Never Been Kissed: A Never Been Novel (32 page)

“How are you doing?” Josh asks low enough that only the two of us can hear. I’m grateful for the quiet, for the intimate discussion. I don’t want everyone to be listening or looking at me for answers.

“I’m getting bette
r.” The only truthful response.

Josh’s mouth twists and he
stares into his wineglass. He huffs out a breath and finally stares me in the eye. “If it gets too much...with whatever, I can drive you back home. Just say the word.”

Moved, I kiss his cheek, making sure to do it lightly so I don’t plant lip-gloss on him. “Thank you, Joshy. But I’m going
to have a good time, tonight.”

His face slackens before he erupts into his belly-laugh until the whole table joins in, not knowing what they’re really
laughing at.

I mentally shrug and turn my attention to Alex’s Dad and Mom serving us from the kitchen, stopping by and talking to each of us, proud of their boy and the choice he’s made for a future wife. I can see it the way his Dad keeps squeezing Alex’s shoulders as he’s seated, and in the way his Mom looks down at Teresa with a secret smile on her face, holding the hand with her engagement ring on it. All in all, really sweet to see.

We start with
spanakopita
which for some odd reason, Josh and Tommy take turns feeding to me from their hands. I think it’s just a way to take a gander into my cleavage, but they keep looking at Katie as if asking if it’s okay. Whatever. I’m hungry, and if they want to be the slaves to my Cleopatra, well then, so be it.

The salad comes, nothing but the simplest of vinaigrettes and awesome ingredients. The main meal consists of lamb chops, steamed vegetables and lemon-roasted potatoes with rosemary.
Divine
.

I try not to eat too much. My poor stomach is gonna be an asshole if I do, but it feels like for the first time in three weeks, my appetite is back and I
almost feel back to normal. I even forget about Hunter, about Matty, and if I do think of them, the memories are fleeting and they don’t hurt as much when I let myself dwell on them.

I’m having a great time, and the wine is helping. Three glasses in and I feel like dancing. Teresa opens the dance floor once Greek pop music comes on over the speakers. Alex’s parents join in and whatever other patrons are in the restaurant start keeping time to the beat with cl
apping hands. We dance. I smile more than I have in the better part of a month, I feel like me before all this shit started with
him
.

My alcohol-befuddled brain looks for affection. I’m constantly hugging Katie, or Josh, or Eli and even Tommy. They hug me back and kiss the top of my head if their heights allow for it, as I’m still wearing the stilettos. Whatever pain is throbbing in the balls of my feet pales in
comparison to what happened to me three weeks ago and I’m enjoying being tall far too much to take them off.

I lose Katie for
a while but that’s okay since I’m having too much fun on the dance floor to really mind that she’s not clapping for me on her knees as I do a
zebeikiko
. I spin in time to the beat, watch my feet as I do intricate steps, even slapping the sole of my stiletto while waiting for one of the guys to put a shot on the ground for me.

Crouching down and somehow managing to keep my balance, I hold up the shot to my friends, saluting them
and down it. Getting up, I keep dancing, smiling when both Alex and Eli make their way into the circle and we battle, drunken-man style.

The sadness of the song, the sorrow in the lyrics gets to me and that weight in my chest is back and the only thing I can do is dance it out. I close my eyes to the view of my friends crouched around me
on their knees, clapping to the beat. I will myself deaf to the catcalls and ‘
yeah, Sera!’
. I’m in the quiet of my head and all I hear is the song, the saddest song ever written. I let it thrum through me, matching its rhythm to my heartbeats as I twirl and dance in my section of the dance floor.

When the music stops, my feet come to a halt and I crouch down for one more shot, holding it up again to Alex and Teresa, wishing them from the bottom of my tattered h
eart that they have what I lost.

I toss the shot back, letting the vodka burn down my throat, lighting its way to the pit of my stomach, already cushioned by food. While I’m fuzzy and groggy from the alco
hol, I’m not drunk, just tipsy.

So I can’t really explain why my vision gets blurry when I look up from my crouch and see
him
standing there by the doors, looking at me with a bitter smile on his face.

I blink a few times, thinking it’s my imagination, my cracked psyche playing tricks with my eyes. Nope, he’s still there, and Katie’s standing beside him, giving me a guilty wave wit
h a nervous smile on her mouth.

Hunter MacLaine just crashed the
party.

I’m not drunk enough for this shit.

The music keeps playing but I’m in limbo and I don’t hear it. All my attention centers in and pinpoints to Hunter, standing there by the doors in a
suit
.

The suit is navy by the looks of it, and the light coming through the glass doors from outside halos h
im. I can’t seem to look away.

Why is he here? Why is he ruining everything?

I stand on numb legs; I’m not even sure how I manage it. I never told my legs to straighten out, and my brain sure isn’t the one calling the shots. I’m pretty sure I’m doing a great fish-out-of-water impression, opening and closing my mouth with words that I want to say, with words that need to be said, but nothing comes out.

So I stand there, let myself be tugged forward by Katie, Katie the
traitor
. Her mouth’s open and I’m sure sounds are coming out, but I can’t hear anything. I keep staring at Hunter, wondering how he got here, when, where, who? Did he freaking
apparate
or something? God, this can’t be happening.

I was having
fun
. I was
dancing
and having a
good time. Motherducker.

Tearing my gaze away from him, refusing to take in how great he looks in his suit (hotter than Harvey Specter, that’s for sure), I stare hard at my best friend, feeling my face start to crumple, folding
my features into lines of pain.

My heart has been replaced by a gaping hole that has been chain-sawed out, e
dges ragged and broken.

“Why? Why would you do this to me?” I look at Katie. My voice is pinched with hurt, and I keep moving forward as she coaxes me closer and closer to Hunter. I look back at him, note that his hands are in his pockets, leg
s spread wide. His eyes are intent on me, watching my every move, the way a predator stalks its prey. I don’t want him here, I felt
safe
here, like I was getting stronger.

“Why is he
here?
God, Katie, what did you do?”

I start to shake
and my hands spasm around her fingers that are still tugging me forward, closer to the man who’s tormented me in my dreams for the past three weeks. I’m glad for my dry eyes; this pain is too great for tears. Either that, or I’ve cried so much over the past month that whatever little factory in my body that makes tears doesn’t work anymore.

Stupid, pathetic questions come to my lips, and I have to clamp my mouth shut so I don’t ask any of them.
How’s Matty? Is he here, too? How are you? Do you miss me at all, like I miss you every day? Why are you here, shoving it in my face with what I’ve lost?

My free hand comes up to cover my mouth as double-insurance.

“I know this is a surprise, sweetie, and I’m sorry I sprung this on you, but it needed to be done.” Katie says. She turns to Hunter, pointing a finger at him, jabbing it into his sternum. “I got a secluded table for you guys back there, away from the speakers so you can talk.”

Katie hands me my phone that I didn’t notice she was holding. The bitch took it out of my purse.
Rude.

“Here. If shit gets real, call me and the boys will come as back-up. You,” she swings to Hunter again, and the lump in my throat becomes excruciating. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to talk to him again.

Katie swings her head and dark hair flies as she looks at Hunter.

“Don’t fuck this up. I’m giving you a diamond opportunity here, MacLaine. She better be nothing but fucking ecstatic next time I come around to see the pair of you.” She ushers us to a table that she’s now dragging me towards
and Hunter follows at my back.

The skin between my shoulder blades itches, tingling with hyperawareness of how close he is. My mind doesn’t want him, but my heart longs for him to speak to me, to ask for my forgiveness, and my skin just wants his own skin to glide along mine.

Katie settles us in the booth, looks back to the dance-floor and gives somebody two thumbs up and a victorious smile. Tommy and Josh have been acting weird all night, could they be her co-conspirato
rs? Assholes, the both of them.

“Play nice, and I’ll be back in twenty to check on you. Sweetie,” she says to me, tapping her nails across the wooden surface of the table, the sound drowned out by more Greek music and shouts from our party. “Make me proud.”

With that she walks away, and I can’t bring myself to look up at him. Suddenly, the skin on the back of my hands, the map of veins is the only thing that’s interesting. I can’t speak, or think of something to say. I can’t think at all.

I’m just a throbbing mass of pain without any of the physical wounds or blood to go with it. I hold my breath, let it out slowly to try and breathe through it.

“You... you look good,” Hunter says, voice deep and as magical as I remember it.

I want to scream at him for not telling me the truth from the beginning, for making me fall in love with him and Matty, for
letting
me fall in love with him when he probably was with Aly his whole fucking time. Bile rises hot up in my throat, and I’m so ashamed the burn to my cheeks doesn’t rival that heat that seems to envelop my entire body until all I want is for a hole in the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

In my misery, a part of my brain registers what he said. After all night getting complements, I’m just good in his eyes. Not amazing, not great, not a Greek goddess. That pisses me off and
despite the ache in my chest that I want to rub away but refuse to do, there’s now a fire in my blood, and I can hear it pounding in my ears as I clench my teeth together.

“Good to know,” I say, voice calm but strained. I don’t know if he can hear it over the music blaring in the background. Instead of looking at him, I let my gaze float to the dance floor, where my friends are having a good time, totally unaware that a bomb is about to go off in the form of me bursting into tears and attempting to punch Hunter.

I really wish I was dancing, taking another shot, drinking another glass of wine. Anything is better than sitting here with him, being forced to face all the hurts I wanted to forget tonight.

“Why are you here? Why did you come here?” Yup, still studying my hands, tracing the veins with my eyes, admiring my badass
black diamond (not real) ring.

“Would you look at me, Sera, please?”

He had to use the please. Frak. And he thinks it’s going to
work
on me. Bastard.

I lift my head, and wince when I get a look at his beautiful blue eyes. They stay locked on my mouth for a few seconds too long, and to torture him and myself, I lick them deliberately, slowly and watch his face get taut, t
he muscle at his jaw twitching.

I wait for him to talk.
He’s
the one that hurt
me
, not the other way around.

“I came here tonight because I aske
d Katie to set this up for me.”

I frown, trying to recall when, if ever, I gave him her number.

He smiles, and I feel it devastate my resolve, my wall of barely there civility. He can still do that to me, with just a smile. I really am enchanted; I find myself wanting to do whatever he wants, if he would just make the pain go away.

Hunter settles deeper into the booth, crossing his arms in front of him on the table. I look down at his reflection in the glossy varnish of the table – doesn’t even come close to doing him justice.
Bastard, bastard!

“She called me, something about snooping in your phone for my number. Doesn’t matter at this point, I’m here now. With you.” He takes a deep breath, his chest expanding, making the material across his shoulders and torso go tight. I never even got to taste and touch him like I wanted to, like we were going to before everything went to shit. I never got to do anything
I
wanted to do before he betrayed my trust and humiliated me. I’m so happy that I never told him that I loved him. Once those words are said, they can’t be taken back.

Hunter
keeps talking and I drag my eyes away from his body to look him in the face.

“I want you to know that I’ve bee
n cut out of my mother’s will.”

Well,
there’s a fucking white flag.

My mouth hangs open. “What the fuck?” I slam my fists on the table, watch his eyes open wide, his eyebrows high-five his hairline. “You do
not
lead with that fucking little fact three weeks after you
cheated
on me with
her
, MacLaine,” I grit out through clenched teeth.

Oh, he doesn’t like that I called him by his family name. His body gets tight, and he narrows his eyes at me, like I’m the one that caused all the problems here. I flash my teeth in a predator’s smile, but he just keeps looking at me with those gorgeous blue eyes like he can read my soul, like he can see through my mask and look at the well of pain I’ve carried with me all this time.

I have an awful feeling that he can make me better. But I don’t want to be one of
those
girls, going back to the object of their pain, staying because he makes them happy for fleeting moments. Christ, he’s the first man who’s ever paid attention to me, what else did I expect? Of course I’m one of those girls.

Hunter pulls in a breath thro
ugh his nose, his chest expanding. I’m deaf and blind to everything else that’s going on around me. My alcohol high is gone, leaving me to deal with stark truths and sobering thoughts with no fog to help me hide from them.

“I miss you,” he says on the exhale, like it’s torn out of him. I hate that. I hate that sound of it being pulled out of him,
like I don’t merit to hear it.

I snort, trying to look mean. I just want him to hurt like I’ve been hurting all this time. I’m sure it’
ll make me feel better. It has to.

“Yeah, you look real broken up.” I shake my head, pay attention to the matter at hand. “What’s going to happen to Matty now? Why didn’t you just take the money?” I pull in a breath through my nose but it does nothing to calm me. I feel like an enraged bull pawing at the ground, ready to score someone with my badass horns. “Jesus, why are you here? I was having a good time. And you ruined everything. Matty’s not my problem.
You’re
not my problem anymore.”

“You’re not getting me, Sera.” His turn to flash his teeth. His turn to try and do the convincing.
“I miss you, Matty misses you.” Bastard, bringing up the kid. “I want you back in my life. I need you back in my life.” He rubs at his head. He’s let his hair grow out, it hardly even resembles a crew-cut anymore, and I find myself loving it.

Traitor body, traitor brain.
Stay focused.

“Well, I don’t want you back in mine, alright?” Goddamn it all to hell that was fucking hard to say. Like Harry Potter dropping the resurrection stone in the Forbidden Forest hard. Because I do, I want him back in my life. Making me smile, making me laugh, taking care of Matty, watching h
im grow up. I want all of that.

But I’m not going to settle for anything less than perfect. And Hunter is no
t perfect – he said so himself.

He gets close across the table, grabbing my hands before I can yank them back. Oh God, he’s touching my skin, interlocking our fingers together and damn if my dumb fingers don’t want to let go, winding themselves into his grip. I look down at our hands, and watch him put his forehead down to the pair of them, almost like
he’s praying.

I look around, embarrassed, confused, searching for Katie. She has her back to me, clapping as Alex and Eli do dancing tricks until the crowd rewards them with shots. She’s not even doing proper surveillance. I mean, what’s the
point
?

“What... what are you doing? Hunter? Hunt?” I ask, trying to yank my hands back, trying to get away from this. I don’t think I can watch him break down, my brave, strong
Hunter who isn’t mine anymore.

He looks up at me, eyes bright, teeth clenched together.
“I swear on my sister’s life that nothing happened with Aly that night. I swear I didn’t do anything. I fucking swear.”