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He caught it without looking and muted the television. “Talk to me.”
She smiled and glanced up at him through her lashes. “About what?”
“Anything.” He set his glass on the coffee table, then leaned back into the cushions and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. It pulled his jeans down, just a little, but enough to show a millimeter of tanned skin at his waist, just the barest edge of his boxers.
Becca reminded herself to breathe.
“What’d you do tonight?” he said. “Did you have to work?”
That snapped her back to reality. She shook her head quickly, but her eyes kept flicking back to that strip of skin. “No—I was driving home from school, and there was a storm, and I—I totaled my car.”
Hunter sat up straight, and his tone was almost angry. “You what?” He looked her over, his eyes intense. “Jesus—are you okay?”
“No—yeah, I’m fine.” She remembered that his father and his uncle had been killed in a car wreck, and her tone softened. “I’m okay. Really. My dad would never have left me alone otherwise.”
He probably wouldn’t have left her alone if he’d known she was going to invite a boy over, either. Too bad for the absent parent.
Hunter looked distraught. “But—totaled? Where?”
“The bridge on Old Mill.” She’d heard the paramedics recite the events so many times that it was easy to forget that supernatural happenings had almost led to her death.
“The creek overflowed.” Becca hunched her shoulders. This was the last thing she wanted to relive. “It must have buckled the bridge supports or something—”
“I heard about it. A lot of people were hurt.” He ran a hand through his hair. Multicolored lights from the television danced across his features, making him look vaguely frightening—or frightened. “Becca, I had no idea.”
She stared at her hands in her lap. Hunter was so earnest, offering anything less than truth felt shady. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
When he didn’t say anything, she glanced up. He was studying her, his eyes shadowed.
That was too much. “I’m fine.” She stretched out her bare arms. “Look. No bruises even.”
He took her wrists in his hands, running his thumbs lightly along the inside of her forearms. “Hmm. No bruises.”
His touch was making her shiver, but she couldn’t pull away. This was the exact opposite of grappling in a field—but somehow she wanted to tackle him all the same. “Yeah. Chris and his brothers pulled me out of the car.”
His fingers stilled, and his voice went hard again. “Really.”
She nodded. “They were a few cars behind me.”
“Convenient,” he scoffed. His jaw was set, and he looked away, at the television. “Why am I not surprised?”
Becca snatched her hands out of his. “What does that mean?”
Hunter wasn’t easily intimidated—he held her eyes and matched her tone. “It means the guy seems to be a magnet for trouble. For you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but she really didn’t have a leg to stand on.
“Look,” said Hunter. “I don’t even know him. But every time I see him near you, you end up getting hurt.”
Becca took a breath. “It’s ... complicated.”
Hunter leaned in, his voice low and sharp. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and Chris, but that guy on the beach had a gun, Becca. He was firing at you. People shoot guns when they want to kill someone. And now you tell me your car is totaled and Chris was there?”
“It was an accident,” she whispered. Her throat felt tight.
His green eyes were hard. “I don’t believe in accidents.”
She didn’t realize she was crying until tears rolled off her chin.
