Chapter 22
22
She bounces her left leg nervously when she lies.
He wonders if she knows that.
There's a man in my apartment and I don't know how to act.
Stiff as a statue, I perch on my bed, picking at a loose thread on the knitted blanket covering my bare legs with one hand, stopping Herc from eating my favorite throw pillow with the other, and trying very hard not to look like I’m freaking out as an impossible-to-ignore man inspects every inch of my oh-so-humble abode.
The door is his first victim. As critical eyes assess the slab of wood, Hunter’s face crumples in a frown. “Does that thing even lock?”
“Yes.”
He looks dubious.
“It has a deadbolt.” I contemplate mentioning how stuck that thing tends to get—an additional layer of safety, right?—before deciding against it. “So does the front door.”
Grunting something unintelligible, Hunter inspects the offensive lock thoroughly. He opens and closes the door a million times, crouches down on his haunches to scrutinize the keyhole, twists the knob every which way. By the time he moves on, I’m caught between laughter and tears, between feeling amused by his antics and feeling overwhelmed by the show of concern—an internal war that only grows.
Every window. Every lamp and light fixture. Every kitchen appliance. Every damn tile on the floor. Even my decorations aren’t safe from his careful examination, and I pray for a hazard to appear and take me out when his gaze settles on the ever-growing collection of photos gracing one wall, more than one of which features him.
I'm not a stalker , I telepathically tell him. You're just really freaking photogenic .
Luckily for me, Hunter bypasses the photos without a word. Unluckily for me, his scrutiny lands on me next. He doesn’t sneer , exactly, but he doesn’t look all too impressed either. “You really live here?”
Staring at the fluffy canine body rolling around in my sheets, I nod.
“For how long?”
“A couple months.”
Hunter exhales, heavy and huffed. “ He knows?”
He . I gulp. No prizes for guessing who that is. “I didn’t tell him.”
I neglect to mention that Dad might know anyway. That the list of places I could be is remarkably small—that it wouldn't take a whole lot of brain power to guess my new residence. I don’t want Hunter to… I don’t know. Worry, I guess. More than he already is. Because that’s what he’s doing right? He’s worrying about me.
It’s very strange, and probably a little sick, that his worrying makes something in my chest flutter.
Propping himself against the counter—right next to my pretty apology bouquet—he glances at the bathroom door. “Will looking in there give me a heart attack?”
I picture the peeling laminate floor, the grimy shower head, the busted lightbulb I still haven’t gotten around to changing. “Maybe.”
Those broad shoulders rise with another extended breath, white cotton straining to keep his chest contained. “This isn’t right, Caroline.”
“It’s okay. Really,” I insist. “I like it.”
“I don’t.”
The smile I force hurts my cheeks. “Good thing no one’s asking you to live here.”
Hunter’s shaking head drops as he chuckles wearily, allowing the briefest of relief from that burning gaze before it hits me again, intense and contemplative. “You’re funny, you know. When you’re not trying to make yourself invisible.”
I flush, but don’t bother to deny it—the invisible part, that is. The funny part, I’m not so sure. I wasn’t trying to be. “It’s really not that bad, okay? And it’s not forever.”
Hunter does another sweeping glance of the room. “Needs a good clean. Some paint.” His mouth quirks. “A bulldozer.”
“Ha ha.” The decorative pillow I toss at him is easily caught by those big hands. “Don’t you have work?”
“You want me to leave?”
“You can if you want to.”
Hunter sighs— that’s not what I asked , the frustrated flat line of his mouth says, but hell if I’m giving him a real answer. I think I’ve overexposed myself enough as it is without begging him to stay in the cesspit he thinks my apartment is.
But I don’t want him to go either. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to voice that.
I don’t think I have to.
Letting loose another indecipherable noise, Hunter strides to the exit, but he doesn’t give me a chance to be disappointed. Not when he toes off his boots, not when white-socked feet pad towards me, not when a gruff command to move over has me doing just that with lurchy, timidly— embarrassingly —excited movements.
When the bed dips—and dips and dips and dips some more, and creaks as the frame struggles to hold the weight of a six-foot-six, three hundred pound man—I hold my breath. I wait for the other shoe to drop. I mimic the way he’s sitting, with my legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, my hands in my lap, and I jolt when he gestures to the laptop nestled near the foot of my bed.
“Movie?” he drawls, like this is the most normal thing in the world. “I’ll let you pick.”
“What happened?”
At first, I’m confused. Startled out of half-consciousness. Not expecting the husky whisper after so long of silence, except for the drone of movie after movie. Rolling onto my back, I stretch with a groan, eyes closed as I frown and try to decipher the simple question, to figure out where it came from, who it came from.
It takes a long second to reorient myself. To realize I must’ve dozed off. To remember I’m in my bed, in borrowed sweats that are riding low and a borrowed t-shirt that’s riding high, next to the man I borrowed them from.
My head snaps to the side as my eyes fly open. The sharp breath stuck in my throat has nothing to do with the fast movement making my head hurt, and everything to do with the sight that greets me. The room is dark except for the light coming from my laptop screen, so it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.
And then, it takes a moment longer for my brain to decipher what I’m seeing; Hunter in my bed. Slumped against the wall—I really need to invest in a headboard—with one knee bent, an elbow resting on top of it, and a dog resting on top of him. Long fingers lazily scratch Herc’s curled-up body while the other hand is outstretched towards me, behind me, attached to the thick, padded arm I’m pretty sure I was just using as a pillow. And the—
I gulp.
The top button of his jeans is open. Navy material peeks through the unzipped fly. Unbelted jeans ride low, and Calvin Klein screams at me in white block letters.
Shooting upright, I drag a hand across my mouth, wiping away drool that hopefully doesn’t exist. “What did you say?”
“What happened?” Hunter repeats, and the words have meaning this time. The hand closest to me rises, brushing my lower back. “I wanna know what happened last night.”
Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Maybe it’s because I feel so fragile—mentally, emotionally, physically, all of the above. Maybe I’m just so, so sick of lying. No matter the cause, I still find myself mumbling, “We fought.”
“Why?”
It’s just a question, not an accusation, yet my spine stiffens anyway. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I know, honey.” The bed creaks as Hunter shifts, the inches between us diminishing. “He was drunk?”
Belligerent seems a more accurate description. “Uh-huh.”
“He get drunk a lot?”
I pull my knees up to my chest, shrugging, not strong enough to verbalize the truth.
A loud inhale. A louder exhale. Fingers on my bare skin, sneaking beneath my shirt, following the curve of my spine— soothing . “He hurt you a lot?”
“No.” Not physically, at least. And purposely, never. Not until last night.
What the hell went so wrong last night?
“I, uh, pissed him off.” You didn’t raise me at all. That’s what I said. If I’d kept my mouth shut, it would’ve been fine. So maybe I did do something after all. “He grabbed me.” My chin burns, my knees ache, my scalp stings. “Yelled a little.” All the horrible things he said didn't quite register in the moment, but they do now— bitch was the loudest. Dumb, worthless bitch . “And then I left.”
And then I jumped from a second-story window and ran all the way to Bishop’s, where I proceeded to get drunk for the first time in my life—to drink for the first time in my life—and embarrass myself in front of God knows how many people, including Hunter.
I left is a lot simpler to spit out. And if I left earns the ire suddenly flushing that golden, freckled complexion, I can’t imagine what the longer version would incite.
Herc yips in protest as Hunter sits up. Shooting evil puppy eyes at the man responsible for ruining his snooze, he relocates to the foot of my bed. I watch him curl into a ball and resume his nap, but all the self control in the world couldn’t keep my attention on him when a palm cups the back of my neck and eases my head sideways.
Through gritted teeth, Hunter asks, “Does anyone know? About the drinking?”
“No.” I neglect to mention that Tommy might suspect; my gut tells me bringing him up wouldn’t be wise. But, that I know of, there’s no one else. Sometimes, I wonder if there are suspicions, if any rumors have circulated over the years, but I think I would’ve heard them. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I would never.” Hunter frowns. “But I think you should.”
The sentence is barely out before I’m shaking my head. I know what he means. I know what he thinks I should do, who he thinks I should tell. But he doesn’t know that Haven Ridge’s sheriff is my dad’s drinking buddy. That he’s gambled his wage away in my living room more than once. That one time, he laughed alongside everyone else when I cut my foot on shards of a broken beer bottle and started crying.
No. I can’t run to the police. But I can quietly remind Hunter that, “I did tell someone.”
I’ve never quite gotten the full scope of what it means for someone to soften until this moment. Until I watch the tension bleed out of Hunter and it’s such a visceral, tangible thing, easing every taut muscle and smoothing the harsh lines of his pinched expression and blowing out his pupils. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Guess you did.”
When his mouth opens again, “I should go,” isn’t quite what I’m expecting to hear, but I temper my disappointment. I swallow my initial reaction—an emphatic no —and offer a weak nod instead.
Blink-and-you’ll-miss it quick, Hunter kisses my forehead before swinging his legs over the side of the bed, already on the other side of the room by the time I've processed his lips brushing my skin. “Lock up behind me, yeah?”
“Right.” I scramble off the bed and almost trip over my own feet following him downstairs. “Thank you for everything.”
Scanning me as critically as he did my apartment, Hunter hesitantly cups the crown of my head. “You sure you’re okay?”
My nod is weak, at best.
Hunter sighs. The tiniest bit of pressure is all it takes for me to move readily, walking into arms that wrap around me tightly. Cheek flush against his sternum, I thank him again, the words as muffled as his responding grunt.
Gripping the same brown locks his face is buried in, he gently tugs until I lean back enough to see a strained… smile? Something close to one, but not quite. “You gotta stop thanking me, honey.”
“Sorry.”
“Gotta stop apologizing too.”
“So—” I cut myself off, wrinkling my nose, but the hearty, genuine chuckle I earn is worth the slip-up. The smile, too. The beautiful, wide smile that I match, that fades the same as mine the longer we stare at each other.
Something charged passes between us. Something that feels an awful lot like whatever happened at the wedding. Except this time, Hunter doesn’t run away.
In fact, he does the opposite. The tips of his boots brush my bare toes, his breath warming my skin as he stoops. When lips brush a spot on my cheek tantalizingly, terrifyingly, close to the corner of my mouth, I suck in a breath.
“Line,” he sighs my name, and I can’t quite make out his tone. If it’s defeated or wary or pleading or what. It makes me curious, though. Makes me turn my head slightly.
Only slightly, but just enough that my lips brush his.
We both jolt at the contact. We both pull back. Eyes widen, I open my mouth to apologize.
Once again, I’m cut off.
Because Hunter cuts me off.
Because Hunter slants his lips over mine, stealing the words from my mouth as he kisses me.