Cameron seemed satisfied with that, but Hugh looked doubtful. His dark, intelligent eyes searched my own until he finally decided against probing any further.
“Anyway. We’re all back together now. And I’m so happy you’re both doing what you love. Remember how we’d talk about you two becoming the dream team of a cop and investigative journalist? You’re living that dream, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I loved it when we all huddled together in the library. And I guess we have all made it, more or less. Although I still believe Hugh should be applying for jobs at the New York Times, or Reuters or something.”
My heart glowed knowing that Cameron remembered those chats that meant so much to me.
“I’ve got some contacts at the Los Angeles Times. If you want, I could probably get you an interview.” An old boyfriend of mine was some sort of entertainment editor there, but I didn’t want to tell him that part. I took a long sip of my delicious wine, which came from a welcome basket in the bungalow.
Hugh didn’t even pause before shaking his head vigorously, sending his wet curly bangs bouncing adorably across his forehead. “Thanks, but I like being a big fish in a small pond. I can get actual results here, and my editor gives me the freedom to investigate whatever I like. At a bigger paper, I’d have to satisfy advertisers and avoid offending anyone.”
I nodded with genuine understanding. “Yes, I can see why avoiding causing offense would be difficult for you.”
Hugh had a heart of gold, but his no-nonsense way of talking could definitely piss off people who expected to be treated with kid gloves.
“Can you go to my parent’s house and explain that to my mom then, please? She thinks I should be on CNN or something, and she can’t understand why I care so much about local land zoning issues.”
To be honest, I didn’t understand why Hugh would care about land zoning either. It sounded like the most boring topic on earth. But his unwavering passion for justice and fairness fascinated me, so I knew it was best to encourage whatever sparked his interest.
“Hmm, yes, land zoning,” I said, adopting what I hoped was a thoughtful tone. “A very important issue.”
He grinned knowingly. “You don’t know what land zoning is, do you?”
“Nope,” I said, laughing, and Hugh threw a small handful of chips at me in response. “What? I’m a mere fashion influencer; I don’t have to know about that kind of thing.”
We sat for a minute in comfortable silence, eating chips and drinking, until the question that had been playing on my mind all evening finally burst from my lips. “So, any girlfriends?”
“We’re single at the moment,” Hugh replied swiftly.
I watched carefully as they glanced at each other, and Hugh gave Cameron the nod to say something further. I braced myself to find out just how wise I’d been to avoid looking at their Instagram.
“There’s not been many, really,” Cameron said, and I released a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “Nothing long-term at all. The most serious one was probably Hannah, but she turned out to be a bit crazy, so—”
“Wait.” I held my hand up, stopping him mid-sentence. “Not Hannah Decker?” It was a small town; how many twenty-something Hannahs could there be?
“Yup,” Hugh said through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to block out a terrible memory. “She seemed nice at first, but when she didn’t get a proposal within two months of dating, she started getting weird. Leaving printouts from jewelers’ sites in the car, changing my ringtone to Here Comes the Bride. Really nuts.”
An admittedly unreasonable ball of anger formed in my stomach. “Well, I could have told you she was nuts. She played volleyball for Rothbury High, and when we played against her she broke into our changing room and cut up all our uniforms.”
“Yikes,” Cameron said.
“Exactly.”
I couldn’t believe my mortal enemy had dated Hugh. Or was it Cameron? He’d made it sound that way. “So, did you date her, Hugh?” I asked while I topped up our wine and re-filled the chip bowl. It was almost one in the morning, and the wedding was starting at ten, but I was having too much fun learning about my guys to even consider going to bed.
“We both did, together,” Hugh answered.
They both dated Hannah?
“So whoever dated her first didn’t warn the other, or whoever dated her second didn’t believe the warning?”
“No. Nothing like that. We both dated her at the same time.”
She got the experience I should have had? My blood ran cold.
“Oh.” I tried to sound unshaken, but my voice cracked, despite my only uttering a single syllable.
“You must have realized that was something we were into,” Cameron said gently, leaning toward me from the other couch. “You know, after what happened that night.”