Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 234779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1174(@200wpm)___ 939(@250wpm)___ 783(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 234779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1174(@200wpm)___ 939(@250wpm)___ 783(@300wpm)
I frown, looking over my shoulder. Sara is walking next to Wally, looking up at him with stars in her eyes while he talks to her. Valerie Johnson has sidled up next to Hunter and she casts him a fawning look, too.
This sucks. I can’t believe he just ditched me with his mom and went off with his friends.
My sigh comes out as more of a huff, but I turn my attention back to his mom. “I don’t know what Hunter told you. My mom only sent me with $20 for spending money, I can’t really…”
“Oh, no, honey, it’s on me,” she says dismissively as I fall into step beside her. “I’m so sorry about the other day. That was definitely not the first impression I would’ve liked to make on one of Hunter’s friends. My husband… he’s volatile, especially when he drinks. I always tend to go for those volatile messes. I’d advise you not to follow in my footsteps, but I see the way you look at my son.”
My cheeks flame, even though she said it playfully. “I don’t think Hunter’s that volatile,” I mutter.
“That’s because you haven’t made it onto his bad side yet. Hopefully you never will, but I’m sure you’ll see other people get there. No one can hold a grudge quite like my son.”
She looks over at me like we’re girlfriends shopping together instead of an adult shopping with her kid’s friend. I don’t really know what to say, so she goes on.
“He takes after his dad a lot. That man ran hot and cold. Either he was volcanic, or a complete iceberg. When his love was flowing over me, it was the greatest thing I’d ever felt, but when he turns on you… oof. Not good,” she says, shaking her head.
“Hunter hasn’t really turned on anyone, has he?”
Her eyebrows rise like she’s surprised I’m so out of the loop. “Don’t you remember Marshall Gough? He was Hunter’s best friend in elementary school.”
“Vaguely. Didn’t he move a couple years ago?”
I think he used to be one of the popular kids, but I had forgotten about Marshall Gough until she mentioned him. We were all in the same fifth grade class together, but I only ever spoke to him once—and it almost got me in trouble.
Marshall was something of a class clown, and one day during science he earned a few chortles with some dumb comment about how the planetary nebula we were studying looked like a woman’s vagina. He was sitting at my table between Hunter and me, and since I was not one of the chortlers, I guess Marshall felt the need to convince me. He started tracing the picture in our textbook with his fingertip and saying things like “See it now? You’ve got one, you should recognize it.”
Since the jerk wouldn’t stop talking to me and he was embarrassing me, I told him to leave me alone and pay attention. That’s all I said, but I happened to say it when the teacher was looking at our table. Mr. Branch snapped, looking directly at me, and my heart plummeted. I thought I was going to get in trouble for talking when I wasn’t supposed to be, but at the last moment he changed his mind and his gaze shifted to Marshall for the verbal warning.
Venus nods. “He and Hunter had a falling out. Things got so bad for him at school, his mother decided to pull him out. She open-enrolled him somewhere else for middle school so he could have a fresh start.”
I can only stare at her as she says this like it’s acceptable. “What do you mean it got so bad? Like, Hunter… bullied him?”
“I wouldn’t say bullied,” she says, her tone rising by a couple octaves. “Hunter’s just… he can be a little intense if you cross him. Like his father,” she adds, like that helps. “His father pretty much ruined my modeling career just because his fiancée found out about us and left him. It wasn’t my fault. He’s the one who initiated things between us, and stronger women than me couldn’t resist that bastard, but at the end of the day, I was the one he punished.” Looking over at me with wide eyes, she adds, “And she came back, so I don’t know what he was so upset about.”
It’s all I can do to keep my jaw from dropping open as she says all this to me like it’s perfectly normal. My mom and I have a very open and honest relationship, but my mom isn’t nearly as scandalous as Hunter’s. I don’t even know how to process what she said, let alone respond to it.
Seeming to sense she’s over sharing, she waves away that conversation. “Anyway, let’s not focus on all that unpleasantness. We’re here to shop. Do you know what kind of look you want to go for?”