up now, and she could see the tightness in his jaw. He looked so tightly wound that she was almost afraid to leave him alone. “Where do you want to go?” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
He didn’t look over.
She put a hand on his arm. “Come on. Maybe you can show me around—”
He caught her wrist. Not hard, but fast enough that it made her gasp.
“I don’t want to be a jerk,” he said, his eyes shifting to meet hers. “But I can’t do this.”
She didn’t understand. “This?”
His eyes were tired and wary—but also sharp and intelligent. “Yeah. This.”
Kate stared across at him. “What just happened?”
He glanced at her phone. “Boyfriend?”
“What? No.” Then she remembered Silver’s cover story. If she denied it now, would it screw things up later? “It’s not like that.”
But she’d fumbled her words, and she knew exactly what it looked like. Hunter leaned across her body to pull at the handle to release the door. Cool air streamed into the car.
He was throwing her out?
His expression said he was.
“You’re getting this all wrong,” she said.
“I don’t think I am.”
She slid out of the car. Before closing the door, she said, “I just thought we could get to know each other.”
He finally looked at her fully, and he laughed shortly. “If you’re lonely, why don’t you text Nick Merrick? He seemed perfectly willing to stare at you.”
Then, without waiting for an answer, he reached out and grabbed the door, pulling it shut and leaving her out in the cold.
Hunter waited until he couldn’t ignore the hunger clawing at his stomach, then bought two breakfast sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts. He was hungry enough to inhale both, but he’d fed Casper the last of the milk bones this morning, and the dog was staring at him desperately. So he set the second sandwich on the wrapper on the ground.
Eleven dollars left, and a third of a tank of gasoline.
His cell phone remained blank. At least he had a car charger for that.
He’d been so stupid, entertaining the thought of . . . of anything with Kate. Like his life wasn’t complicated enough right now. She’d climbed into his car, he’d almost broken down, and then she’d started texting with some other guy.
God, he’d looked like such an idiot.
Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she’d pick him to screw with. His abilities drew people to him. He was just used to the heckling, fist-swinging type of attention. He’d been dumb enough to think this would turn out differently.
Besides, he had other things to worry about.
Like finding a way to earn money. It would cost a fortune to fill his gas tank, and if he had no transportation, he was sunk.
His mom hadn’t even called to see if he was okay.
He felt like he shouldn’t care—she’d let his grandfather throw him out—but he did.
A lot.
Stop. Focus.
He could fill out applications. How hard would it be to find a job?
Three strip malls later, he knew the answer: hard.
He wrote his personal information so many times that he started to bore himself. At first he was meticulous, knowing that he only had one opportunity to make a first impression. He knew to make eye contact, to shake hands, to speak confidently.
Regardless, it was like a fist to the gut when bored workers would take his completed application and fling it in a box.
It was a slap in the face when he was told he couldn’t complete an application because of how he looked.
This was at a little café on Ritchie Highway. The hostess had frowned when he asked for an application—reminding him of his grandmother’s constant look of disapproval—and said, “No piercings, no long hair, no tattoos.”
He’d nodded and thanked her, figuring it was just a fluke. An old people’s place.
Then two more stores said the same thing.
Like what he looked like would matter if he was washing dishes or stocking boxes in the back.
By three o’clock, he was bitter and jaded and starving again.
And exhausted. He’d slept in the car all night, but he hadn’t really slept.
His phone chimed, and Hunter immediately thought of Kate.
No. Becca.
You ok? Why aren’t you in school?
His thumb hesitated over the screen—but then he remembered her brush-off, the way she’d whispered about him with Chris. The way she didn’t trust him anymore.
His car was down to a quarter of a tank of gas. He spent a dollar fifty on a bottle of water and told himself it would have to suffice until dinner.