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“Gretchen,” Cooper began, his voice soft.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, Cooper, please don’t—”
“I know,” he said quickly. “I know. It’s weird between us right now, isn’t it? I should have never said anything.”
He sounded so unhappy with himself that she winced. “It’s not that, Cooper. I just . . . wish we could go back to the way things were before, you know?”
“Before I gave you my heart and you stomped it to pieces?”
Gretchen turned, her eyes wide in shock. “I—”
“I’m kidding,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I’ll be honest, I wish things could be different between you and me. But even what we had before was better than what we have now. I know you don’t care for me the way I care for you. And that’s fine, Gretchen. But it hurts me that we can’t even be friends anymore. I’d rather we acknowledge the problem, move past it, and get back to being just Gretchen and Cooper.”
Her eyes began to water again, and she sniffed, reaching for the wads of Kleenex she had stuffed in her apron. “I’m so sorry, Coop.”
“Hey,” he said softly. “Don’t apologize.” He reached out and pulled her into a friendly, warm hug. “I’m sorry I got all weird on you when you needed a friend the most.”
She wrapped her arms around him, sniffing hard. “You’re such a good friend. I’m not normally this emotional.”
“I know,” he said dryly, rubbing a hand up and down her back.
She clung to him for a moment, enjoying the hug and the simple comfort of a friend. “I’m glad that we’re going to go back to just being Gretchen and Coop,” she mumbled against his shoulder. “And I’m sorry I didn’t fall in love with you. If I could have picked to fall in love with someone, it would have been you.”
He chuckled, and for once, there was no pain or sadness in it. “It’s okay, Gretch. I know you’re in love with Buchanan. It was obvious as soon as I saw him with you. You lit up around him in a way I’ve never seen. I’ve had a few weeks to get over you now.”
She smiled over his shoulder, opening her eyes and gazing out into the coffee shop.
Behind them, a scarred man in a long tailored jacket stood in the doorway of the coffee shop, a dozen roses in his hand. He wore sunglasses despite the cloudy weather, as if it might obscure the scars on his face—and he was watching her hug it out with Cooper. Then, he took the glasses off, and she felt sick with dread.
Hunter’s heart was in his eyes, and it was being broken all over again.
The man had shit timing.
“Hunter,” Gretchen gasped, pulling away from Cooper.
Hunter’s mouth tightened. He said nothing, simply turned and walked back out of the coffee shop. As she watched him disappear into the crowd, he tossed the roses into the nearest waste bin.
She felt as thrown away as those roses in that moment. Everything was all messed up again.
Even as she asked herself why she cared, Gretchen pulled out of Cooper’s embrace and dashed out from behind the counter, crossing the coffee shop quickly and bursting through the door.
The streets were busy, but not so busy that she couldn’t pick Hunter’s bulkier form out of the group. That, and his stiff, angry stance and the way people paused when they glanced at his face.
She raced after him. “Hunter!”
He ignored her, his shoulders set.
“Hunter Buchanan.” Gretchen planted her feet, fists clenched. “Turn around, damn it, or I’m going to run straight into all this traffic.”
He slowly turned around, a good twenty feet from her on the bustling sidewalk. He didn’t move forward and his hands were stuffed into his coat pockets. “What do you want?”
She paused at the icy tone of his voice. “You were bringing me flowers?”
“I was not.”
“Really? I suppose you just throw flowers into every garbage can outside of a coffee shop, then?”
When he flushed, she had to hide her grin of delight. Why was it that she loved teasing Hunter so very, very much? She’d fallen back into her comfortable sense of joy with him, forgetting all about that he’d broken her heart.
