The Truth & Other Lies

Dear Hunter: From, People With Camera Phones

Of all the ways I'd like to be woken up the morning, Bennett storming into my room and tossing a spare pillow at my head isn't actually that low on my list. Considering I'd once been woken by a woman I'd brought back measuring my inseam because she wanted to sew me a pair of pants, a soft cushion to the top of my head is hardly even distracting.

His throw lacks power, so I'm not immediately startled by his entrance, only bothering to lift my head from the mattress when he reaches out and begins to shake me awake. "Hunter. Hunter, get your ass up, now."

Groaning, I roll over and sit up straight, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands and sending Bennett my most annoyed glare when my vision is clear and adjusted to the morning sunlight. "What are you doing here?"

"Seriously?" he says, not directly answering my question, crossing his arms over his chest and not even bothering to feel bad for jolting me from my sleep on New Year's Day. "You couldn't keep it in your pants for one night?"

"What are you talking about?" I blink, genuinely confused as I glance at the rumpled sheets beside me just to double check that I hadn't brought someone home and completely forgotten. Not that forgetting I was with someone was something that happened often. But it's good to be sure. I let out a soft sigh of relief when I see there's no one sleeping beside me and turn a bewildered glare on the band's publicist. "Do you see anyone else in this bed?"

Apparently that's not enough to convince him that I'm alone, because his gaze narrows before it darts over to the closed bathroom door, his stare hardening as though he's attempting to see through the painted wood. "Is she hiding in the bathroom?"

"No," I scoff, offended he would think I would ever hide someone in the bathroom. I'm not a complete asshole. I'm also not a teenager living in his parents' house who has a reason to feel embarrassed about his sex life. "There's no one in the bathroom because I slept alone last night. Just like I promised."

"Hunter, when I told you not to hook up," he sighs, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose with two fingers, "I also meant not in public."

I don't know what that means, but there's apparently something that Bennett knows that he's not telling me. "What the fuck is going on, Bennett?"

Finally realizing that I'm telling the truth about my sleeping arrangements the previous night, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and swipes the screen a few times before turning it to face me. "This. This is what's going on."

The phone is on the homepage of a tabloid's website, where the latest headline reads Hunter's New Year's Kiss. I take the phone from him to scroll down the page further, revealing a blurry photograph of me kissing a girl at the party last night. Despite the fact that it's not a close up shot, it's clearly me in the picture, given away by the tattoos on my forearm, showing beneath the rolled up sleeves of my shirt.

"Shit," I curse under my breath, thinking I was an idiot to not take into account that literally everybody had cameras on their phones.

It's just my luck that something like this would happen. It's not like what we were doing was scandalous in any way. All I did was kiss her at midnight because that's what people do at midnight on New Year's Eve, and one brave soul deciding to capture the moment in their camera roll and sell it to the highest bidder had completely screwed me over. The worst part is that I was genuinely trying to be good, like Bennett asked. Maybe I should've known better. Being good apparently isn't in my nature.

"So?" Bennett sighs, taking his phone back and shoving it into his pocket, looking at me expectantly. "Wanna explain what happened?"

"It was just a kiss," I shrug, "I mean, it was New Year's Eve and we were at a party and we'd had a couple drinks and when the countdown started, I don't know, I just wanted to kiss her."