It was a combination of many things that landed me at the mall.
First, Junsu was giving me two cold shoulders as my one injured shoulder was recovering. I took physical therapy every day with Dave, the guy Hunter had hooked me up with. I also got my shots and avoided heavy lifting, but Junsu’s irritation only grew. If anything, he was now dodging my calls and always busy when I came to the range. I gathered he wasn’t happy with the Fitzpatricks’ involvement in my career. I couldn’t fully blame him. Stray dogs weren’t loyal, and Hunter was as hungry as they come. Not to mention, his reputation alone would make Scott Disick look like salt of the Earth.
Since I’d gotten a second opinion from another doctor as promised—which matched the initial diagnosis about my shoulder—I chalked Junsu’s behavior up to a bruised ego and decided to give him a few days to chill.
Second of all, there was my dire fashion situation. I was getting more interviews and attending photoshoots, now that Crystal was pushing me around, and I preferred to do it in clothes that didn’t imply I was missing both my eyesight and common sense.
The third reason was, sadly, Hunter. I didn’t want to consider him a factor, but the truth was, I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to think I was pretty, to make him forget about the Emilys and Alices of the world.
Okay, if I was being completely honest, the transformation was ninety percent Hunter-related and ten percent about the mounting attention from the press and my excess of free time. But that wasn’t something I was eager to share with another living soul. It could be mine and my (obviously absent) brain’s secret.
So here we were, Aisling, Persy, Emmabelle, and I, armed with pumpkin spice lattes even though summer temperatures were clinging to Boston’s fall months for dear life, refusing to retreat, carrying our shopping bags.
I’d purchased an entire training wardrobe of tight black pants that were as comfy as yoga pants, but looked sleek and elegant, like cigar pants. My bland, snug shirts had been replaced with cropped, trendy tops featuring lace and patterns and carefully cut designs, and I’d also been successfully bullied into buying a few cute dresses I had no doubt I’d never wear.
I’d sworn to my friends that I’d throw away what they referred to as my “boner-killing” wardrobe—mainly yoga pants that had seen more washes than Michael Phelps’ swim trunks and hoodies that were so frayed, they seemed to have created more sleeves for themselves. To drive the point home, my friends had decided to accompany me to my apartment. They wanted to see for themselves that I got rid of my old clothes.
“Know what would be rad?” Emmabelle stopped everything as we were on our way out of the mall. The only thing I could think of was, to get out of here. I wasn’t going to be that party pooper, though.
“Getting a new shoulder?” I asked wistfully.
“Cupcakes!” wholesome Persy exclaimed.
“Flight lessons,” Aisling suggested shyly, covering her mouth with her cup of joe.
We were beginning to detect a rebellious streak in our little gazillionaire friend. It made me like having her around even more. Plus, her being here made the decision not to confide in my friends about getting eaten by Hunter Fitzpatrick like an all-you-can-eat buffet fairly easy. After all, Aisling was a member of his immediate family, which would make the revelation that I’d made out with her brother twice:
Gross beyond friendship repair
Dangerous
What if Aisling decided to tell her parents? Or her other brother, Cillian? In fact, she needn’t even tell her family for it to be a disaster. If by chance someone found out Hunter and I had been admiring each other’s tonsils with our tongues, and knew Aisling was privy to that information, she would take the heat for not telling her family. It was a lose-lose situation.
“Sailor should get a haircut,” Emmabelle emphasized the suggestion by snipping the air with her fingers.
I shook my head vehemently.
“And a keratin treatment!” Aisling cried, wide-eyed. “A short, straight bob with side-bangs would look so Emma Stone on her.”
Since when was Emma Stone an adjective?
“And then she’ll be able to capture Hunter’s heart and make him see the light.” Persy clasped her hands together, blinking at the horizon dreamily.
I wanted to maim all of them with Thor’s hammer. I’d even break my no-heavy-lifting rule to make it happen.
I shot Aisling a look to see if she had any input regarding Persy’s last comment. Had Hunter discussed me at all with his family? But her face was blank as a patch of fresh snow.
I’m not even on his radar when I’m not right in front of his face.
“It sounds very time-consuming,” I pointed out, rubbing the back of my neck. “Also, I really don’t want to capture Hunter’s heart, or any other organ.”
“I owe you a birthday present.” Persy clapped once and pointed at me, as if to say Jackpot.
“What’s the hurry? Your Netflix and duvet aren’t going anywhere.” Emmabelle grabbed my hand, dragging me into a salon called Citrus. It was fancy enough to host a wedding in. The hairstylists looked like they’d been purged from an episode of The Hills, complete with hysterical mannerisms while discussing their favorite evening cocktail.
Before I had the chance to tell Belle I had more pressing issues than Netflix (hopefully in the form of Hunter’s hard-on and other notable muscles), I was seated on a chair, my hair yanked, coated with thick lotions, washed, cut, washed again, blow-dried, sprayed, and pulled to death. I was half-expecting to look like a contest poodle by the time it was over.
At some point, I could swear I’d been held hostage there for three days straight, but by the time the hairstylist, Brandie, released me into the wild, I wanted to shed happy tears, and not just because the torture was over.
Watching my hair in the mirror was a gut-punching experience.
Slick, glossy, and super-straight tresses framed my face. I now had sharp sideswept bangs that softened my jawline. The rest of the bob fell to my shoulders like strings of velvet. I couldn’t believe it was the same coarse hair I had wrestled with after a wash.
On the train back home, Emmabelle and Aisling couldn’t stop touching it. Persy turned to me every so often and mouthed, “Emma Stone” and “Just remember you can do better than Andrew Garfield.”
The truth was, getting rid of four pounds of hair felt good. Fresh, even. I couldn’t remember why I’d insisted on not doing anything with my hair in the first place. I had spent the last decade so focused on archery and proving to other people I didn’t need to be popular or pretty, that the impact of the new haircut and clothes humbled me.
All the things I’d told myself—that dolling up was shallow and self-absorbed and pointless because we were all going to get old and wrinkly—felt like self-righteous BS all of a sudden. Because while I knew I was still a far cry from perfect, I felt…pretty.
Hunter wasn’t at the penthouse when we got there. It was only eight, and he usually studied until late. Still, I was conscious of my disappointment at him not being there. It wasn’t a stab to the heart, I tried reasoning with myself. Just a little paper cut. Surface shallow.
I wasn’t at risk of falling in love.
Famous last words.
I ordered enough pho and cahn chua to sink a ship, then proceeded to try on all the clothes I’d bought while Belle put Sex and the City on in the background and jumped on the couch wearing a tiara she’d purchased at Claire’s, sipping wine from the wine fridge (to which I kept the keys, to ensure Hunter’s sobriety).
I had so much fun I didn’t even mind when my friends put a Billboard Spotify playlist on.
I was strutting out of my bedroom and into the living room wearing a new pair of red heels that had cost me ten bucks (bargain!) and a matching red mini dress, tossing my shiny hair, when the front door pushed open. Hunter walked in, his tie undone, his hair tousled to death, his tall, muscled body making all of us look like children.
He held his college backpack as well as his briefcase, back from school.
I stopped dead in my tracks, the paper cut in my heart multiplying into a thousand new ones.
Cutcutcutcutcutcut.
The scene in front of him—of Belle and Aisling getting drunk on free wine courtesy of his father, and Persy taking selfies with the background view of the city—didn’t even seem to register. The only person he looked at was me.
Something in the air changed when our eyes met, and I wondered if my friends felt it, too—the way the oxygen sizzled and crackled around us, a bonfire gaining body and speed and heat.
His lips parted, and the entire room sucked in a breath, save for Aisling. There was just something magnetic and animalistic about Hunter’s presence.
“I’d like to cash in on our deal now,” he said simply, still ignoring the rest of the girls, like they didn’t even exist.
The deal: “full-blown, second-base, tit-sucking, dick-groping makeout. Oh, and I get to rub you off.”
Those were his words. Not mine. My mouth went dry.
“As you can see, I’m hanging out with friends.” I motioned clumsily to Emmabelle, Persy, and Aisling. The latter placed her wine glass on the coffee table and pretended to read something on her phone, frowning primly.
“As you can see…” he replied in the same measured voice, and suddenly, the music stopped and I knew everybody was glued to our exchange. “I don’t give a flying fuck.” His eyes dipped to his groin, and I followed his line of vision, finding him hard. From this position—him standing in front of me—I was the only one who could see it. Still, the danger of getting caught thrilled me.
I shot him a courteous smile. “You can wait.”
“Or they can go,” he countered. “A deal is a deal, and I may be a bad businessman, but like every Fitzpatrick, I don’t take lightly to being fucked over.”
In my periphery, Emmabelle cleared her throat and began to collect her things. Persy did the same, and Aisling hurried to the kitchen to empty her wine glass in the sink and rinse it. I wondered what they were thinking. How badly I was going to get grilled for this scene? I didn’t know why Hunter was so careless in implying we should sleep together. There were three eyewitnesses here. All of them could potentially sell us out. I knew my friends were trustworthy and would never do it. But he didn’t.
Prickly, defiant, and tired of the tiny paper cuts in my heart, I jerked my chin up. He couldn’t keep pushing me around. I was, after all, his keeper.
“My friends are staying,” I said icily. “Feel free to treat yourself to a cold shower if you can’t handle the heat.” I turned around, marched to the sofa, and restarted Sex and the City. I could feel the contemplative gazes scorching my face. I put on my don’t-screw-with-me expression and all three of my friends scooted onto the couch next to me, though they looked more like prisoners than willing participants.
“Hmm… Hi, Hunt. Mom says she’s tried calling you all week,” Aisling mumbled, her eyes glued to her lap.
Hunter ignored her, still setting me on fire with his eyes.
“Hey, Fitzpatrick.” Emmabelle crossed her ankles on our coffee table, making herself comfortable. “Looking good in a three-piece. Boss?”
“Please,” he huffed, looking down at her. “Do I look broke? Brioni.”
“Wow.” Emmabelle whistled low, and for some reason, I was pathetically ecstatic to find Hunter was completely immune to the charms of my gorgeous, stylish friend. “You’re even more of a dickhead than the rumors let on.”
“Dick is the operative word,” he grumbled, stomping his way to his room, his eyes still on me. “With no one to appreciate it.”
That was my cue to turn tomato red and wish upon him every excruciating death recorded on Earth. As soon as Hunter was out of earshot, all eyes snapped back to me.
“Can I say something before everyone bombards you with their two cents?” Aisling raised her hand timidly, like we were in a classroom.
“No,” I shot out at the same time Persy and Emmabelle said yes.
She cleared her throat, rearranging herself on my Hunter’s couch.
“I love my brother dearly. He is actually a terrific person when you get to know him. People judge him by the headlines he makes, but I know him as the guy who comes visiting every holiday with presents and hugs and funny stories about his life. But…Sailor, he is a player. He makes you think you’re the center of his world without even meaning to, then disappears when he gets bored and tired of you. And he always gets bored and tired of women. I’ve seen him parading no less than twenty-three dates in the years he studied in California. He brought a new girl home each vacation—sometimes going through them in the course of hours, like they were underwear. I will never tell my parents about you two. It is not my business to tell. However…” She looked away, out the window, so I couldn’t read her face.
What was she hoping to hide? Pity? Secondhand embarrassment?
She shook her head. “All I’m saying is, remember it’s just for the time being. I’d like to think that one day, Hunter will find his lobster. But at nineteen, it’s unlikely it will be anytime soon.”
Silence fell over us as we considered what Aisling had just said.
“Lobsters don’t mate for life,” I blurted, and everyone looked at me in confusion. I poured the remainder of the wine into a glass, bringing it to my mouth with a shrug. “Sorry, but Friends isn’t the most reliable source for general knowledge. Phoebe, in particular, always seemed like a loose cannon to me. Anyway, lobsters do not, in fact, mate for life. Actually, the dominant male lobster mates with an entire harem of female lobsters in a series of flings that lasts approximately two weeks. Basically, lobsters are not like swans or penguins. They are not monogamous. They are the douchebags of the animal kingdom—the ones who vomit into people’s shoes during frat parties after losing bets and own several Instagram accounts. If there ever were an animal deserving of being boiled alive, shrieking in horror, to atone for its sins, it would be the lobster. Not that I absolve this kind of behavior toward lobsters. They, too, are people, after all.” I finished with a lame joke, as if the entire monologue wasn’t mental-institution-worthy enough.
They stared silently. I supposed they were asking themselves what in the ever-loving God I was talking about. Why wasn’t I getting to the point of Hunter and me? I decided to wrap it up, gulping down the wine and placing the empty glass on the coffee table.
“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, Hunter is a lobster. I know that. Rest assured, Aisling, if I ever found myself in a state of temporary insanity and decided to take your brother as a lover, I would be sure to remember he is not the marrying kind.”
It took Persy, Emmabelle, and Aisling a few beats of silence to collect themselves. After that, Emmabelle was the first to speak.
“Snap, bitch. You caught feelings for him.”
Persy covered her mouth with her ringed hand. “Poor Sailor. This is beyond curable. Did you hear that monologue? She is legit a goner.”
“Lost cause.” Aisling nodded gravely, doing the sign of the cross, mourning the premature death of my logic. I could see where they were coming from. Hunter was dangerous. He tossed morsels of sympathy and sweetness my way one moment, and was harsh and closed off the next. He was entirely too unpredictable for me to count on in the heart department.
Or the putting-the-toilet-seat-down department.
Or any department, really.
“Maybe he feels the same. That was the plan, after all. Getting them to fall in love,” Persy mused.
“Doubtful. You heard Aisling. Hunter’s manwhore-ness is worse than we thought.” Emmabelle frowned, like she was in the middle of calculating our next move.
“I don’t even like him.” I all but bared my teeth, bursting into nervous laughter. My phone buzzed with a text message. It was the food. Persy went to pick it up from the lobby while I shook my head, praying the walls were thick enough for Hunter not to hear this.
“Just be careful.” Aisling rubbed my arm.
“Jee. Sus. What makes you think I want to do anything other than punch your brother’s face?”
“The fact that you just very passionately described to us how dispassionate you are about him?” Emmabelle offered.
“You also looked at him like you were about to jump his bones,” Aisling supplied, tucking her chin to her chest.
“Additionally, your face turned red the minute he walked in, and has yet to take on a more human shade,” Emmabelle concluded.
“Sorry to disappoint, but there’s nothing going on between us.” I folded my arms over my chest. Now I was full-blown lying, but I was too mortified to backtrack. How dumb was I to ever let him touch me? To let things progress the way they had?
“Okay,” Aisling said.
“Right,” Emmabelle echoed.
“Food’s here!” Persy burst through the door with two huge plastic bags in her hands. Hunter materialized from the hallway, freshly showered, his blond curls damp and delicious against his glowing skin, clad in his eternal gray designer sweatpants and a black muscle shirt that showed off his ripped, bronze abs.
“You’re needed.” He pointed at me.
“What for?” I eyed him warily. If looks could kill, Hunter would be sliced in half, bleeding on the marble floor.
“Got a spider in my bedroom, and I need you to kill it.”
It was the lamest excuse I’d ever heard.
Aisling looked up, horrified. “You ask Sailor to do those things?” She wrinkled her nose.
Hunter acknowledged his sister for the first time since he’d gotten home with a frosty look.
“Chauvinism is beneath you, Ash. This is the twenty-first century. You got any idea how bangin’ I look in an apron? Come, CT.”
CT. God. I was going to stab him.
“CT?” Emmabelle raised a thick, carefully brushed eyebrow.
“Carrot Top,” he supplied.
“Wow, you’re a jerk,” she muttered.
“Wait till you meet my older brother. He makes murderers in solitary confinement look like a basket full of kitties.”
“As power-drunk as I am to rise to the occasion, you can do it yourself.” I looked away, helping Persy arrange all the food on the coffee table.
“Been doing enough DIY under this roof.” He waved his right hand, winning chortles from Persy and Belle and a disgusted look from his sister. “But no sweat. Guess I’ll transfer the spider straight to your room.”
There wasn’t any spider. I knew it. He knew it. Only my friends had such little faith in him that they actually believed Hunter was capable of tasking me with this mess.
“You do that. Put it on my pillow. Somewhere I can find it.”
“Got it, boss.” He mock-saluted, turning around and marching back down the hallway. I popped a tempura zucchini into my mouth, pretending not to obsess over the slight chance there was a spider, and that it was about to be put on my pillow. If Hunter did find a spider to use as an excuse to get me alone, I had no doubt he’d retaliate by making good on his promise. If anything, that would make me migrate to the living room or his bedroom for the night.
Cunning, blue-blooded bastard.
And his family thought he was stupid.
Hunter made a show of going into his en-suite bathroom as loud as humanly possible, filing from his room to mine, whistling the Kill Bill theme song calmly. Emmabelle burst out laughing, while Persy and Aisling exchanged worried looks. I stayed put, my body humming with the need to jump and take a look.
A spider.
On my pillow.
The suspense was killing me.
Maybe the spider itself was next. What if it was a black widow? A red-backed spider?
I shot to my feet. “I’m just going to…” I motioned with my hand to my room.
My friends nodded in unison.
“Yeah, you probably should,” Persy squeaked.
I sailed through the hallway on those damn heels, looking left and right, finding Hunter trooping back to his room, his back to me. I chased him, snatching the hem of his muscle shirt. He ignored me, essentially dragging me into his room, since I didn’t let go. Rather than giving me the time of day, he continued straight into his bathroom, disposing a piece of tissue into the trash can.
The tissue he used to move the spider from point A to point B?
“There isn’t a spider.” I scowled at him.
Our eyes met in the mirror. He looked down to turn the tap on, a small smile on his face. He took his time, washing his hands from the probably imaginary spider, toweling them off, then turning around to face me. When he did, he crowded me with his body, making me take a step back toward the shower. The glass door was open, and my injured shoulder bumped into it. I winced.
Hunter picked up a wisp of my freshly cut hair, rubbing it. We both watched the magnificent softness of it, so delicate I feared it’d melt like butter between his fingertips.
“Chopping your hair off won’t stop me from grabbing it when we have sex,” he said tonelessly.
I looked away, feeling my face heat. “Is there, or isn’t there a spider in my bedroom?” I asked, my breath dancing behind my ribcage.
Hunter still frowned at my hair, taking another step forward. I took another step backward, careful not to hit the tiles.
“Sly little banshee you are, letting us all believe you were dull-looking.”
“I am dull-looking,” I countered, still worried about the spider.
He shook his head, his gaze sliding from my hair to my eyes.
“What am I going to do with you, aingeal dian?” He wrapped his hands around my neck and face, tilting my head upward.
Watching him watch me felt like being buried alive. Before his eyes landed on me, I’d felt like I was wearing the wrong skin, the wrong face. Because of his gaze, I felt beautiful, and that was seriously addictive.
I took another step back involuntarily. This time my back did hit the tiles with a soft thud.
“We need to stop,” I croaked.
“Stop what?” He feigned innocence, his intense expression turning blank.
“This thing between us. You’re a master at flings. I’m not. I just came here to know if there’s a spider in my room.”
“There isn’t,” he said easily, one of his hands reaching behind me. “And let’s not insult your intelligence by pretending this was about the fucking spider.”
“You’re the one who came up with this scheme,” I reminded him.
I wondered about numbers as his body inched closer to mine, tantalizingly hot and inviting and irresistible.
Number of hearts that perished in the Hunter-storm wake.
Number of times he’d heard the word no and effortlessly turned it into a yes.
Number of tears shed because of this gorgeous creature, who couldn’t help being who he was.
“Aye,” he hissed, pressing me against the tiles now, my chest against his upper belly, our thighs aligned, our mouths almost brushing. “But I’m never above insulting my own intelligence.”
“Hunter Fitzpatrick, what are your intentions with my virtue?” I looked up, asking for the first time in a real, straightforward fashion.
He smirked down at me.
“Funny you should ask, Miss Brennan. I’m afraid I’m going for complete destruction.”
With one swift movement, he turned on the shower spray, soaking us both. I let out a cry, holding on to his body as the cold water pelted my flesh punishingly. I heard his gravelly laugh as he scooped me up and wrapped me around him like I was an octopus, dipping his mouth to mine before I could protest.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I remembered I had friends waiting in the living room, and that one of them was blood-related to the person devouring me in his shower, while we were both fully clothed—me with a red dress and matching heels still on.
It also didn’t escape me that I was making the very same mistake I’d vowed not to make in the living room minutes ago, when Aisling reminded me who her brother was. But I was completely helpless. Captivated under his spell.
“You’re a lobster,” I mumbled into our kiss as his tongue explored the inside of my mouth. My hand found his shaft through his sweatpants and rubbed of its own accord, feeling it swell and jerk. He was my self-medication. My alcohol. My cocaine. My un-prescribed ADHD pill, designed to enhance my emotional performance.
“Is this a Friends reference? Because I’m Gen-Z and not completely immersed in popular nineties culture.” He pushed my panties to the side under my dress, fingering me. I groaned as his fingers met my insides again. My flesh was still sore from him entering me with his fingers and tongue yesterday. But every sore inch of me wrapped against him, squeezing and welcoming him like a vise.
Welcome home.
“Lobsters are nature’s whore. They just have this awesome reputation as monogamous creatures. Which is…stupid. So stupid. They are literally the cockroaches of the ocean,” I blabbed, letting him kiss me while the water pounded on us. He hmmed into my neck, his mouth moving down to my breasts.
“I hate lobsters.” I sighed as his fingers curled in that way that made my insides clench. I was desperate to stay outside the moment, to absorb from afar. “And I hate Friends.”
He stopped devouring me, taking a step back. Water dripped from the tip of his straight, narrow nose. His square, dimpled chin and pouty lips glistened with water. It clung to his eyelashes—he had great lashes, like Zayn Malik—enhancing his ruthless beauty even more.
“Are we okay?” He sloped his chin down. It was we again.
I shook my head. “I know we made a deal, Hunter, but I don’t know if I can do this again.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss you. Suck you off. Have your mouth on me. As you said, this is temporary, and I don’t know how you’re going to walk out of this, but if I’m being honest with myself, I think I might get hurt if I let it go further. I’m that type of girl.”
“What type is that?”
“The one who gets attached.”
“You’re stronger than getting attached to the likes of me.”
“I am strong, yes. But being strong doesn’t mean never getting hurt. It means having a high pain tolerance. I’m not dumb enough to amp it up.”
He sobered, scrubbing his cheekbone with his knuckles. Hunter turned off the water, which somehow made me feel even colder. I couldn’t read his face. He had many facial expressions, added proof he was far from stupid.
He regarded me with cold courtesy.
“Is that why you changed your hair? Got a new wardrobe? Because you don’t want us to continue doing this?” he asked evenly. He was too proud and self-assured to be hurt by this.
I let my shoulders rise and fall. “Maybe I wanted to impress you. But you shouldn’t let me.”
“Too late,” he said, reaching for his towel and throwing it into my hands. “But if that’s what you want, I respect that.”
“Do you really?”
He bobbed his head in a silent yes. It felt like the end of something big. Something life-altering. Something Mom and Dad had been praying for.
I wiped myself off as much as I could and returned to the living room with my tail between my legs. None of my friends asked me about my damp hair or sullen expression. I watched them eat, hugged them goodbye, and observed them from the floor-to-ceiling windows as they huddled toward the train station, figures hunched, probably talking about the curious case of the spider.
I dragged myself to bed.
Sleep never came.
