking baby, caused a very strong biological reaction inside of me.

My heart went wild at the sight of him.

I couldn’t make it stop.

It was hammering in my chest like I had run a marathon.

Excitement at him being here and the anticipation of what he wanted caused my body to tremble.

I wasn’t expecting this – him.

I didn’t know I could feel this way by simply having a man's eyes on me.

One look at Annabelle's face told me she was having the same problem.

Immediately, my hackles rose.

"What are you doing here?" my tone was curt, bordering on rude.

Hunter turned and looked at me. "Hey, friend." He winked and gave me one of those megawatt smiles. "Nice jammies."

I looked down at my pajamas in confusion for the briefest moment before turning beetroot red.

"I'm just a writer in my mid-twenties who spends her days in cat printed pajamas and eating my weight in Oreos."

"For the record, you look damn good for a woman who eats her weight in Oreos…"

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, my gaze landed on the rectangular shaped envelope in his hand.

The sight of the envelope and the thought of what it could potentially be, caused my heart to hammer wildly against my ribcage.

"What's that?" I asked, not daring to get my hopes up.

He didn’t remember.

He couldn’t have.

"What – this?" Hunter asked, still grinning, as he held the envelope out to me. "Is for you."

Blushing furiously, I stepped forward and took the envelope from his hand before quickly tearing it open.

An abnormal swell of emotion rushed through my body as I stared down at the card in my hands, only to end up laughing when I read the message printed inside.

I hope your birthday is as great as your ass.

"Yeah, I thought you'd enjoy that greeting," Hunter chuckled. "Took me fucking hours to find it."

"How did you remember it was today?" I managed to squeeze out, though my throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. I was pretty sure I had only mentioned my birthday once to Hunter and that was sometime last year.

"Uh, maybe because you told me?" he shot back sarcastically. I watched him snatch a huge bouquet of flowers off the kitchen counter and thrust them towards me. "Happy birthday, HC."

"Wait – it's your birthday?" Annabelle squeaked in surprise as she took Ryder from Hunter and placed him on her hip. "Jordan never said."

Because Jordan never remembered, I thought to myself.

"It doesn’t matter," I replied, taking the flowers from him. "It's not a big birthday or anything. I'm only twenty-seven today." My face burned with heat as I walked over to the sink and placed the bouquet on the draining board. "Do we have a vase?"

"Under the sink." She frowned for a moment before adding, "Well, happy birthday, Hope."

"Thanks," I replied, retrieving the vase to place my flowers in. When I was done, I swung around to face Hunter. "You know, I can't believe you remembered." I smiled and, for the first time in what felt like forever, it was genuine.

He smiled widely back at me and I bit back a sigh. Someone really needed to frame that man's smile and hang it somewhere. It was fucking beautiful.

"You better go upstairs and get your ass dressed," he said then. "If I don’t deliver you to your parent's house by three, your father will have my balls."

"Oh god," I groaned, covering my face with my hands. "What do they have planned this year?"

"I'm not entirely sure. But I overheard something about pink balloons and party hats."

"Fuck."

My response made Hunter laugh and Annabelle say, "Go on upstairs and get ready for your party, Hope. I'll keep Lucky company."

Yeah, I bet she would.

I wanted to stay right here in the kitchen and not leave her alone with Hunter, or better still, take him upstairs with me.

Knowing I couldn’t do either, I nodded dejectedly and headed upstairs to get showered and dressed.

"Oh, I almost forgot," I heard Hunter say when I was halfway up the staircase. "Today's a big day for you, too, right?"

"Me?" Annabelle asked, tone laced with confusion.

"Yeah.," he replied "Today was supposed to be your fake wedding day, right?"

I could only imagine the expression on Annabelle's face in that moment. The gasp that tore from her throat was enough to know she was taken aback.

"Anyways, happy fake wedding day," he added in a carefree tone of voice.

I couldn’t hold in the snicker that escaped me as I hurried up the rest of the steps.

That man was the best friend ever!

* * *

When I came back downstairs twenty minutes later, it was with a head full of wet and tangled hair.

Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to waste a copious amount of precious time trying to wrangle my curls into submission – not at the expense of leaving Hunter alone with the blonde goddess that was my roommate.

To my immense relief, when I walked back into the kitchen, Hunter was alone at the table.

"Your roommate told me to let you know that she had to leave for the baby's doctor's appointment and to have a great birthday." He frowned before adding, "I think I hurt her feelings with the whole fake wedding comment."

I thought about it for a moment before shrugging. "Nah." I wasn’t about to feel sorry for Annabelle over anything. "Serves her right for going along with that lie."

Hunter didn’t say anything to that.

His focus was entirely on me.

"Christ," he muttered gruffly as he got to his feet, eyes still locked on me. "Are you trying to cause a riot, HC?" he purred, giving my body a slow appraisal. "You look gorgeous."

My face flamed with embarrassment as I forced out a nervous chuckle. I looked down at the red wrap dress I had on and grimaced.

My boobs were spilling out of the low-cut fabric, but I felt comfortable in this dress. It had an awesome way of hiding my less than perfect assets while emphasizing my better ones.

"Well," I mused, "if my parents insist on taking a family photo, like they do every fricking year, then at least I'll look half way decent in this."

* * *

Lucky

"If my parents insist on taking a family photo, like they do every fricking year, then at least I'll look half way decent in this."

"Are you fucking with me?" I asked, scratching the back of my head in utter confusion.

The woman was batshit crazy. She was standing in front of me, trying to talk down her looks, when I'd never in my thirty-one years on this earth seen anything like her.

Seriously, was she messing with me right now?

"Fucking with you?" Hope squeaked out with a confused expression.

"Jesus," I muttered with a shake of my head.

How did she not see what I saw?

How did she not know she was the most beautiful fucking woman I had ever had to misfortune to lay eyes on?

I loved the color red on her.

When she was wearing red, she looked like a blazing fire, resembling exactly what she represented to my heart.

Because the woman set me on fire.

"You are the most beautiful woman I've seen in real life," I told her. Hope was gorgeous and she deserved to know it. No, scratch that; she deserved to feel it. "No exceptions."

My comment only caused her cheeks to grow even redder than before.

I didn’t get it.

If I was a woman and looked like Hope, I'd be naked and in front of a mirror all-day long.

"Anyways," she squeezed out, clearly uncomfortable. "We should get going."

I thought about pushing the subject, but decided against it.

Hope wasn’t the kind of woman who took compliments well.

I didn’t like that, either, but it was something that would take time changing.

And time was something I had plenty of.