mean, maybe? Maybe that’s it, or maybe it isn’t. All I know is that when I decided not to enter the draft after high school, I felt relieved.”
“And yet every time I see you watching Garrett and Logan play, there’s envy in your eyes.”
Hunter’s ragged breath tickles my head. His chest rises and falls again. “Let’s put this on the shelf for now. It’s hurting my brain. Tell me about your holidays.”
“I already did—we texted every day,” I remind him.
“I know, but I like your voice and I want to hear you talk.”
I smile against left pec, then offer a more detailed recap of my visit to Miami. I tell him about my new nephew, about my crazy aunts and my excitable cousins. Being a very Catholic community, Christmas is very much celebrated in Miami, and one of my family’s favorite traditions is a visit to Santa’s Enchanted Forest. I took my younger cousins there, and five-year-old Maria peed on one of the rides. While sitting in my lap. Fun times.
“Do you speak Spanish?” Hunter asks curiously. “I just realized I don’t even know if you do.”
“I understand it better than I speak it. Dad has a terrible ear for languages, so he only speaks English at home. Mom used to speak both to me because she didn’t want me to lose the Spanish, but I kinda have,” I say glumly. “Not entirely, though. I mean, I’d be fluent again in a week if I was around people who spoke it exclusively.”
“I’d love to learn another language. You should teach me Spanish, and then we could practice together.”
“Deal.” I snuggle up closer to him. “Oh, and on the flight home, I tried bringing up the med school thing to my dad again. Mom is staying in Miami for another week, so it was just me and him. But he wasn’t having it,” I admit.
Hunter strokes my hair. “You still having doubts about that?”
“More than doubts.” I inhale slowly. “I don’t want to go.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud.
“Then don’t,” Hunter says simply. “You shouldn’t go to med school for your father—you should go for yourself. You need to walk your own path, and that means following your own dreams, not his. Your first priority should be pleasing yourself, not him.”
A laugh tickles my throat. I try to hold it in, but it ripples out.
“What is it?”
“I just realized what a sad pair we are.” I can’t stop giggling. “Here I am sacrificing my aspirations to be like my father, and you’re sacrificing your aspirations to not be like your father. That is fascinating.”
“Jesus. You’re such a psychologist. Is this what it’s always going to be like? Lying in bed naked while you psychoanalyze us?”
I prop up on my elbow, biting my lip. “Does it actually bother you?”
“Nah.” He flashes his dimpled smile, and I lean down and kiss one of those adorable dimples. “It’s funny,” he continues. “Most of the time, you analyze and rationalize and try to find solutions. And then other times, you’re batshit crazy.”
“I am not!”
“You have a violent streak, you maniac. You smash people’s game consoles.” He grins up at me. “Quite the dichotomy, Demi Davis.”
“Both crazy and sane,” I say somberly. “A rare condition, indeed.”
“Anyway.” He strokes his knuckles over my cheek. “You don’t need to chase your father’s approval—you already have it. I don’t think he’ll disown you if you choose grad school over med school.”
“You don’t know how he feels about PhDs, Hunter. For the rest of my life he’ll be making wisecracks about how I’m not a real doctor.” My buzzing phone captures my attention. “Shit, that’s probably Josie ordering me to come downstairs and hang more decorations.”
I stretch across his muscular chest to grab my phone from the nightstand. Hunter uses the opportunity to slide one palm between us to cup one of my boobs.
I shiver in pleasure, but my arousal dissolves when I see my father’s name. Speak of the devil.
I click on his message, and my eyebrows soar. “Oh, this is interesting.”
“What?” Hunter lazily caresses the swell of my breast.
“My father is inviting us to New Year’s Day brunch tomorrow.”
Hunter’s hand freezes. “Us?”
“Yep.” I sit up and grin at his panicky expression. “He wants to meet you.”
32
Demi
A few days after New Year’s, Hunter and I are back on campus walking toward the Psych building. It’s the final lecture of the semester and we’re supposed to be receiving our case studies back, but while I’ve got