Sex, Not Love(66)

Spineless, I collapsed on top of him, unable to hold myself upright. Hunter buried his face in my neck, whispering sweet everythings between kisses over and over. God, this man could be so beautiful.

Sated, I reveled in the tender moment and basked in the afterglow. We were good together. I liked to think it was our chemistry and not his past experience that made our intimate times so amazing. I was far from a virgin, but being with Hunter made me feel like everything leading up to him had merely been practice for the real thing.

It was that thought that scared me out of my lust-induced haze and back to reality. If Hunter was my real thing, why did I have to go back to imposters?





Chapter 28


Hunter

10 years ago




Summer wasn’t happy with me.

She’d said she understood why I hadn’t told Jayce about us. But now two months had gone by, and hiding her—hiding our relationship—during summer break made things a challenge. I couldn’t go down to San Diego to visit her too often because I’d snagged an internship at an architectural firm I wanted to work at after graduation. And if she came up north, we didn’t exactly have a place to hang out considering I lived with my aunt and uncle, and so did my brother. At least until today.

Jayce was moving out. Amazingly enough, he’d come clean with Emily and admitted he wasn’t ready to get married. She had been very understanding. Honestly, forgetting the selfish reasons I had, I really hoped things worked out between the two of them—any woman who could be that understanding while fielding pregnancy hormones was worth working things out with.

“I miss you,” Summer whined through the phone.

Summer was not a whiner. I needed to fix the mess I’d gotten myself into and tell the truth once and for all. I loved this girl.

“Yeah, babe. I miss you, too. I’m going to sit down with Jayce today after I help him move. Then I’ll talk to my aunt and uncle, and I’m sure they won’t mind you coming to stay for a visit here.”

“Really?” She perked up.

“They might make you sleep in the guest room.”

“I don’t even care. I just miss your face.”

“I miss the whole package.”

Jayce popped his head into my bedroom doorway. “Give me a hand carrying my mattress down the stairs?”

I covered the phone. “Yeah. Give me two minutes.”

He nodded and disappeared.

“I’ll call you tonight.”

“Okay. Good luck today.”

“Thanks.”

I tossed my phone on the bed and passed Uncle Joe on the stairs. He lifted the small lamp in his hands. “Wouldn’t let me help him with the mattress. Little shit thinks I’m too old to carry more than five pounds.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry. When I move out, I’ll put my feet up on the couch, and you can load the entire truck yourself.”

Our cousin Cara’s room was the first door at the top of the stairs. She lay on her belly in the center of her bed, kicking her feet in the air while reading a magazine.

“Don’t worry, Cara,” I called as I passed. “We got it.”

I chuckled and kept going to Jayce’s room at the end of the hall. His door was open, but he wasn’t inside. I looked around the other rooms on the second floor, but he was nowhere to be found. So, I took a seat on his bed and looked at the half-empty room. Even though we were only in the same place for the summers, it would be weird to live here alone. Jayce had been the constant in my life, before and after Mom died.

A noise from within the room surprised me, considering I’d thought I was alone. It sounded like Aunt Elizabeth’s dog had gotten a fur ball caught in his throat again. I looked under the bed—no dog. Then got up and looked on the other side of it. I nearly fell over, finding my brother lying on the floor. He was pale as a ghost and foaming at the mouth while his body twitched.

I screamed out the window for my uncle, and opened my brother’s mouth to see if he was choking on something. There was nothing visible, and I had no idea what to do, so I lifted him from the floor and started running down the stairs with him shaking in my arms.

Luckily, medical care was only a floor away when you lived with a doctor. Uncle Joe sprang into action and had me set Jayce on the couch so he could examine him while I called 9-1-1. By the time I’d hung up, the twitching had stopped, and the color had started to return in my brother’s face.

“What the hell happened?” I asked.

Even Cara had gotten up to check out the commotion.

“He had a seizure.” Uncle Joe looked at Jayce. “Just keep still, son. Do you remember if you fell before that happened? Hit your head or anything?”

My brother was disoriented and didn’t respond.

“Why did that happen? What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

***

Four days.

Four fucking days.

I was seriously close to losing my patience. What the hell takes so long? Over these four days, they’d wheeled Jayce around for all types of scans, drawn blood, and hooked him up to a bunch of machines. Eight different doctors had asked him the same questions over and over. But no one had said shit.

“Dude. You’re going to be the one sitting in this bed with a breakdown if you don’t relax soon.”