Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HUNTER
I wake up confused.
Confused why I’m wearing sweatpants when I normally sleep in my boxers. Confused why there’s someone in my bed. Confused why my alarm is going off and the room is dark.
I squint at the source of light, my stomach sinking and my confusion clearing when I get a good look at the phone screen.
I’m in Eve’s bed. And it’s not my alarm going off.
I roll off her mattress as quickly and as quietly as I can. Eve shifts but doesn’t seem to wake up. I grab my phone and hustle down the hallway into the living room, answering the call as I sink down on the couch.
“Hello?” I croak, reaching over to turn on a lamp and then rubbing at my tired eyes.
“Hey, little brother.”
It’s silent in the background, for once. But that only makes the happy hike in his words more obvious. Makes the false cheer that’s chemically induced sound louder.
“Where are you, Sean?” I ask.
“Home,” he answers simply.
Last I knew, he was renting an apartment a town over from Casper. But I say, “And where’s that?” because I’m not even sure if he still lives there.
“I didn’t call you so that you’d call Dad, Hunter.”
“Then why did you call?”
“Just to say hi,” he tells me cheerfully.
“You called to say hi in the middle of the night, while you’re high ? What the fuck, Sean?”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up any other time.”
Because he only ever calls me when he’s high.
“I always pick up. I always fucking pick up . And then I have to call Dad, wake him up and worry him, just so that I know you’re not lying in a ditch somewhere with a needle in your arm!”
There’s a pause. Then, “I stopped doing heroin.”
I scoff. Rake a hand through my hair. “But you kept doing something else. You have no fucking clue what it’s been like, Sean. For me. For Mom and Dad. How fucking selfish can you be, putting us through the same shit over and over and over again?”
My brother is silent as I rant.
I never talk during these brief conversations. They’re mostly me asking questions, trying to assess what’s happening and how I should respond before he hangs up. But if Sean is telling the truth about being home—and I’m choosing to believe him because I don’t know what else to do at this point—then he doesn’t need to be dragged out of some shady situation. He’s not on the cusp of another poor decision he needs to be pulled away from. He’s as safe as he can be in one of these situations, and I finally have the opportunity to speak.
Or maybe I’ve just given up on rescuing him.
“Don’t fucking call me high again.”
I toss my phone onto the cushion next to me without bothering to hang up, breathing heavily. My heart is pounding like I just got back from a hard run.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I release a long exhale. My eyes feel hot; my throat thick.
“Are you okay?”
My head snaps up. Eve’s hovering at the end of the hallway, the heel of one foot propped against her ankle casually, like she’s prepared to stand in that spot for a while.
“Not really,” I answer honestly.
She nods like that was the response she expected.
And oddly, that’s the reaction I wanted. I’m accustomed to always being the guy people expect to be okay. I’m on time and I’m prepared and I’m capable and I don’t fall apart. It’s freeing to admit that’s not always the case. And even more of a relief not to have the exposure of cracks be met with surprise that they exist.
“Want some tea?” Eve asks.
“Uh, sure.”
She nods, then disappears into the kitchen. I collapse back against the soft pillows, glancing at my phone. It landed screen down, so I flip it over. The call has ended.
Sean hung up.
I thought going off on him would make me feel better. But I don’t. I feel worse, actually.
Eve returns a minute later, carrying two steaming mugs. She passes me one that smells like peppermint.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“No problem.” She sits, cross-legged, on the opposite side of the couch, leaving a couple of feet between us. Blows on her tea. “Woke up and thought maybe you snuck out on me.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I just?—”
“It’s fine, Hunter. I was kidding.” Eve takes a hasty sip of her tea, then winces. “I’m gonna get some ice.”
She hops up before I can offer to get it for her, returning a minute later with a cup full of frozen cubes. She plops two in her mug, then offers it to me.
I take one, then stare at the rapidly melting blob bobbing on the surface. “My brother is a drug addict.”
A sentence I’ve never said aloud before. I’ve never talked about Sean with anyone at Holt, and everyone back home already knew everything. Hard to keep something like that a secret in a small town.
“It started in high school, with oxy. He broke his leg playing hockey. Had a rough recovery and too much downtime. It was all downhill from there. With school, with sports, with drugs. I barely recognize him anymore.”
“I’m so sorry, Hunter.”
I try a sip of the tea. It’s good. Minty.
“I grew up known as Sean Morgan’s little brother. I was always trying to be exactly like him. Dress like him, which was easy wearing his hand-me-downs. Act like him. Sean was popular and smart and charming and a hell of a hockey player. He’s the only reason I started playing.” My eyes remain on my mug, rolling the ceramic cylinder between my palms. “My parents and I have done interventions. They’ve paid for rehab three times. Nothing sticks. It’s like knocking on a front door and no one’s home. He…he only calls me when he’s high, in the middle of the night. I should probably stop answering, but…”
“But he’s your brother.”
I glance at Eve. She’s holding her mug, knees tucked up under her chin now. She looks sad—and sympathetic—but there’s no sign of the pity I’m greeted by every time I go home. “Yeah, exactly. But he’s my brother.”
“I’m sorry, Hunter,” she tells me again.
I get that helpless feeling of not knowing what to say. There’s no easy response to hard situations.
“Thanks.”
She doesn’t break eye contact. Neither do I.
“Do you have any siblings?” I ask.
Her lips twist in a grimace so slight I almost miss it. “Uh…yeah.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
Eve plays with the string attached to her tea bag. “My dad and his wife have two kids. My mom and her boyfriend had a baby right before I left for college. Her boyfriend, John, has a daughter from a previous relationship that he has full custody of. So I have four siblings, I guess, but I sort of feel like an only child. I’m not close with any of them. In age or…otherwise.”
“I’m sorry, Eve.”
“Yeah. It sucks, sometimes.” She leans forward and tilts her mug toward mine. “Cheers to messy families.”
For some reason, I’m certain she’s thinking about the last time we did a cheers .
It makes me smile, a feat that’s normally impossible after a call from Sean. “To messy families.” There’s a soft clink when the ceramic connects. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“You didn’t. I’m having to redo a painting project, so I’ve been in the studio really late the past few nights. I’m on a wacky sleep schedule.”
I glance at the painting by the bookcase. She’s really good. I don’t know shit about art. But Eve’s work is striking. Creative and compelling. The sort of sight that stops you in your tracks.
“Why are you redoing a project?”
“It didn’t turn out right the first time. I was…indecisive.”
I nod, then drain the rest of my tea and grab my phone. “I should, uh, probably get going. Since I’m already up.”
Before falling asleep, I set my alarm for seven. Neither Aidan nor Conor were home when I stopped by after the library before coming here. They must have gone to the lax party, so I doubt either of them will be up early, but I’d rather not have to explain where I spent the night.
I’m not ready to tell them about Eve. I don’t even know what there is to tell. We’re graduating in a matter of weeks. I haven’t decided where I’ll be headed in the fall. And it feels massively presumptuous to ask Eve if she’s open to a long-distance relationship after one night together. Now that I know she’s not back together with her ex, that they’re not going to get back together, it feels like I have a little more time.
Eve nods too, setting her mug on the coffee table right next to a stack of marine biology textbooks. “Right. Yeah, of course.”
I hook a thumb in the direction of her bedroom. “Just going to grab my sweatshirt.”
“I think it’s by my desk,” she says before heading into the kitchen with our empty mugs.
Eve turned a lamp on when she got up. The bed—and our jumbled clothes—are bathed by a soft glow as I grab my sweatshirt off the floor and tug it on.
Her sketchbook is sitting on top of her desk, open to a clean page. I grab a pen out of the cup on her desk and scribble my number on the blank sheet. I have Eve’s number from Conor, but since I never texted her, she doesn’t have mine.
When I return to the living room, she’s waiting by the doorway that leads to their front door. Foot propped against her ankle again.
“So, what’s the verdict?” I ask, sticking my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie.
Her forehead wrinkles. “Verdict?”
“You know. Am I good at bowling and sex?”
“Oh.” She huffs the syllable, then rolls her eyes.
I know the answer. She came three times. And she doesn’t have to admit it. I just enjoy teasing her.
I reach out, running my thumb along her jaw before tilting her chin up.
When Eve’s eyes meet mine, they’re surprised. I think she expected me to rush out of here after Sean’s call.
I’m still in a weird headspace from it, honestly. A little startled by my own behavior. By the realization that I have a breaking point. And not just with my brother.
Eve holds the power to wreck me, and I’m fairly certain she has no idea.
Like now, when she bites her bottom lip.
My thumb moves higher, pulling it free from her teeth.
“I think about kissing you every damn time you do that,” I confess.
Her eyes widen. And then she tilts her head. Bites her lip again.
“Do it,” she whispers.
It’s been a long time since I kissed a girl just to kiss her. There’s usually an expectation of something else to come later. But this—now—I just want to kiss her. And it feels like I finally can. So I do.
We’re both breathing heavily when we break apart.
Some of her hair has fallen out of the bun it was pulled back in.
I tuck a rogue strand behind her ear. “Which game did you go to last season?”
“Uh…” She thinks. “I don’t remember the name of the other team. They had gray jerseys on, I think?”
Rochester State or Olympia, then. I can look up how I played in those games later.
“You had two assists.”
I still, wondering if I accidentally spoke aloud. How else would Eve know why I’m wondering? If I’d known she was there, it probably would have been my best performance of the season.
“I mean, I think it was two.”
Her cheeks are red again.
And this thing between us? It doesn’t feel anywhere close to over.