Page 70 of If the World Was Ending

She looked at him for a few moments. He could hear her brain thinking and overthinking—and worrying. She worried endlessly about Hunter. “If it doesn’t work out, there’s no shame.”

“What? Acting?” She nodded, and Hunter scowled. “Mom. This is it working out. I have two roles in one year. Big ones. I star in a movie, and I’ve got a speaking role in a romcom with names—real names—starring in it. I know you don’t get how this works, but this is my dream coming true.”

Her face softened, her gaze moving to the tabletop while her cheeks pinked a bit. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I don’t know how this works. I just see you hustling all the time, and I don’t see that ever ending. I like to think of you as secure. Like with a pension and the safety of a steady paycheck. Do you remember Ming?”

He tried not to give his mother a very clear are you fucking serious? glare. “You mean Ming, my former girlfriend for almost two years?”

“Yes. She’s single again. It didn’t work out with that boy she dated after you,” Catherine explained. “Anyway, her mother told me Ming has a friend named Phillippe who is an assistant director right here in Montreal.”

“Okay.” He had no idea where she was going with this.

“He works on a French show. It’s a popular show. It’s steady work. In entertainment. In Montreal.”

Hunter tried not to sigh. “I’m not an assistant director, Mom. I’m an actor.”

“Yes, but there must be acting work in Montreal too. In two languages, which you speak, so double the opportunity!”

“I’m sure there is, but even with both languages, there’s more work in Los Angeles. And I really like it there.” Hunter tried not to grimace on that last part.

He did love LA. He loved it before Colby, and he would love it after Colby, if this were the “after Colby” part of his life. He wasn’t sure. The idea that it might be made him nauseous and bone-deep sad, so he tried not to think about it.

“But you could save money here because you could move back in with me.”

“Mom, even if for some reason I did move back to Montreal, I’m not moving in with you,” Hunter said, almost laughing. “I’m a full-grown adult. I need my own space.”

“So some musician girl can bruise you on the regular?”

Hunter’s mouth fell open. He stared at her, and his mother had the good sense to blush at her own words. She waved a hand between them. “I know a hickey, Hunter. I’ve even had one before.”

“Stop. No. We are not having this conversation,” Hunter said and shook his head. “I told you it was a work injury.”

“Mmm hmmm.” Catherine smiled. “Speaking of musicians, is your touring roommate still paying rent?”

“What?”

“The boy who you went to see. Who moved in after Leandra?” Catherine said. “Who is touring with whoever gave you the?—”

“Mom!” He was not going to clarify that Colby was the person responsible for the hickey. “Yeah. He still pays rent. For now.”

“Is he moving back in when he’s done with the music tour?”

“I think so.”

He hadn’t heard from Colby since he left his hotel room. But then again, he’d turned his phone off at four in the morning and left it off all day. Because from the moment he got home until four, he doom-scrolled Instagram and TikTok looking at videos from Colby’s shows. And posts about Hannah and Colby. He spent a full half hour on a Reddit thread analyzing “are they or aren’t they” dating. That had sucked more than the pictures of them—a lot of which he hadn’t stumbled on before because Colby wasn’t posting them.

He tried to tell himself that the pictures were staged, but it didn’t stamp out the jealous feelings that twisted his stomach when he saw them. Especially the candid stuff that fans caught of Hannah and Colby in a booth at an all-night diner after a show. The way he wiped ketchup off her lip with his thumb. The unguarded smile, deep enough to show his dimple, that he gave her as she talked about something with flailing hands. That was real Colby, not fake Colby. His best friend. His… former best-friend-with-benefits. That’s what made it impossible to ignore the jealousy, so he didn’t turn his phone back on all day.

“Hunter.” He snapped his focus back to his mom. He’d tuned out entirely. He hadn’t even noticed the waiter come up to the table with the pretzel.

“Thanks!” He told him as the waiter set the giant, warm, doughy thing down between him and his mother. He slid a long, narrow platter with four different ramekins filled with sauces down next, then smiled and walked away.

“Something is wrong with you, Hunter. I’m not stupid,” Catherine said as he reached for the pretzel and pulled off a warm, chewy piece. “Just tell me.”

He decided to stumble through something as close to the truth as he could give her. “I liked someone and they… It’s not going to work out.”

His mom’s pensive stare rippled with surprise, and he knew she was trying to picture what this girl might look like. She reached for her own piece of pretzel as Hunter dipped his in the cheddar sauce. “The hickey artist. I knew it.”

“We were never officially anything, but it still kind of sucks.” He popped the pretzel into his mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the treat. He hadn’t eaten bread in… a long time. He had been doing a carb-free diet on set, mostly because the star of Staycation, Alyssa, had banned gluten from Craft services, so the closest he’d come to bread was a tortilla.