Chapter 19
I couldn’t shake what my roommate said. It messed me up for weeks.
The turning point came senior year. I’d moved out of the dorms to be closer to my internship and ended up crashing at Hunter Holt’s condo.
It was around 7 p.m., and I was knee-deep in IELTS prep when my phone buzzed.
“Can I ask you a favor?” His voice was low, a little slurred—definitely tipsy. But damn, even drunk, Hunter sounded unfairly good. Like his voice could short-circuit your whole nervous system.
I blinked, half stunned. “Where are you?”
He gave me a hotel name. I grabbed my keys and called an Uber.
When I got there, I found him sprawled like royalty on a velvet couch in the hotel lobby, eyes closed, looking like some wasted billionaire. His friend was on the phone, pacing. The moment he saw me, he hung up and came over.
“You must be Savvy, right?” he said. “I’m Gavin Rivers. One of Hunter’s guys. Thanks for coming.”
I just nodded. Didn’t ask why he couldn’t just book the guy a damn room and be done with it. Why it had to be me.
With Gavin’s help, I got Hunter into the car. He didn’t say much—no drunk drama, no hands wandering. Even getting out at the condo, he tried walking on his own.
I dropped him on the couch and said, “Rest. I’ll grab you something for the hangover.”
I turned toward the kitchen—but then his hand wrapped around my wrist.
A gentle tug—and suddenly I was the one on the couch.
Straddling him.
Shit.
I froze, palms planted on either side of his head, trying to keep distance. His hand came up, resting lightly on my hair as he let out a breath that felt way too close to a sigh.
“Savvy,” he murmured, “how long are you gonna keep pretending you don’t know?”
“What?”
“That I called you for a reason. That this whole drunk thing? It was just an excuse to see you.”
He looked up at me like I was the only person in the world who’d ever mattered.
“You’ve built this beautiful life for yourself—just like I always knew you would. And now I’ve got no excuse to crash into it anymore…”
There was something raw in his voice—soft, husky, almost… heartbroken?
So I leaned down, pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and grinned. “Now’s good.”
Hunter’s eyes went wild. In a blink, he flipped us, pinning me beneath him.
And then he kissed me like a man starved. Like he’d waited years.
And I kissed him back like I didn’t give a damn about anything else.
Because right then, I didn’t.
