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I raised a brow and laughed, looking over at Lance. “You talk about me?”
Lance cleared his throat and looked away, decidedly making himself busy with piling the pan and some plates in the sink. “Hunter’s an idiot. You can’t listen to him.”
Hunter grinned and put his hands up in defeat while walking to the door. “I’m just speaking the truth.” Then he brought his hands around his torso, coming to rest on his back. He rubbed them up and down like he was being groped. “Oh, Gemma.” He repeated my name a few more times before stopping. “She’s just so different, I wish I never let her walk out. You know, blather like that.”
Lance threw him such a dirty look that if it could’ve I knew it would’ve tossed daggers his way. “Just wait,” he warned as Hunter opened the door and walked out, laughing.
When he was gone, he turned to me. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m sure,” I said, blushing. “Don’t worry, I’m sort of flattered that you’ve thought about me so much and talked about me.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, closing me in to where I was sitting at the counter.
I nodded. “Definitely.” I licked my lips. “It sort of turns me on, to be honest.”
“Really?”
I snaked my arms around his neck and brought him closer, so his lips were hovering over mine. “Too bad I’m leaving soon,” I blurted out and instantly regretted it.
What was I thinking? Why couldn’t I keep that thought to myself?
He backed away now and cleared his throat. I could tell by looking into his eyes that my words pissed him off. “Why would you say that?”
I shrugged. It was too late now. I couldn’t very well take the words back. “Because it’s the truth.”
He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Unbelievable. So last night with you was just another moment in time? Were you already thinking of when you would leave again?”
“No!” I immediately said, but then brought a finger to my mouth and bit my nail. “Yes,” I said, being honest this time. “Oh, I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Why does this have to be so complicated?”
He was growing distant as he grumbled something under his breath and began pacing in the living room. “Seems pretty clear to me. You’re leaving again and you weren’t even going to give it a second thought.”
“And what about you?” I asked, becoming guarded now, too. I crossed my arms over my chest, as though shielding myself from his icy glare. “Maybe you forgot, but you let me walk out years ago because you had Mason to worry about and couldn’t confuse him with our relationship and get his hopes up. Last I checked, you still have a son to worry about. Nothing has changed,” I practically shouted the last part.
He nodded and gave me a blank expression. “Perhaps you’re right. But I just introduced you to my son. I thought it might be different this time.”
“We never talked about that and you decided to do that all on your own. The plan was for me to be gone before he came home.”
“Plans change,” he replied simply, as though he was talking about so much more than our plan for me to be gone after breakfast.
“It’s easier if I just leave.” Then I closed my eyes and added, “And forgot this whole thing ever happened. I didn’t ask for any of this, Lance.”
“No,” he said, shrugging and hitting his hand on the side of his leg. “I didn’t, either, Gemma, but here we are three years later in the same place we were then.” He cursed as he rubbed the back of his neck, letting his hand linger there for a second. “Maybe you were right. This is a mistake. We shouldn’t have fooled ourselves.”
Wait! I just needed everything to slow down. I needed to take a moment to think about this and weigh my options. Everything in my life was neat and had an order to it. It all made sense. The problem was, Lance and I were messy and we never made sense outside of the resort. “But I don’t want it to end like this again, Lance.”
“What do you want, then, Gemma?”
I exhaled. I didn’t even know what I wanted. But this sure as heck wasn’t it. I didn’t want to leave on a bad note. I couldn’t take him being angry with me or thinking this was a mistake because as much as it could’ve been perceived that way, it wasn’t. We both knew that.
And that was quite possibly the worst label—a mistake.
“I don’t want it to end like this. So, instead, let’s just say we’ll think about it.” That was the way he left things when he gave me his address, and look at how that turned out. I decided to take the plunge and come here last night. I didn’t regret that. I was hoping that saying his words back to him would help.
“Fine,” he spat out. “I’ll think about it.”
“Lance,” I softly responded, pleading with him to understand, to accept whatever was going to be. We both had a lot to think about.
His expression softened. “I’ll think about it,” he repeated, and this time I knew he meant it.
