Fakely HIS

Chapter 28

Friday afternoon, I'd come back from my shift at the café - where surprisingly there was no crowd today. I had no idea why even the few regulars had decided to not come into the café today. All things from a few days ago had been running inside my head and the fewer crowds in the café had not alarmed me back then. Now that I was snuggled inside a blanket, with my brother listening in intently on how my day today was – like he has been doing for the past few weeks, it did seem a little strange.

"Maybe it's not anything that alarming, Hayley," Hunter reassured, "Stop overthinking everything."

"I can't help it," I said, truthfully, turning on my side to face him completely, "It was just weird."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

"Yeah," I agreed half-heartedly, pushing the thought of the café into the back of my mind. I'll worry about it later, "Hey, you were looking at schools. How is that going for you?"

"It's going on. I'll let you know when I find anything that I liked," Hunter looked away from me for a split second, before looking back at me with a small smile.

"There's not a lot of private schools here in New York for you to be taking so much time on deciding where you wanted to go," I said, rolling my eyes, "How about we visit Flamewell over the next week and see if you liked it there?"

"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed, shaking his head, "There's no way that I'd go to Flamewell. They were rivals with our school – well, I mean our old schools."

"Yeah, but that was a long time ago," I tried, "Maybe we've got past all that in the last few years?" It was meant to be a statement, but came out sounding like a question.

"The bad blood between us has been going on for almost fifty years, Hayley, that wouldn't have dissolved in two years. Besides, I don't like it there. The school's too small and their football program is crap. Let me choose the school I want to study in."

"Okay, okay, you win," I relented, giving up, "No Flamewell. Choose a school as you like."

Hunter grinned, snuggling down his bed, pulling his covers more around him as he looked up at me, "Hey, a few days ago you were very upset when you came home from your trip to the mall with Skylar," he said out of the blue catching me off guard. "When I asked you what's wrong, you said you'd tell me later. Has your later come yet?"

Sighing, I shook my head, "If it was up to me, my later would never come," I said honestly.

"Come on. Tell me what upset you so much."

"I ran into Elijah."

The moment I said his name, my brother stiffened, his entire face contorted into something akin to pain and a few moments later he released a harsh breath. "And?"

And I proceeded to tell him. Everything. How I'd ran into Elijah in James' party, about my meeting with Brandon, about how Brandon brought Penny back into Nicholas' life. About the twins – Archer and Bryce, about how Nicholas didn't have a clue on how I had been linked to all the confusion in his life, and then I told him about what Elijah was doing with Mia, and about how I had slapped him and told him off at the mall.

For the longest time Hunter remained silent, taking in all that I had said to him. Just when I thought that he was not going to say anything, Hunter opened his mouth and the words that came out was definitely not what I had wanted to hear, "If you loved Nicholas the way you say you do, or even like him, why haven't you told him about anything that happened in our life?" Hunter had put two and two together and realized that Nicholas didn't know anything about my past.

I shrugged, "It's just that, every time I take a step forward into our relationship it had always been two steps backwards for us. I just didn't know when and how to do it. And now he's dealing with so much – what with the twins and all that – I have no idea how to do it."