Free Hunter (Broken Bad Boys 1): A New Adult Bad Boy Romance by Skylar Heart

away over the floor as Lizzy flees once again.
    “I’m… I’m sorry. I thought she knew.” Tamara tries to talk to me, but I can’t do this. I stub out the cigarette and rush after Lizzy.
    I find Lizzy in the hallway, her shoulders shaking, her back to me. “Lizzy?” I keep my voice quiet, careful.
    “You can’t do this, Hunter. You can’t keep doing this.” Her voice shakes as much as her body.
    “What can’t I do?” I want to touch her, comfort her, but I keep to myself.
    “Treat me special, make me things, and then lie about it.” She looks up at me, her eyes and cheeks wet. Even when she’s upset with me, she looks stunning.
    Of course I can, I’m a free man. But I guess she has a point too. We’re supposed to be friends, and I’m totally overstepping my boundaries here. “I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not the right kind of girl for you.”
    I bristle. Who is she to decide? But the look she gives me makes the words die in my mouth.
    “I’m going to change out of this, you’re going to take it back, and we’ll never speak of it again.” She marches into the bathroom. Leaving me alone in the hallway. This girl is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
    I thought that after Tessa, a girl would never look at me that way again—that combination of attraction and heartbreaking pain. A look that tells me that we need to stop doing this for our own good. That there is no way this will end well. That if we combine our dark pasts, we may never recover from it.

Chapter 9
Lizzy
    A fter everything that happened on Monday, I ran out of the workshop and immediately went home. I didn’t even go to American lit. Again… And then yesterday, seeing Hunter in our advanced drawing class was weird—he was even early, something he never is. In this short amount of time, just these last few weeks, I’ve come to expect his short and clipped words, his dry humor. But I know this can’t happen. Not for him, not for me. We need some time apart before we can see how we can interact in a normal friendly way. It all went way too fast. So, instead of sitting at the same side of the room, I took a seat as far away from him as possible. It wasn’t easy and actually it was quite lonely, but I need to do this.
    I don’t want a relationship. I don’t need one. They never end well. At some point people always figure out I have an eating disorder, and either it freaks them out or they get turned on by it. I’m not sure which of the two I hate more, to be honest. There is just so much weirdness going on in my life. I can’t use the distraction now. I need to move on, I need to keep going, I need to focus on college and my art. That is all.
    When I come up the stairs for art history on Wednesday morning, Hanna loops her arm through mine, glaring at Hunter. His bruises haven’t gotten much better and I feel bad for constantly ignoring him. He looks… hurt, more in pain than he normally does.
    When Hanna realizes that I’m not planning go over to him, she decides that I’ve become her very best friend. Her friendly chatter is exactly what I need. Girl talk. Talking about things to do, things to see. Just normal life.
    Luckily I’m swamped in coursework, so between the two classes I’ve got today and all the homework, I’m kept quite busy.
    “Let’s go to the library.” Hanna pulls me along as we leave the lecture hall before Hunter can even pack his bag.
    I let out a sigh, but I guess it’s better than the cafeteria, which she wanted last week. I pull my bag up high as I follow her. We’ve got just over two hours before our literature class starts and I’m pretty sure I haven’t finished the homework yet.
    Even when I decide not to be distracted by a guy, I still get distracted by not being distracted. By not wanting to be distracted.
    I’m hopeless.

    * * *
    I ’m tired —no, exhausted. I couldn’t sleep last night and my mind has been all over the place. All over the place but nowhere useful. I’m not sure