“Will you sit down? Stop pacing,” Hunter says patiently from where he’s sprawled out on my couch holding a bag of frozen baby peas against his rapidly swelling cheekbone.

“I can’t stop pacing,” I argue. “Look at you! Look at what I did to your insanely gorgeous, unbelievably hazel eye!”

“It’s fine,” he tells me with a warm smile, looking at me in a way that’s too amused for the situation we’re in. He’s so gorgeous, even with a bag of frozen produce resting on his face. It kinda makes me hate him a little. “I’ve had worse, Hayley.”

“So? Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I say, my words laced with rapidly rising panic. “I don’t want to be the person who gave you something that you can compare to your ‘worse’ injuries. What kind of story is that?”

“We met at a club where people were shooting at you. It’s exactly our kind of story.”

That gets a smile out of me. He has a point.

“This is my fault,” he begins, but I’m not about to let him finish that sentence.

“I’m the one who—”

“I was stupid and put my hands on you when you weren’t expecting it, and you did exactly what I taught you to do. It was amazing. This doesn’t bother me, so it shouldn’t bother you.”

I let out a low groan, because even though he’s trying to let me off the hook, I can’t let myself off the hook.

“What can I do to make it better?” I ask.

He returns the question with a mischievous grin. “You can kiss it better if you want to.”

I blush, but the corners of my lips lift up into a half smile.

“Come here, please.”

I do as he says and sit next to him on the couch.

“It still hurts,” he teases. “I think you need to get a little closer.”

I let out a huff of a laugh, because he’s pretty smooth when he wants to be. I move toward him, and impatient man that he is, he reaches out and slides his arm around my waist, tucking me into his side.

“Is that better?” I ask.

He nods, with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Much.” He turns his head and presses a kiss into my hair.

“I was going to call you tonight,” I admit. “I’ve wanted to call you for a few days now.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asks. There’s no judgment, only curiosity. “I’ve wanted you to call me ever since I dropped you off, but I didn’t want to pressure you, and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to jump into anything you weren’t ready for. It killed me to drive away that day.”

“Why were you here tonight?”

He laughs. “I got tired of waiting.”

“I didn’t call you because I wasn’t ready. Then the other night, I found your jacket in that duffel bag of clothes you gave me. I fell asleep in it, and Alexa found me the next morning. We had a chat about you, and she helped me see things more clearly.”

“Why did you sleep in my jacket?” he asks, taking my hand. “Are you still having nightmares?”

“No, just one. I didn’t mean to fall asleep in it, but I did put it on.” I look down at my hands, preemptively embarrassed about what I’m going to say next. “I like the way you smell. It smells like you.”

Hunter pulls me close, rests his head on mine and takes a deep breath. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too. But that’s insane, right? We knew each other for, like…forty-eight hours. That’s nothing! We barely know each other, but in some ways I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

He lifts his free hand and threads my fingers with his. “We definitely have a connection. I’m not trying to pressure you, but I want to be honest here. I want to see where this goes. Are you okay with that?”

I push past the rush of nerves and say, “Yeah. I’m okay with that.”

“Good,” he replies. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what would’ve happened if I’d walked you to your door that night instead of driving away.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t. It took me a while to come to terms with how I was feeling. Then? I might’ve panicked.”

“If you start to get scared, let me know. We can work on that. But Hayley?”

“Yeah?”

Hunter puts the bag down and tilts my chin up so I’m looking him in the eye. “I’m not Carson. I’d never hurt you on purpose,” he says solemnly, like a vow.

I place my hand on his cheek. “I know you wouldn’t. I know that.” I push myself up and give him a long, lingering kiss, the two of us just breathing each other in. “I’ve missed this,” I tell him, then kiss him again, just because I can.

“Seems like we’re off to a good start,” he says, smiling.

“Except for the part where I gave you a black eye.” Tenderly, I run my fingers across his swollen flesh, wishing I could heal this with my touch. Hunter doesn’t flinch, just lets me do what I need to.

“If someone’s gonna give me a black eye, I’d rather it be you.” He’s grinning like a fool, and our next kiss is a little too toothy, but I’m too happy to care. I’m taking a chance for the first time in a while, and it feels amazing.

Hunter leans back and takes a good look at my apartment. “This place looks like you.”

“What does that mean?” I’m just happy I managed to keep the place clean for the past few days. It would’ve been mortifying if he’d come up and found my panties hanging on a doorknob or something.

“Light and sunny. You have a ton of books…I knew you would. There are pictures everywhere. It’s friendly. It reminds me of you.”

I can’t think of a better way to have someone like Hunter describe me.

“Is it okay if I look around?” he asks.

“You let me look around your place, it’s only fair if I return the favor.”

I take the peas and drop them in the sink as Hunter looks around my apartment. It’s unnerving having someone examine my things like this; I admire Hunter for letting me do it when we’d only just met. He takes his time, reading the spines of my books, examining my photographs, reminding me to water my plants.

“You don’t have a TV in here,” he notices.

“I moved it into the bedroom during my sad binge-watching phase where Netflix was my boyfriend.”

Hunter looks mock offended. “If we’re gonna do this thing, you two have to break up.”

“Already done. We broke up when I got back from the cabin, I just haven’t gotten around to putting it back where it belongs.”

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asks.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you asking that because you want to move the television, or…”

He places his right hand on his chest. “I’m not trying to trick you into getting naked, promise. Unless you want to get naked. In that case I’m all for it. I won’t ever turn down nakedness, by the way. That’s something you should know about me.”

“Good to know,” I reply.

“But in this case, I’m offering to bring your TV out here and reconnect your cable.”

I take his hand in mine. “C’mon.”