“It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little sensitive about that. It must’ve looked like a date to a lot of people huh?”
Gary looked pensive for a second and then filled his cheeks with air. After he exhaled, he said, “Look Lorrie, you’re a cool girl and I like you. I know it’s none of my business to tell you what to do, but I wanted you to know that you should be careful around Hunter. If you guys are just friends, then it’s all good, but don’t let his charm get to you.”
“What are you talking about? Why are you saying that?”
“It’s no secret that Hunter’s a hit with the ladies, and I just don’t want you to get hurt that’s all.”
“Are you saying I’m not good enough for him?”
“No, Lorrie, not at all. I just know that by the way he treats you, he would never want to hurt you.”
“If he would never hurt me why are you telling me this?”
“Hunter . . . Hunter doesn’t always do things that make sense. There was another girl and . . . well . . . Look it’s really not my place to tell you the details. Whatever you do with him, just know that he’s got a lot of baggage okay? He’s all swagger and tattoos on the outside, but the real Hunter is more . . . complicated.”
“Whose team are you on anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be helping him get laid?”
That got a laugh out of him. “I guess you can call me the referee. Trust me, I know Hunter and I know that you’re not just some other girl to him. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
I nodded cautiously. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks Gary.”
“Yeah, no problem. Take care Lorrie, I’m late for class. I’ll see you around.”
After Gary left, I just sat there looking outside for a while. What had that been about? Whatever it was, he didn’t tell me that offhand. With the things he did for his frat house, it was unlikely that Gary was the irresponsible gossiping type. If he told me to be careful about Hunter, he must’ve really thought it through. What had he meant that Hunter was complicated?
I mean, it didn’t really surprise me. Hunter was cocky and flirty, which was to be expected given the attention he got, but some of the things that Hunter said made it clear he wasn’t just some dumb musclehead cage fighter. Hunter had told me his parents were druggies . . . was that why he was complicated? And who was the girl Hunter had a history with? Thinking about it made my heart ache with jealousy, but I quickly talked myself back to my senses. Hunter and I were friends. I had to stop getting jealous every time I heard him linked with a girl.
I supposed that Hunter didn’t have a lot of female friends without benefits, but that didn’t suddenly mean that he was in love with me. Even if he was, so what? I could admit that I was attracted to Hunter without acting on it. Like Gary said, Hunter already had some baggage, add my baggage on top of that and it’d be a recipe for pissing off airport security.
Gary may have been trying to be helpful but he just raised more questions than he answered. I took my sketchpad out again to distract myself and spent the better part of an hour sketching the campus view just outside the cafe windows. A light layer of snow covered the bare trees that stood in a row by the walkway.
When the sun was starting to set, I decided to head back to my room. It would get too dark to sketch anything outside soon and I had to do some reading anyway. The campus was shades of orange and purple as the sun hung over the west side of campus.
I was halfway back to the dorms when I passed by the campus health center. I almost didn’t notice him at first, but then when I looked again I recognized Hunter, wearing a leather jacket and black jeans. He was walking out of the doors of the health center, he stopped to hold the door for another student leaving behind him.
“Hey,” I said, waving to him.
Hunter’s eyes brightened when he saw me.“Lorrie!” He flashed me a smile and raised an eyebrow “You stalking me?”
“You wish. Just heading home. Everything okay? Why were you in the health center?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Had some injuries from a fight last night, they patched me right up.”
He didn’t look injured, but maybe the injuries were under his clothes or they were internal or something. His eyes did look a bit sunken and his gorgeous face didn’t have its usual brightness.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
Hunter waved away my concerns. “Come on, don’t fuss over me or I’ll stop telling you about my fights. It’s no big deal. What are you doing right now?”
“Uh . . . heading home?”
“Want to watch a movie with me?”
“What?”
“C’mon, we’ll go to the movie theater by the mall.”
I looked down, my face getting heated. I was getting too excited about watching a movie with Hunter.
“I don’t know . . . I wanted to catch up on my Psych 102 readings.”
“Professor Muller? I aced that class.”
I laughed, a puff of steam rose in the air between us. “Wow, how humble of you. Some of us have to study you know.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll help you with it.” He tilted his head toward the direction of the theater. “It’ll be fun.”
“Wait, how do you manage to do so well in your classes if you’re busy training all the time?”
“Well, I took Muller’s class freshman year and I didn’t start fighting until sophomore year so I devoted a lot more time to studying back then. My grades still aren’t that bad now. I don’t spend as much time studying but I’m passing all my classes at least. So what do ya say?”
I sighed, but seeing a movie did sound like fun. Even though I had planned on going back to my room and cracking open the psych textbook, I knew that I’d probably end up vegging out in front of the TV anyway.
“Okay, but if I fail the class I’m blaming it on you.”
Hunter pumped his fist in victory. “You got it. It’s all my fault. Alright, now let’s go!”
We walked to the bus stop but didn’t have to wait long before we caught one. The mall was only a ten minute bus ride away and we were let off right in front. We made our way through the mall, chatting about what movie we wanted to watch, until we were in front of the movie theater.
There was no one in the box office and the lights were all off. “What the . . .” Hunter said, putting his hands on his head like he had just received some terrible news.