“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.”