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“Same.” He nods. “I’ll be back to get you to give you a ride back to your place.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pulling into a parking spot, he puts the car in park and jumps out of the driver’s side.
By now, I’ve come to realize that he really,reallylikes to open the door for his women. It’s going to take me some time to get used to, but I respect him for it.
Opening the door, he takes my bag and holds it while I climb down. As he starts heading toward the building, taking my hand and tugging me gently behind him, I frown.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking you to class like a good boyfriend would do.Obviously.”He grins, opening the building door as we walk the short distance to my classroom.
Handing me my bag, he leans in, kissing my forehead. “Have a good class, Sutton. See ya soon.”
Stepping away, he holds his hand up and waves before heading outside.
And here I stand with a goofy-ass smile on my face, unable to wipe it off.
I’m learning that fake boyfriends are kind of fun after all.
12
Hunter
Iwatched Holden look out at the rocky coast of Maine in awe. In all our years of vacationing, we’d never come to New England. But when a brilliant doctor had offered to meet with Holden if we came to him…we had gotten on a plane the next day.
None of us kids cared. We loved to travel, but not for something like this. But in a way, I was happy that my brother got to see something he’d always wanted to. Seals in their natural habitat.
Holden wheezed a few times. He was on the trip mentally, but physically…he was shutting down. We were running out of time with him, and I knew it. I thinkHaley did too. But she was young and refused to think that way. My dad was a doctor. And both my mom and dad were impossibly smart people. If they had gone by what they knew, they’d see that Holden was dying. And that there was nothing anyone could do to save him. But my parents were in denial. They had been ever since Holden was diagnosed with cancer years prior. Since hearing the news, they’d spent every waking second trying to fix him. He couldn’t rest because he was being dragged across the country as they urgently searched for something, anything, to make it better. Because miracles in medicine did happen. They happened a lot.
But my brother had given up. He was tired, and I couldn’t blame him for the simple fact that he was over being poked and prodded. He was over the treatments that made him ill, and he was mostly sick of not being able to be a normal kid. And I guessed that was why he and I had become closer toward the end of it. Because with me, he didn’t have to put on a happy face and pretend that he was going to be okay. I let him be him. Even if that really fucking sucked.
Seagulls squawked in the distance as we sat out on those rocks, looking out at the horizon. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen anything as beautiful as the ocean there. Maine was the perfect combination of trees and wooded area and water. Even the way it sounded was soothing. Almost like a fizzy drink with carbonation. The waves hit the rocks, creating a melody of some sort.
“Hey, Hunt,” Holden said softly, never taking his eyes off the ocean. “Can I ask you something?”
“Depends. If you’re going to ask to steal my PlayStation, then no way,” I joked before adding, “Go ahead. Ask away.”
“Why do you pretend to hate Sutton so much?”
“I’m not pretending anything,” I scoffed. “She’s bitchy. Stuck-up. And spoiled.”
At thirteen years old, I probably shouldn’t have been using the wordbitchy, but, hey, it was how I felt.
“She’s not,” he muttered. “She’s just really sad.”
My brother had always had this weird thing for Sutton for as long as I could remember. She was three years younger than him though and never gave anyone, besides Haley, the time of day.
“Why don’t you just tell her you like her?” I nudged his side gently, not wanting to hurt him. “Maybe that would make her a nicer person if she thought someone in the world actually liked her.”
He breathed out one sad, lonely laugh before shaking his head. “If I got my cure, I would. Trust me on that. But I’m not going to. Besides, she’s never looked at me the way she does you, Hunter. Even if I wish she did.” He looked at me again. “If, one day, you finally see her the way I do, I give you my permission to go for it, little brother.” He smiled, his lips dry and cracked. “I mean, she’s out of your league, but you have my permission to try. If it meant she had a smile on her broken face…I’d be more than okay with it.”
“She doesn’t look at me like anything, you crazy bastard. Well, besides with that bitchy look that’s permanently on her face.” I scowled.
“She does. Before you started being a dick to her all the time,” he grumbled. “You’ve made her act the way she does toward you.”
“What the hell are the meds Mom and Dad are giving you these days?” I stared at him for a minute before my eyes narrowed, and I threw my head back. “You’re crazy. You know that, right?”
