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

It Only Hurts Me

*This was already published, as a preview at the end of "Secret Love". I don't think I'm going to start updating regularly until the first of the year. There's just too much going on right now. 

As always, God Bless and Happy Reading.

"Bethany?" Hunter rubbed his eyes, throwing his keys into the bowl on the stand by their apartment door. It had been a long day. He and his band had gone into the studio to lay down some tracks at five that morning. It was now nine, and he had eaten nothing but a bowl of fruit since breakfast. He wandered into the kitchen, pulling open the fridge and dragging out a carton of milk. His voice was weak from singing all day, and his fingers were aching from pressing the strings of his guitar for hours.

He pulled a bowl from the cupboard and poured some cereal and milk into it, grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer and bumped it closed with his hip. He shoveled the crunchy kernels into his mouth, finishing the bowl with record speed and placing the utensils in the dishwasher. When he had finished, he maneuvered down the narrow hall to the bedroom he shared with his girlfriend, Bethany.

She was sitting on their bed, her back resting against the backboard and her bare legs curled under her chin. One arm was wrapped around her calves, and the other held a book out in front of her face. Despite his exhaustion, a small smile touched Hunter's face. No doubt she had been curled up like that for hours, devouring page after page of the novel he had bought her last week when she had dragged him into a book store. He had rolled his eyes at the time, having never understood how she could enjoy such a tedious activity. He had never read an entire book cover to cover in his life. It seemed to make her happy, though, so he had been more than willing to stand there and recite corny pick-up lines as she gazed in wonder at the bookshelves.

She had not yet pried her eyes away from the pages, and Hunter could see the golden flecks in her brown irises flicking from one word to the next with a strange kind of ravenous hunger. He decided to leave her be for the moment, heading into the bathroom to wash his hands and quickly deciding on a shower instead. He ran the hot water, peeling out of his clothes and stepping under the spray.

The song they had been recording in the studio today was still stuck in his head, so he hummed it, momentarily distracted from his exhaustion by the wonderful feeling of the scalding downpour. The song reminded him of the time when it was written: during the four months in which Bethany had not been with him. He did not allow himself to remember that time very often, so it had been very emotional to have to put all of that back into his head today.

It was not like things had not had a happy ending. His previous girlfriend, Amanda Felton, whose conniving, abusive ex-boyfriend, Matt Rutland, had forced her to play a massive role in a plot to strip Hunter of his modest fortune, was now nothing but kind; Bethany had actually cultivated a close friendship with her since Matt had been thrown in jail for his machinations. Matt had involved Amanda heavily in his plot. He had tried to coerce her to sleep with Hunter, so that he could sue him for a sum of six million dollars in child support, claiming that the Amanda's pregnancy was Hunter's doing.

Of course, it had eventually been revealed that the child had not belonged to Hunter at all, had instead belonged to Matt. In fact, at the party after the awards show, the night Hunter had supposedly slept with Amanda, Amanda had ordered the bartender to spike Hunter's drink, and he had been so inebriated that he had fallen asleep before the two had even reached the hotel room.

He could not be angry with Amanda anymore. The poor girl had been under a dangerous influence, and if she had not done as instructed, she would have been harshly punished. Matt had even pulled a gun and shot her straight in the stomach when the truth of the situation had come out in the court room, a tragedy she had survived, though her baby had not. Hunter was actually grateful to her, in a way. The confession that she had not actually slept with him had been given to Bethany in private, and Hunter could not be more glad. He was not sure he and Beth would have ever gotten back together if Amanda had kept that information to herself.