Page 7 of Still Missing You

“Can you text me this?” I pluck a business card from the metal container at the corner of my desk and hand it to him. “My cell is on there.”

He nods and sends the photo, his thumbs tapping across the screen.

“I’ll look into him to see if I can track down where he went after leaving you. If I find him, what do you want to do?” I ask. What if this is a breakup and Dylan just can’t take the hint? The Dylan I knew had never been the kind of person not to let go after a breakup. Hell, the Dylan I knew did the dumping. But I couldn’t picture the Dylan I knew posing to take a goofy selfie to send to some woman’s daughter, either. Proof, I guess, that the Dylan I knew no longer existed—or maybe I never really knew him at all. Both possibilities leave me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Mostly, I just want to make sure he’s okay,” Dylan says.

“If he doesn’t want you to contact him?”

He frowns and looks up from his phone at the same time mine chimes. Most likely, the photo he sent. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t, but that’s fine. I just want to make sure he’s safe, and if he is, I owe him money. I guess I could pass that through you?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I tell him. “I’ll look into him for you and tell you what I find.”

“Thank you, Hunter.” The tension gripping him loosens, and his smile is wide and genuine. “I know it’s a lot for me to ask, with everything—”

“It’s fine,” I cut him off. His gratitude makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t want him to bring up our past and make everything even more awkward than it already is. “Whatever I find out, I’ll be in touch.”

That’s a lie. Whatever I find, I’ll turn it over to one of my business partners, then back the fuck away. After today, I won’t see him again.

I walk him out to the lobby and stand next to Helene’s desk while he leaves, doing my best to ignore the ache in my chest as I watch him go.

Chapter Three

Dylan

Ican’t stop thinking about Hunter, and it’s keeping me awake.

I shift restlessly in bed, throwing off the covers and staring up at the dark ceiling. My skin under my t-shirt and underwear feels stretched and hot, as if it’s too tight on my frame. The bed that was perfectly comfortable last night now feels too hard one minute and too soft the next. Of course, what’s really making sleep impossible is closing my eyes and Hunter’s image filling my head. This morning’s meeting replays in my mind on a loop.

Outside, the wind kicks up, whipping around the house and rattling the windows. Trees creak and groan outside, their bare branches clicking together like skeletal fingers. Normally, the noises from the woods and the isolation from living outside of town with no nearby neighbors don’t bother me, but tonight I’m on edge, restless, and strangely alert.

Seeing Hunter again, hearing the low rumble of his voice... A shiver ripples through me.

“Shit,” I whisper, closing my eyes and pressing the heels of my hands against them.

Hunter looked so good it hurt—like time had chiseled him sharper instead of softening him. I let today’s interaction play out again in my head, going over his every word, his every expression. Not that he gave me much in that regard. Throughout most of the meeting, his features had remained inscrutable, almost blank, his tone even and professional. Nothing about the interaction would have given away that we even knew each other before, let alone that we’d been friends and, later, so much more. Somehow, his indifference is worse than the anger I’d been afraid of facing.

Not that I would have blamed him if he had been angry. I would have taken it because I deserved it. But I guess I really didn’t need to worry. He’d spoken to me like a stranger, which makes sense. After ten years, that’s all we were to each other.

Except maybe he hadn’t been entirely nonplussed at seeing me again. There’d been a crack in that indifferent veneer, a fissure in his professionalism offering a glimpse at the man I remember.

“It kind of sucks when someone disappears and you’re left wondering if they’re alive or dead.”

His words sent a wave of shame rolling through me, but in its wake, there’d been a sense of relief. Maybe I’d mattered to him, at least a little, and he hadn’t completely forgotten me over the last decade.

I have no right to feel this way.

I know that. I’m the one who left. First, I lied to him, told him I didn’t love him, then disappeared completely from his life the same night.

I hadn’t wanted to do any of those things, but I’d been backed into a corner, and I am, at my core, driven by self-interest, self-preservation. In the end, I hated hurting him, but I couldn’t bear the idea that one day he would hate me for everything he’d lost by getting involved with me.

Looking back, maybe it was always going to end like that—messy, unfinished, and full of things we never said.

Even seeking Hunter out today had been my own inherent selfishness at work. He’d known it, too. I’m sure it’s why he asked why I’d come to him, the man I abandoned, instead of literally any other private investigator. Admittedly, I didn’t know any other private investigators, but, as he pointed out, I didn’t know him either, not anymore. I hadn’t lied when I said I’d reached out because I thought he was the best option for finding someone to listen to me, to believe me when I said something had happened to Matthew, that he hadn’t just taken off. After the police brushed me off, I needed to find someone who would take me seriously.

God, he looked good today. Just as I remembered, and yet somehow even better. Back when we’d been together, he’d been on the brink of manhood, his skin smooth and golden and perfect. Now, there were faint lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He hadn’t been able to grow more than patchy stubble back then—now, the scruff carved definition into his jawline. His hands were still big, and I remember what they felt like, calloused and warm, when they moved over my skin.

I’m only vaguely aware of my hand slipping inside my underwear, my fingers curling around my hard, straining cock—probably the real reason I’m so restless tonight. A soft gasp escapes me as I stroke myself slowly, but it’s not memories of us from the past playing in my head. It’s now. It’s Hunter in his office again.