One Night Only (Season 1: Deni's Story)

Epilogue: Chapter Forty-Three

Kissing Hunter always turns me into a walking cliché. Except I'm not walking right now—really, I'm barely standing—so maybe that's a living and breathing cliché. I'm tingling from head to toe, and my skin is warm all over. My face is probably flushed, too, and the eighty-degree October heat isn't the reason for it.

Hunter's face is also flushed, and he's beaming like he's the happiest person on Earth, so at least I'm not the only not-walking, living and breathing cliché in my backyard.

"I missed you," he says. He keeps his arms around my waist. It's a good thing his arms are there, because I'm still lightheaded. His hold steadies me.

"Of course you did. I'm a good kisser."

I toss my hair behind my shoulder and press my lips together to create my best imitation of a sultry pout. Hunter laughs out loud. I'm teasing him, and he knows I am.

"You absolutely are," he agrees. "And I'm not just saying that because I know you'll push me in the pool if I don't. I saw that gleam in your eyes before."

I swear he reads my mind sometimes, but I'm not about to admit it. "You only saw what you think you saw because you want to go in the pool," I say instead.

"Do you want to go in the pool?"

"Yes." He doesn't need to ask me twice. Pool time means him in swim trunks, without a shirt, and I have fond memories of this from our days at the lake. We should just stay in the pool the entire time he's here, when he isn't touring schools. It would be a complete win as far as I'm concerned, since we would be somewhere with no paparazzi or gawking onlookers around, and I could spend the entire time checking out my shirtless boyfriend. What could be better?

He releases his arms from my waist and we emerge from behind the cabana. I call Alfie over to us so we can get him out of the heat, and then we traipse inside the house to retrieve Hunter's suitcase from the foyer. I lead him upstairs to where my bedroom and the guest room he's staying in are. I still can't believe Mom is letting the two of us stay on the same floor of the house and that she didn't insist he sleep in the downstairs suite. She decided Melanie should have that, and who am I to question Mom's decisions?

"That's my room," I tell him as we pass by my open bedroom door. I'm usually in there when we FaceTime, so he's seen it before, at least through a phone screen. "And your room while you're here is this one."

It's the only other bedroom on this floor, since Mom's bedroom and bathroom—the master suite of the house—occupies most of the floor above this one. I walk ahead of Hunter to lead him inside of the guest room. I consider plunking myself down on the armchair in the corner and pretending I'm sticking around to watch him change clothes, but even I know we have a few days ahead of us of living in the same house with our moms around. I should take it easy with the flirting level for a while, even if I am a seventeen-year-old who hasn't seen her boyfriend in what's felt like forever.

"I'm going to get changed and find us some towels," I say. "I'll see you in a few minutes." I leave him to opening his suitcase.

It doesn't take me long to put on a swimsuit and to throw a coverup on over top of it, and then I head out of my bedroom and open the linen closet in the hallway to find towels to bring to the pool. From the sound of things, Hunter is already downstairs, talking to the moms. As I make my way down the stairs, I hear words that I pray are out of context.

"Did you say something about dinner reservations?" I ask Mom when I reach the bottom of the stairs. Reservations usually means a restaurant, and a restaurant on a Friday night means being out in public among a lot of people with phones that have cameras.

"You did," Mom replies. "I was just telling Hunter that we have reservations at Astral at seven-thirty, so to keep that in mind for how long you stay in the pool. We'll need to leave here by six-thirty to be safe."