“I really don’t know yet. She’s smart enough, and kind . . .”
“But?”
“But we work together. It could get uncomfortable if things don’t work out.” I shrugged. “In the girl department, things don’t usually work out. It’s not their fault. I’m . . . I guess you could say . . . more work-focused.” Just thinking of work gave me a little thrill. I really couldn’t wait to get back to it.
“How are you so confident?” I asked, glancing at Hunter’s legs. “So positive?”
Hunter gripped the steering wheel. A rush of warm wind funneled through the car. “It’s true. I could be a miserable prick and I’d have some right to be. People would forgive me for it too, for a while. But why would I want that? You’ve only got one life, and I want to make the most of mine. I’m not saying sometimes life doesn’t fucking suck, but I choose to focus on good stuff. That’s the guy I want to be.”
I glanced up in time to catch his wink.
“Any other questions you got there, Liam?”
Actually, I had quite a few. In fact, I’d even written some down a few nights ago in my notebook. I lifted myself just enough off the chair to reach my pocket. “Yes.”
“Holy shit. Quinn wasn’t joking. I’ve heard of this infamous notebook. This should be interesting. Fire away.”
I leafed to the back where I’d jotted down a few curiosities. “Okay,” I said. “I have some personal questions that I’m curious about. I’ll list them, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“You want to know how I go to the bathroom, right?” he said, lifting his brows. “And whether my junk still works.”
In fact, those were two of my questions, though I’d have phrased them differently. “Yes.”
“Well, I have a catheter.” He pointed toward his leg. “A leg bag. I presume you know how that works?”
I nodded. “Do you always wear it?”
“I can go a few hours without, but yeah, I wear it most of the time.” He watched carefully for my reaction which, other than a brief wince, wasn’t much of one. I certainly didn’t envy his position, but I understood it.
“As for the other stuff, I have a pretty good routine, but sometimes—once or twice a year—I have an accident.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t think it was either, but Hunter stiffened and a light blush touched his cheeks. “But that’s just life. I know how to deal with it.”
“Sure. And what about intercourse?”
Hunter chuckled. “Paraplegics can still have sex. I do, and I really enjoy it.” He curled his muscles again. “I’m strong, and other than doing it standing, I can pretty much fuck how I want. Using the chair can make things rather adventurous, too. And—because I know you’re wondering—I have my orgasm in the mind. Smelling, kissing, touching, watching a guy come undone . . . you have no idea how much that attracts me.”
I wrote down his answer, tracing over it with my pen.
These topics needed to be talked about more openly. It would have made a fascinating article for Scribe. Could have been my end-of-semester feature, except that Quinn made it clear he didn’t like me using him or his friends as angles for my stories.
“Thank you for sharing. I didn’t know much about any of this.”
Hunter nodded and glanced toward the street, running a hand through his hair to spike it up. “Sure.”
I stared at one of my other questions and licked my dry lips before I asked it. “You’ve known Quinn a long time, right? Were you and he ever together?”
Hunter cocked his head and studied me, a whisper of a smile nudging the corner of his lips. “When did you come up with that question? Never mind—no. Quinn and I were friends, he was the first guy I came out to, but we were never attracted to each other like that.”
I ticked off the question with a larger-than-usual stroke of my pen—
Tap-tap-tap.
I jerked at the tapping on my car door at the same time Hunter cracked into a smile.
“So much for our suave stalking,” he said under his breath. “He found us first.”
Mitch rested his arms on the car window sill and sent us a puzzled look. A dark yellow T-shirt clung tightly to his chest, and coppery hair glinted golden red in the sun.
“I saw you guys,” he said, a touch nervously, keeping his eyes on Hunter. “What are you doing around here?”
I deferred the question to Hunter, and pressed myself further back into the seat so they could see each other better. Probably now was a good time to think of an excuse and slip out of the car, leaving Hunter and Mitch to their serendipity.
“I was hoping to run into you,” Hunter said, “but I guess this will have to do.”