Chapter 35 - KMCF

"I-I," Jennifer's vision was starting to get blurry and tears were starting to fall out, she was extremely overwhelmed with emotions. "I've loved you for as long as I can remember and hearing you say all of that makes me so happy, but I'm also-" She took a couple seconds to catch her breath and brush off the running tears. "Very scared." She burst into tears again.

"Why-"

"What if I can't help you? What if you're in pain and I can't help you? What if we end up breaking up and we can never be friends again? Hunter, what if it doesn't work out?" Hunter handed Jen a box of tissues near his foot. He waited for her to stop crying and wipe her eyes. These were questions she never thought of until now.

"I don't know," he said, words Jennifer wasn't expecting him to even mention. "I'm just as scared as you are. What if the paparazzi is too much for you? What if I'm too busy with work and have no time for you? What if you get tired of everything and leave? I'm scared too. But none of those things have happened yet and they might never happen. As we move forward, we'll figure out how to prevent those things from turning into our future, rather than worrying that they might."

She nodded in agreement, Hunter was right. "Yeah," she answered in a soft, hard to hear voice. "Yeah!" she again answered with more confidence after realizing the question she was answering.

A big grin formed along his lips, "yeah?" She shook her head enthusiastically.

She smiled, one of the brightest he'd ever seen. "I'll be your girlfriend."

Girlfriend, the word had a little spark in it. Jen knew, her cheeks were red right after she said it. Girlfriend. Hunter's girlfriend to be exact, the man she never thought would think to ask.

He wrapped his arms around her, instantly placing her in a hug. It took a short time for her to wrap hers around him. His scent wrapped around her nose, pure bliss. The scent of fresh and warm laundry, and a dash of expensive cologne. And her shampoo--strawberries and pomegranate--aroused his senses. In a matter of seconds, he pulled away just enough to look at her face. She smiled while her blue eyes glimmered under his gaze. He pondered on the idea that this was a dream. Having her here. In his arms. So close to him. He had her like this before, but this was different. There was no guilt riding on his back and there was no shame he felt for just looking at her. She was his and he was hers, no question about it. To prove it even further, he traced his thumb all about her cheeks and just a tiny bit above her lips. And just as he was doing so, he couldn't help but smile a bit.

** **

**Jennifer's POV**

"Sorry that I can't stay longer," I said once we had gotten out of the car.

He waved away my apology, "it's fine." and then flashed one of those charming smiles, the ones that make you feel warm inside.

I smiled too, a real one while I stared at him. His emerald eyes were glowing and I couldn't stop staring. I mean, we couldn't stop staring at each other. Maybe we believed that if we looked elsewhere, one of us would slip away; or maybe we didn't want to depart. Whatever reason it may have been, we stood and stared for what seemed to be a very long time.

"Uhm," I started off, hoping a topic would come to mind. Nothing did, however the wind did come by. It blew our clothes and unfortunately, my hair. My hair transitioned from being tamed to being all over my face and slipping into my mouth. I took a moment to myself to just groan, during that, Hunter made the effort to brush away every strand from my view, only leaving the view of him chuckling. "Thanks," I managed.

Just when Hunter was about to reply, the two men who stood not so close, but not so far away spoke up. "Mr. Manning." They called as though there was something urgent.

He looked at them and nodded and then looked back at me. "They're more like babysitters than bodyguards," he whispered. "I'll call you, okay?"

"Ye-" I cleared my throat, "yeah."

"I'll see you later." He took my hand in his and for a few seconds caressed it before letting go. He was about to turn towards the car by the curb when I grabbed his hand. Why did I do that? I didn't know, but I knew I had to come up with a quick excuse.

"Uh," I was stuck, but Hunter seemed to be enjoying the situation."Uhm, when?" I finally said. His face read, confused and I took my question a step further. "When will you call?"

He smirked. "Around ten," I slowly let go and began to nod my head. This time he really did get inside the car without any interference from my part. He waved goodbye through the window as he drove off.

I shut my eyes just for a bit and let out all the air I didn't even know I sucked in. This was too good to be true. A very, very small part of me wasn't at rest with all of this, something wasn't feeling right. I sighed once more and then turned to face reality, Anders. I wasn't sure if Miranda and maybe Marcos saw, either way I was sure to be questioned.

When I stepped in, the first thing I saw was Miranda using her laptop with half a sandwich by it. I figured the store was on a lunch break. "Jen!" She shrieked once she caught sight of me. "How was it? Something good happened, I bet." She wiggled her eyebrows and put on a goofy grin.

"Why do you assume something good happened?" I questioned as I placed my bag on the counter. "What if it went horribly and tremendously bad? For all you know, Hunter and I could've had a fight."

There was a short silence and then she spoke up."Yeah, but nothing like that happened. And you wanna know how I know that?" I rolled my eyes and tried hard not to smile. "Your cheeks have probably been blushing a lot which would make sense for why they're still red; also, sometimes your eyes sparkle when you're happy and that's exactly what they're doing; and lastly, you're doing a terrible job of trying not to smile." She closed her sentence with a confident look smeared all over her face which only made me hate her superpower even more.

"You're right, something good did happ-" there was an interruption coming from Miranda's phone, it was when she turned it off that I realized it was an alarm ending our lunch break. "I'll tell you later," I teased.

She groaned loudly before gathering her things, "then I'm coming over."

"You can come over, but you can't sleep over," I said, remembering the call I was going to receive from Hunter. I just didn't want to be interrupted or watched when the call came in.

She put on another goofy grin. "Why? Will someone else be taking my place instead?" She winked playfully. "Someone whose name starts with an H?"

"This is me ignoring you," I placed my hands over my ears and began to walk away from her. She laughed in response.

** **

"Next time, leave the baking to me. Okay?"

He meowed softly. I wiped off the last of the brownie batter from his whiskers. Ozzy presumed it would be a great idea to lick the leftover batter, only he accidentally fell in. It wasn't as bad as it would've been, the bowl was nearly clean. I spent the next ten to fifteen minutes cleaning him off before Miranda would show up.

"What was that? I can't hear you," He meowed louder before hopping off the table and leaving the kitchen. "Don't forget who feeds you!" I called out right before my door bell rang.

Without a second guess in my mind, I knew Miranda was at the door. She enjoyed ringing the bell two times and one really long time. "You know, normal people just ring the doorbell once and patiently waits." I glared once I had opened the door.

"Well, normal people don't let a cat pick out their outfits." She retorted while stepping in.

I playfully rolled my eyes. "Normal people would if they had a cat like mine."

"Then they wouldn't be considered normal anymore." Miranda laughed when finishing up the end of her sentence. Her contagious laughter got me laughing as well. "Soo," she plopped herself onto my sofa. "I want to know everything down to the last blink. I bought some snacks, but knowing you I'm sure you already baked something." She patted the seat next to her and smiled so brightly.

I pivoted from her invitation and went straight to the kitchen to get the plate of brownies. Then proceeded to sit next to my overly excited best friend. While Miranda went ahead and stuffed her face with brownies, I called out to Ozzy. Though, he might've been angry with me, I wanted his warmth and comfort. As a compromise, he placed himself nearer the sofa arm.

"We have food, Ozzy, and a nice air conditioner. Now, what happened between you and Hunter today?" Miranda asked with much eagerness.

"I went over to his place, so we could talk, but we ended up taking a car ride all over the city."

I told Miranda everything, but left out the really deep secrets that I figured wouldn't be right to even tell my best friend. Everything from his hotel chain to his women pain. Occasionally, Miranda interrupted with a comment or two, but it didn't steer away from the actual story. And Ozzy took short naps in between.

"Can you repeat that again?" In utter shock, Miranda asked.

I smiled, her reaction reminded me of my own when I heard the exact same thing. "He said he loved me. And then he placed my hand on his chest and told me of the risks of us being together, but in the end he said he'll never stop loving me and that he'll try his best not to hurt me again."

Miranda frantically waved her hands, "rewind. What happened when your hand was on his chest?"

"I could feel his heartbeat. I never knew his heart could beat so fast or beat at all. I thought I was the only one who got nervous or scared. Just knowing he was experiencing what I was made my heart flutter." I averted my eyes just for a few seconds, I felt shy about what I was going to say next. "I love him."

She started to rub my back, "Tell me you're not going to cry. Are you going to cry?"

I didn't shake my head no, till I finished laughing. There weren't any tears ready to fall when things were getting and feeling brighter. "Hunter asked me out, so I have no reason to cry."

Miranda practically jumped from her seat, causing me to feel even happier. "You said yes, right?!" She tapped me about a hundred times before I could give her an answer.

I smiled, "yes, I said yes." Miranda fell backwards into the sofa with relief and satisfaction. Like, as if her favourite sports player managed to score a point for their team with hardly any interference. However, her content filled face easily turned into uneasiness. "What's wrong?"

"You're dating Hunter, Jen." A frown slowly began to emerge. "Not just childhood friend Hunter, but the one wrapped around the media, power, and a not so great past."

"I know-"

"I know you know, but can you really imagine a relationship where you can't even kiss in public without being photographed? I'm not trying to ruin your mood or keep you from dating Hunter, but think about it. You'll be the Jennifer Anderson that dated Hunter Manning, not just Jennifer anymore."

I sighed, not because I was upset, but because I was also worried and scared. Still, I thought of what Hunter had said earlier. "If you wanted to be with someone so badly, but there are a few obstacles in the way, wouldn't you face them? I mean, what I'm trying to say is that the benefits outweigh the potential risks. Like Hunter said, why worry about it when we can work to solve it beforehand." In a few seconds, Miranda's face showed she admitted defeat.

"My Jenni's growing up," she wiped away a fake tear while I playfully rolled my eyes. "But, it doesn't mean I'm not still worried about you and Mr. Handsome."

"Of course, we're best friends after all." This time I rubbed her back and handed her a brownie from the bowl resting on my coffee table. "It's what we do, Miranda."

She happily took a bite before continuing to speak, "you really are growing up."

** **

I had just stepped into my condo after walking Miranda to her car. It took me a couple minutes to clean up the mess made by Miranda and I, but mostly Miranda. I also had to package every baked goods and snacks in the fridge or cupboards before heading to my bedroom. It didn't long for Ozzy to knock out near the bathroom door. It was pretty late, almost twelve and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep. But that was when I remembered that Hunter was supposed to call me at ten.

Two missed calls. Almost immediately, I called Hunter back. He picked up after the third ring. "Hi," I said after breathing a sigh of relief.

"Hi," he replied. From the sound of his voice, I figured he was smiling.

Because I got distracted by how deep and how his voice suddenly sounded sexier, I repeated the same thing. "Hi," I gave myself a quick face palm.

Hunter laughed and went along with it, "hi."

"I'm sorry that I missed your calls," I began to lay down on my bed. "I came home late and Miranda came over and I just lost track of time. Sorry."

"Jen, it's fine. We're talking right now, so it's fine." He reassured. "Maybe we should talk tomorrow though, you're probably tired."

He was right, like always, but I wanted to talk to him longer. "No, it's fine." I pretended to play it off like it wasn't a big deal.

"You're tired."

"I'm not," I lied.

"Jen, you are tired," Hunter said, emphasizing every single word.

"Not."

It was quiet on Hunter's side and I thought maybe he was starting to believe my lie or at least give up, but instead he chuckled. "I'm betting that in five minutes you'll fall asleep."

"Bet all you want, but I'm not the least bit tired." Ironically, my eyes felt like they were malfunctioning roller shades. Constantly being pulled up whenever they were being dragged down.

"Then would you like to hear about my day?" He asked oh-so suspiciously. But, I quickly didn't mind as long as we got off the topic of sleep. "Right after I left Anders, I had a some business meetings I had to go to. One involved the idea of new types of escalators, Levytators. It replaces the traditional rectangular steps with curved modules that also allows the modules to be placed in a continuous loop. Not only does this open up the design possibilities for architects, it could also cut energy usage in half compared to conventional escalators. However, because of its-"

"Hunter," I spoke up in a soft voice, it was as close to a shout as I could get. "I know what you're doing. You're purposely trying to make me fall asleep."

He laughed, "how? I'm only telling you about my day."

"By making it as dull as ever and you're speaking in a monotonous voice." My last few words fell under a mumble and I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I thought that maybe if I closed them for a bit, I could open them again, charged and alert. I was wrong. Still, I managed to mumble some more words before I dozed off, too soft for Hunter to hear.

"Hello? Jen?" I could hear my name being called over and over again, but I was far from responding. "Jen? Jen? Helloo?"

** **

It's been forever. And I know, I'm sorry, I don't have as much time to myself anymore. Anyway, here is chapter 35, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I also hope this helped you escape from the fact that Trump is the president of the United States.

VOTES AND COMMENTS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED.

Site credit: https://www.google.com/amp/embedded#vgi=12204160319510065687&amp=http%253A%252F%252Fnewatlas.com%252Fthe-levytator%252F20111%252F%253Famp%253Dtrue&ampidx=0