What You Don't Know (Sequel to "Secret Love")(Hunter Hayes/James Marsden)

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Hey, lookie here! Updating twice in three days? What's the world coming to? Of course, this is not the chapter you're all waiting for, but...still a chapter!

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"Hey, Mom. How are you?"

"Oh, Hunter! How nice to hear from you! I'm doing great, honey! How are you?"

He laughed at her chirpy reply. She could always lift his spirits.

"I'm grand, Ma. I'm actually on my way to do a favor for Amanda, but I wanted to call you because I have something I think I need to say."

He imagined Lynette drying her hands on a dish towel and leaning against the all-too-familiar kitchen counter in the home she and his dad shared. There was a note of hesitation in her voice when she replied, but he knew she had probably already figured out what he wanted to discuss.

"I just wanted to apologize for my behavior a few weeks ago, when we had dinner with Amanda? I shouldn't have reacted so harshly and I'm sorry."

Lynette sighed, and he sucked in a breath, hoping his apology would clear the tension between he and his parents. He loved them far too much to keep them at arm's reach the way he had been doing.

"Baby, you know we weren't trying to upset you with what we said. We just thought...you know, that it would help."

It was Hunter's turn to sigh, and he did so with his fingers pinching the space between his eyebrows.

"Help what, Ma?" He said it as politely as possible but the edge of unforgiving rudeness was still evident.

"Well, you were having such a rough time, dear, and we just thought...it would be nice to have somebody on your side. We figured you were having some hateful feelings towards her, and we just wanted to back you up. We didn't think it would upset you."

Hunter stopped, about a block away from the coffee house at which he was scheduled to meet Markob Jakobie in less than twenty minutes, and leaned against a nearby streetlight.

"So, what you're saying," he replied, trying to decipher his mother's words, "Is that you and Dad were just trying to make me feel...what, supported? By saying you hated the woman I love?"

"I don't know. Is that an acceptable reason for what we said?"

He shook his head vehemently, and retorted, "No, Ma. I want the truth. Right now, because this is going to drive me insane until I know whether or not what you said was the truth. Do you or do you not like Bethany? Truly. I really want to know. I promise not to blow up this time."

Lynette paused. After a moment, she spoke.

"Hunter, did I ever tell you how Leo and I met Bethany?"

"Um. Yeah, I mean, sort of. You just told me you'd met her sometime before I introduced you at Christmas."

"That's true, but there's more to the story than that. Would you like to hear it?"

Hunter groaned internally. Did he want to hear it? No, not really. He had to be somewhere in a few minutes, and he was supposed to be focusing on Amanda, not on Bethany.

Yet, he had called to patch things up with his parents, and if this was what it took, he was prepared to do it. He missed them.

"Sure, Ma. Tell me the story."

She took a breath. "Leo and I were out one day shopping through that little antique shop we love so much, and as we were walking out, a young lady ran into me. Quite literally, I might add. She was running and, well, you get the point. Anyhow, she fell over and twisted her ankle something horrible, so I helped her up and offered to let her come to our apartment, since it's only just across the street. Your father was actually the one who recognized her from the magazine article, and he whispered her name to me when we were in the elevator. Poor dear was in so much pain she must not have heard, because you know Leo was never any good at whispering. Anyhow, we got her up to the apartment and got her settled, and I said to Leo as I was headed to the kitchen, "Sit here with her and decide if we want her to be with our son." We never blamed you for the articles in those awful magazines, dear, surely you know that."