Just A Fan (Book 1 of JAF series)

Chapter 19 Another Late Night

Now whenever Hunter passes me in the hallway one of us ends up mumbling to the other 'at least we'll always have bowling.' Which cracks the other person up to the point of manic, all consuming laughter. It is not a good thing.

In all of my recent meetings we've been talking tours. It's time for me to tour as an opener. It's no surprise and I'm slowly becoming okay with the idea. Kelsey's registering for classes in exactly one week, so she'll be too busy to miss me. Derek dumped her, thank goodness. And after a week of moping, and a couple of long conversations, everything seems to be sorting itself out.

A couple of weeks after 'the bowling incident' I get a call well after midnight, waking me up from a peaceful slumber.

"Mmm," I answer.

"Andi?"

"Hunter?" I sit straight up, completely awake.

"Are you still awake?"

"Sure, yeah. What?"

"Um... I need help..."

Half an hour later I'm parking in front of a coin laundromat on a dark side street downtown. I lock my car and enter. Hunter's sitting on a washer near the back.

"Did you call for a taxi?" I ask him.

"Thanks... I'm sorry... "He takes a breath in, bracing his hands on his knees." I figured you needed to hear this from me."

"Hear what? Hunter, what's going on?"

He looks at the floor, His face wears a beat down, upset, and dark expression. He doesn't respond.

"Hunter, you're scaring me."

"You don't get scared." He reminds me, his face lights up a bit. "Here." He picks something up and holds it out, it's some kind of a well bent, flashy pamphlet.

I walk over and take it, unfolding it as I look at the opened page.

"HUNTER'S SECRET LOVE?"

It's a tacky article but it features pictures of Hunter and I at the karaoke place, and bowling, and driving around together. I have no clue how they got most of these.

I am too sick to my stomach to bring myself to read the article.

"Do you know... Do you understand... What... what is this?" My brain has stopped working.

Hunter swings his feet so they hit the drum of the washer, he shrugs.

I feel dizzy, I try to grab on to a shred of sanity, trying to calm myself down. "And the reason you called me to come get you at a strange laundromat in the middle of the night is...?"

"My girlfriend Emily."

"Okay...?" I think I remember that name.

"Well, we've been off again, on again for a while... she called and said she needed to talk. She picked me up and we were going to go out to eat and sort some things out."

I'm following thus far, but not sure how this story applies.

"Anyway, we never got anywhere. She suddenly got upset and threw that at me and told me to get out. I think it's safe to say we're over."

Hunter looks a bit glazed but still like himself. He's not too upset, he'll get over it.

"I'm sorry." I don't know why but I feel like I've done something wrong.

"You're fine, it's actually quite funny, if you can bring yourself to read the article."

I roll it up and stick it in my pocket. Maybe later.