Chapter 15
Natalia
I could barely concentrate on the game. Sex, not love. Those were the exact same words that Anna had said to me about having a relationship with Hunter. The two of them made it sound so simple. Maybe it was. Maybe I was making it out to be more difficult than it needed to be. After all, it’s what I’d have with Marcus if I slept with him. Although, I wasn’t quite sure that was the way Marcus would see it. Not that I was so full of myself to think Marcus had fallen in love with me already, but my gut told me he was looking for a relationship. Of course, some men took you out to dinner a few times and pretended that’s what they wanted just to get in your pants. I could be wrong, but Marcus’s intentions seemed genuine.
The part of me that wanted to sleep with Hunter justified its cause. Sleeping with Marcus would be wrong—you’d be misleading him. The honest thing to do would be to break things off and have a purely sexual relationship with a man who has the same intentions. Yet the part of me that didn’t want to sleep with Hunter—my brain—knew this man could break my heart. I was attracted to him, sure. Who wouldn’t be? But it was more than just physical. I actually liked him. He was funny, smart, outdoorsy. Not to mention he’d bonded with Izzy—a guy has to be something special to combat teenage revulsion. Could I go in with my eyes wide open and keep feelings from growing?
“You want something?” I heard Hunter say.
I turned to him with confusion written all over my face. “Hmm?”
“You didn’t hear one word I said, did you?”
“I heard you.”
“Yeah? What did I ask?”
“You asked if I wanted something.”
“Before that.”
“Oh.”
He smirked and leaned in. “Thinking about what I said earlier in the car, aren’t you?”
“I am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“How old are you? Because you sound like you’re seven.”
Hunter stood. “What do you want to eat? Because if you let me decide, I’m buying you a hot dog to watch you eat it.”
“I’m not hungry.” It wasn’t until my eyes followed Hunter down the bleachers that I even noticed the game had stopped. It was half-time, and I’d dazed for most of the first part of the game.
Hunter returned with a brown box holding pretzels and two ridiculously large sodas. He handed one to me. “So, what did you decide?”
“I guess I’m having a pretzel since you bought it for me already.”
“I meant regarding my proposal you’ve been fantasizing about for the last half hour.”
“I wasn’t...” I thought better of protesting again, which would lead to another round of immature am not, are toos, and instead, I came clean. Rolling my eyes, I said, “I’ve been going over the pros and cons in my head.”
He set his pretzel down, dusted off his hands, and turned in his seat to give me his full attention. “Lay ’em on me.”
“What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, this isn’t the appropriate place for it.” I looked to my left and right. Although no one seemed to be paying attention, I’d certainly eavesdrop on this conversation if I heard it in the stands.
“Okay. Then where is?”
“Somewhere more private.”
“My place after the game today.”
“No.”
“Why not? Can’t trust yourself?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll have Izzy, and I told her we would go shopping later this afternoon after the game.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Date with Marcus.”
Hunter made a face.
“When I told you I was going over the pros and cons in my head, I didn’t mean I wanted your assistance. I was just being honest.”
“Fine. But if you’re going to go over the pros and cons without me, I want to plead my case first.”
My brows raised. “Plead your case?”
“Yep. You might be missing some critical factors that would sway your decision.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “Like what?”
“Well, you should know I’m extremely good at it.”
“Every man thinks he’s good at it, Hunter.”
He ignored me. “And I’m well endowed.”
“Show me a man who pleads his case by saying ‘I have a tiny penis’.”
“I believe sex without going down on a woman first is bad manners.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
One of the women sitting two rows ahead of us turned and leaned up. “If she says no, I’ll give you my number.”
My face turned crimson, while Hunter, being Hunter, dazzled her with a smile and wink. “And I haven’t even gotten to my best selling points yet.”
Luckily, the ref blew the whistle calling the game back to start, and the persistent man sitting next to me redirected his focus. I, on the other hand, stared straight ahead, struggling to follow a bouncing ball. All I could think was God, I like a man with good manners.
***
“Could we go to the mall tomorrow before going to Sunday night dinner?” Izzy asked from the back of Hunter’s rental car. We were almost back to the city after getting stuck in construction traffic.
I turned. “I have plans tomorrow in the afternoon.”
“Oh. That’s right. The ugly guy.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Hunter smirking.
“Marcus isn’t ugly. Besides, I thought you needed to go to the mall today for some new practice shorts.”
Izzy shrugged. “I can use the ones I have for a while longer.”
There was a reason if she was giving up a trip to the mall. “Okay. So if we skip the mall this afternoon, do you want to do something else?”
She looked away. “I kind of want to go to Beacon to watch the boys basketball game.”
“The boys basketball game?”
“For technique,” she responded, selling it way too hard. “It’s good to watch other players for form and technique, right, Hunter?”
Hunter’s eyes flashed to me. I squinted back, and somehow we had a two-second wordless conversation. “Watching is always good,” he said. “But you might want to watch pro ball so you don’t pick up bad habits from high school kids.”
I tried not to smirk. Of course I’d let her go to the game instead of shopping with me. She was fifteen and belonged with her friends.
Hunter looked in the rearview mirror at Izzy. “What time is the game?”
“It just started.”
“On second thought, watching might be good. You can watch for things they’re doing wrong as part of learning.”
Izzy pepped up. “That’s what I’ll do. Could you drop me off, Hunter?”
“Don’t you want to go home and change?” I said. “You’re in your uniform still.”
“It’s a basketball game. There are two teams in uniforms.”
“I don’t mind dropping her off,” Hunter said. “Besides, it will give us a chance to discuss the business we didn’t get to yet.”
I furrowed my brow. So Hunter clarified. “Pros and cons.”
***
Hunter waited at the front of the school until Izzy walked inside and then turned to me. “Your place or mine?”
“I’m not having sex with you.”
“Do you mean now or ever?”
“You said…” I deepened my voice into a husky impression of him. “…your place or mine, and that usually refers to whose house you’re going to have sex at.”
“So it means it’s off the table now, but not forever then?”
I laughed. “Why don’t we go have some lunch? I owe you at least that for coming to two basketball games and giving up your Saturday morning.”
“Alright.” He put the car into gear. “I’ll take lunch. But know that it didn’t feel like I gave up anything this morning, and also…I’m paying.”
***
I’d eaten a pretzel at the game, so I wasn’t that hungry. “I’ll have a Caesar salad.”
The waitress turned to Hunter, who looked at me. “Do you like calamari?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll take an order of fried calamari.”
“Okay.” She scribbled it down on her pad.
He looked to me again. “Do you like eggplant?”
“Yes, but I’m not really hungry.”
“Me either. Let’s share.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll also take an order of eggplant rollatini.”
“Umm…can you cancel my Caesar salad then?” I asked the waitress.
After she left our table, I opened my napkin and draped it over my lap, then took a drink of my water. Hunter watched me intently.
“What?”
He shrugged. “Just looking at you.”
“Well, don’t do that.”
“Don’t look at you?” He arched a brow. “It’s kind of hard to sit across from someone and have a conversation without looking at them.”
“I meant don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“All smoldering and stuff.”
“I’m smoldering?”
I exhaled. “Can we just have lunch as friends? No sex talk, no you looking all sexy and staring at me, no pressure.”
“I’ll try. But the looking all sexy thing just comes naturally.”
We laughed, and it seemed to break the tension—until my cell phone rang and I looked at the caller ID. Super flashed on the screen.
“I’m sorry. It’s my building super. I need to take this.”
I answered, assuming it was Jimmy, the regular maintenance guy. “Hello?”
“My favorite tenant, I hear you need my services?” The voice on the other end made my skin crawl. It wasn’t the super. It was the creep who owned the building.
“Oh. Hi, Damon. I called the super this morning because of a small issue. But it’s not a big deal. I don’t think you need to get involved.”
“Are you home?”
“No, actually, I’m out.”
“What time will you be home? I’ll come take a look at that drain for you.”
I had no idea what time Izzy would be home, and I tried to avoid being alone with him at all costs. “Umm…. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Probably not for a few hours.”
“How about five?”
Ugh. Why couldn’t the super just fix it for me like he’d do for every other tenant? “It’s really not a big deal, Damon. Jimmy can fix it when he has time. I can use the bathroom sink for now.”
“I’ll see you at five.”
“I might be a little later.”
“Call me when you’re back at home.”
I managed to stifle a groan. “Fine.”
After I hung up, I couldn’t hide my frustration.
Hunter looked concerned. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Do you remember when I told you my husband’s best friend was nice enough to help me find a place to live? But in exchange for that, he thought I should sleep with him?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that was the asshole on the phone. Damon owns my building. I dread anytime anything goes wrong in my apartment, because instead of the super coming to fix it, Damon insists on showing up. He doesn’t go as far as pushing himself on me or anything, but he’s tried to kiss me before, and he constantly asks me out, and it just makes me really uncomfortable.”
The way Hunter’s jaw ticked was endearing. “I’m going home with you later. He can fix the sink while I’m there.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“No, it is. And while I’m at it, I need to apologize for being such a pushy asshole. I didn’t see it until you just told me about that guy.”
“You aren’t an asshole.” I smiled. “Pushy, maybe. But it’s not the same thing. I’ve never felt like if I told you no, and sounded like I meant it, you wouldn’t back off. Damon, on the other hand, I don’t trust. I don’t even like to be in the same room as him.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll back off anyway. You change your mind on wanting to be anything but friends, I’m here. Otherwise, I’ll cool it.”
As much as I’d said that was what I wanted, and knew it was for the best, it made me sad. I forced a smile. “Okay.”
The rest of our lunch was nice, but the mood definitely shifted. There was almost an awkwardness to our conversation. Hunter would relax and start to say something flirty, and then he’d catch himself and dial it back. It was as if he didn’t know how to be friends with me. At one particular point, when he was running his finger along the top of his glass and looking exceptionally tongue-tied, I called him on it.
“You have no women friends, do you?”
He looked up from the glass. “Sure I do. I’m friends with lots of women.”
“Who?”
“Anna, for one.”
“She’s not your friend. She’s your buddy’s wife.”
“So it’s either one or the other?”
“Do you have any single women you’re friends with?”
“Sure. At work.”
“Okay. Who?”
“I go to lunch with Renee from the office sometimes. She’s a project manager.”
“Is she dating anyone?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How old is she?”
He shrugged. “Mid-sixties, maybe.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t count. She’s safe. How about any single friends in their twenties or thirties?”
“No. But there’s a good reason for that.”
“What’s the reason?”
“Men and women who are mating age and attracted to each other can’t be friends. It’s primal.”
My eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
Hunter leaned back in his chair. “What would I do with a woman I’m attracted to?”
“What do you mean? What do you and your male friends do?”
“Outdoors stuff. I like to rock climb, scuba dive, play golf.”
“So why couldn’t you and I do those things together?”
“For starters, when the guys and I play golf and one of us has to take a leak, we walk over to the brush and take a leak. When we rock climb, there’s no better way to celebrate getting to the top than peeing off the side of the mountain.”
“So men and women can’t be friends because of your need to publicly urinate?”
“Last time we were diving, Derek sliced his hand on a coral reef. We tossed him electrical tape to wrap around his hand to keep the cut shut and went back for another dive. He probably needed a stitch or two, but if he’d gone to the hospital, we would’ve called him a pussy for a month.”
“And if I was diving with you, you wouldn’t toss me electrical tape?”
“Nope. Would take you to the hospital for stitches.”
“What if I didn’t want to go for stitches?”
“Wouldn’t give you a choice. You get hurt, I’m gonna take care of you.”
“But you won’t take care of your best friend, Derek?”
Hunter smirked. “Nope.”
“You’re really a chauvinist, you know?”
“Taking care of a woman is being a gentleman.”
“Not when you do it because you think your sex is superior and the woman can’t take care of herself.”
“Didn’t say that. You cut your hand, I’m sure you can get yourself to the ER for stitches. But I’d want to take you, nonetheless.”
I sipped my drink and smirked. “Chauvinist.”
Hunter leaned in. “Bet you can give yourself an orgasm. But I’d rather be the one to take you there with my mouth. Does that make me a chauvinist, too?”
The thought of him going down on me had me squirming in my seat, chauvinist or not. Of course, he couldn’t be a gentleman and let it go unnoticed. Instead, a dirty smile curled at the corners of his sinful mouth.
I was glad the waitress appeared and interrupted. Despite my protest, Hunter paid the bill and then held out his hand.
“Come on, I’m taking you home and coming in while that asshole Damon fixes your sink.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Give me this gentlemanly act since you won’t let me have the one I’d really prefer to do for you.”