Alaina snorted. “Fair.” She reached into a bag and pulled out a handful of candy. “She’s not perfect. She’s just my mom. Of course, neither is my dad.”
“Hey, they’re both still in contact with you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I shouldn’t complain.”
“You have every right to complain. Just because my mom abandoned me when I was an infant and my dad is dead, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to complain about your own parents.”
“Did you really tell Hunter he was just like his dad?”
The back of her neck prickled. “Who told you that?”
“Fia heard it from...I guess from Arizona? I’m surprised that she was speaking to a King, quite honestly.”
“Why does she hate Landry so much?” She was curious now more than ever for some reason, also happy to sort of guide the subject to Fia, and off what she’d said to Hunter.
Maybe it was natural for her to be extra curious with her trying to gain new perspective on men, women and the fallout that occurred between them.
“The standard reasons I would assume,” Alaina said. “Some kind of high school infatuation? They slept together and it ended badly?”
“All this time? Just because they...”
Alaina lifted a shoulder. “Look, I don’t know that for sure. She’s never admitted to it.”
“But it has to be that.”
“You would think. Why else would they act like that?”
“He doesn’t act like anything. He acts like he barely knows her.”
Alaina shook her head gravely. “Men. That’s even worse, don’t you think?”
It was.
Elsie shifted uncomfortably. “Do you really think that a relationship is permanently ruined when something like that happens?”
“I think it’s only a problem if you have one person that’s in love, and one person who just wants a good time,” Alaina said, as if she was deeply knowledgeable on such subjects. But then, in fairness, Elsie had asked.
“That makes sense.”
Her mind went back to Hunter. They could not become Landry King and Fia Sullivan. They just couldn’t. It would ruin everything. The very idea filled her with grief, and she would have said that she didn’t like Hunter enough that the idea of not speaking to him would fill her with grief. But one thing was certain, they could be hissing and spitting around each other like...
Her eyes drifted back to Alaina.
She really should be more concerned about her feelings. Except... It was just that... She really didn’t think that Hunter would be going for the complication of her either. Especially not when he made it very clear that Elsie herself was too complicated.
Alaina would be less complicated for him.
It wasn’t like he was best friends with Fia.
She looked back at the mirror. “Yes,” she said resolutely. “This is good. And I feel...ready.”
She didn’t. She was lying. But she couldn’t do this if she didn’t make herself ready, if she didn’t take this step... Well, she was going to drive herself insane. She wanted to go back to the way things were. She wanted to be obsessed with Travis again. Because it was easy.
And that was something she never would’ve thought to associate with her infatuation with him.
It had felt easy. Now when she had been breathlessly worried that he might never pay attention to her.
But she could hardly remember the person that she’d been that night in the bar when Hunter had offered to teach her to flirt.
It was like a whole other body ago, not just a couple of weeks.
“You look amazing,” Alaina said. “I expect you to text me and let me know exactly how everything goes.”
“You know I will.”
She would. Because tonight, she was going to succeed in her plan.
Tonight, she was going to fix what she had inadvertently broken.
It had to work.
It had to.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HUNTER HAD BEEN called a fool any number of times in his life, but he was gunning for top title by showing up to Smokey’s Tavern tonight, and he knew it. When he had already told Elsie that he wouldn’t come. When he had already said that he was going to stay home.
He’d told her, and he’d told himself.
Because there was no point coming out to the bar tonight to watch her try to hook up with Travis, when the very idea of it made his gut clench tight. But that was the problem.
He had spent the last twenty-four hours thinking about that. About what that would look like. About how it would all go down. And he couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t handle it.
So all the while, telling himself that he wouldn’t, he had gotten ready to go out tonight. He had told himself he wouldn’t actually go to the bar all the way up until he walked through the front door. But now here he was.
And there she was.
She damned near made him feel like his heart was going to bust straight through his chest. And it was like the room—the world—had been tilted onto its side. She was Elsie Garrett, but suddenly that wasn’t the problem with his attraction to her.
Suddenly, it was the reason.
Her. All of her.
All she was, all he knew.
Elsie sidled up to the bar, leaning over a drink. She was wearing a red summer dress that flared out just above her knees, with little white flowers on it. It looked innocent, with its sweet little sleeves and scoop neck, with a tantalizing drawstring right there at the center of her breasts.
His mind made it anything but innocent.
It took a moment for him to register that she already had a drink. She already had a drink.
Which meant she’d accomplished part one of her mission.
And that was when he saw Travis walking across the room and sitting down beside her. And he looked...well, he looked intent.
Hunter looked away, grinding his teeth practically to dust.
This was what he’d taken her out for. This was the whole point. And he’d known it. Then as well as now.
They’d reaffirmed that. After the poker game. After she’d flung him into the water and he’d called her a varmint and he’d fought the urge to press his body against hers as he’d pinned her down on the riverbank.
After dinner at Sawyer’s when they’d parted like the almost-friends they were.
He’d made up his mind. So had she.