Chapter 29 #3
I slam the last plate down a little more forcefully than I intend to, needing the blanket of anger to fortify my resolve while I wait for it to come.
Wait for Hunter to lash out, kick me out, slap me in the face.
I count every beat of my heart, every breath, doing whatever I can to keep my ribcage from collapsing in on itself. When he finally speaks, I flinch.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” he says, his voice lacking the usual Hunter tenor.
It takes a second to register that he’s non-confrontational. He didn’t do anything the raw ball of anxiety expected him to do.
“Which thing? I said a lot of things,” I croak.
“That you saw me as your father figure.”
“Always, Hunt. I thought you knew that.”
He bites his lip, shaking his head, pure disbelief clouding him. “I didn’t know. I’ve been pushing so hard against you dating a man twice your fucking age because I thought I’d totally fucked this up.” Hunter gestures between me and him.
“This?”
“Y’know, raising you right. I want … all the best things for you,” he forces out, breaking down. His voice rasps, and he wipes at the tears that re-wet the blood on his face, smearing it around.
“Oh, Hunt. You have. You’re everything to me. Keeping this from you’s been killing me. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t give him up. I’m so head over heels in fricking love with him.”
“I thought you, uh, that you had some kind of Daddy issues going on. I was considering making you see someone about it.”
I shake my head. “Nope. I have a great Dad. No Daddy issues in sight.”
“C’mere, kid.” I wander into his powerful construction-man arms. He traps me there, crushing me.
“For the first few months after we left Mom, I felt so fucking guilty. It was probably the most selfish thing I’ve done.”
I pull halfway out of his arms so I can see his face. “What do you mean, Hunt?”
“I wasn’t strong enough,” he says, his deep voice broken. “I couldn’t watch her destroy herself anymore—especially when I knew it wasn’t getting better. I gave up on her and made you do it, too.”
“Don’t you dare call yourself selfish. I watched you breaking yourself to keep us afloat, Hunt. If we’d stayed with Mom, we woulda drowned with her. You had to make the kind of choice that breaks most people.”
My voice cracks. “Most people hang on until they perish, too. You saw it sooner than I could have, and I’m grateful you got us out. If that’s selfish, then I’m selfish, too.”
“I wanted her back so bad. I kept trying and failing; nothing worked. The worse it got, the more I worried we wouldn’t make it. Still wish for that fucking miracle, like an idiot, though,” he says.
“Hunter. Staying would have been the selfish choice—the foolish choice. What, just so you could say you were there? Go down with the ship? It would have changed nothing.”
He tilts his head. He hadn’t thought about it like that before. “You’re right. Shit, I …” he trails off.
“If we’d stayed, we would have more scars, more heartbreak, more emotional damage. Instead, we got by with a few bumps and bruises.” But even as I say that, I know Hunter’s got more than a little road rash from the Mom crash out.
I’m the lucky one.
He takes a breath. “Okay, I believe you, and I’m gonna try to let go of that guilt, and I guess I have to admit that…
” he huffs a sigh. “If you’re wise enough to help me crawl out of my childhood trauma, even a little bit, you’re wise enough to choose who you love, too.
I’m not sorry for punching him in the face. ”
I laugh. “I doubt he’s sorry for breaking your nose.”
He pulls me in for another hug, his ribcage rises and falls a few times before he finally releases me. Hunter pats my face. “Maybe I’ll ship you off to school in Greece.”
“Ah, about that.”
“You don’t want to go to school. I know.”
“How?”
“I’ve seen you happier while sitting through my—what do you call them?—Hunter brand TED talks on responsibility.”
“I’m that bad of an actor, eh?”
“To me you are. And you weren’t fooling me about Travis either, for the record. I was trying to limit your time with him until the season started. I thought you’d work him outta your system in small doses.”
I grin—that’s kind of endearing for the big lug.
“But about school, I’m good to my word, Hunt. I said I’d go, and I will.”
He crosses his arms, studying me. “I have half a mind to hold you to that.”
I take a sharp inhale.
“And if you think I’m the kind of ‘father figure’ that’s gonna give you some song and dance about not doing things ‘just’ to make me happy, you don’t know me so well. I’d accept you doing it to please me if it got you there. I think post-secondary school’s important.”
I deserve a fucking award for not pointing out that he never went to post-secondary school, but I’m sensing a but. Please, for the love of god, say there’s a but. I’ll stick to my word, buuuuut kinda hoping he’ll let me off the hook.
“But,” he says. “I’m also a sucker for seeing you happy, and watching you miserably fill out those applications was killing me. Going through it was good, though. Made me realize that it’s never too late. You can have a long hockey career and go to school later.”
I sigh. “In other words, I’m not off the hook for that one yet.”
“Nope.” He grins. “The money will be there for you when you need it. Besides, I don’t exactly have it right now … I gave the money to Mom.”
“What? Hunter.”
“I’d sorta given up on you ever going. I was fucking shocked when you said you would. I’d have replenished a year’s worth by the time you had your first semester, but this way I have time to build it up.”
I don’t bother arguing that he doesn’t need to pay for school for me. I know he won’t have it any other way.
“That’s why you’ve been working overtime.”
He nods.
“Hunt, you gotta stop giving her money like that. Please.”
Hunter shrugs as the oven timer goes off. “Alright, invite your friends in. I’m gonna clean my face.”
“Um, Trav, too?”
“Yeah.” He’s still not happy about it, but he’s allowing Trav in his home. That’s no small thing in Hunter’s world. His home is his sanctuary. I can build off that.
Speaking of Trav, he must be pacing a path through the deck by now.
I open the front door and lean my head out, thinking I’ll call an invite to them, but a rough hand circles my wrist, pulling me flush with his body.
Trav’s forehead rests against mine, and he breathes me in, letting my scent soothe him and our nearness tame the concerned beast inside him.
“I fucking missed you, Trav.” This is where I belong, I know it. Right here with him. Wherever he is.
“Same. You were in there for an eternity, pretty boy.”
Yeah, it feels that way.
Tilting my head, I scan the dark clouds above. It hasn’t started raining yet, but I can smell it in the air. Even if I couldn’t, Vancouverites have a sixth sense about the rain.
I catch Dash’s gaze and the quiet question there. Everything alright?
I nod. “Hunt’s invited everyone in for dinner, I guess.” Stacey’s not gonna consider cinnamon buns dinner, but Dash’ll love it.
“We’ll head inside, give you two a moment,” Stacey says.
I run fingers over Trav’s swollen face. It’s hot to the touch. I’m making him ice this shit as soon as we’re inside. “He knows, he’s always known, but I think he’s gonna give us a chance.”
Trav makes a gruff sound. “I’ve told you before, as a dad, I get it. I won’t hold it against him.”
“Not even this?” I say, referring to the state of his face.
He shakes his head. “Nope. I don’t regret stepping in. I’m always gonna step in for you, baby, no matter who it is.”
A lazy hum runs through my chest, and the rhythm of my heart evens out in time with Trav’s. There’s no more knot in my chest, just a steady warmth that anchors me. A heaviness settles in my limbs. Not tired, but the kind of relaxed weight that feels padded that I can sink into.
“You were right, Trav. I had lingering thoughts of Mom buried like landmines, subconsciously threatening to maim me. That’s why I couldn’t tell Hunter anything, but I did, and he didn’t shun me. Still don’t know if he’s gonna accept you, but he’s gonna tolerate you—for me.”
Trav smiles. “I’m glad, pretty boy. Having Hunter like me would be nice, but you’re my priority. I’m willing to be tolerated. Besides, I’m fucking infectious. He’ll love me eventually.”
I move in to catch his lips, but something’s crawling too slowly on the porch ledge. “Uh, Trav.”
Trav flips around, spying the dopey creature, losing his steam. “Shit.” He drops me like a hot potato in favor of the depleted honeybee. “Well, what you waiting for? I need sugar water, now.”
He forms a fortress around the little guy, and I run to the kitchen like my life depends on it, or well, the life of a honeybee. Hunt’s making coffee for Stacey and Dash. I sift through the cupboards like a madman.
“What in blazes?” Hunter says.
“Sugar. Water. Quickly.”
“Shit,” Dash says. “Honeybee?”
“Yep.”
Hunter’s brows knit together, but he helps me with the sugar water concoction, and everyone follows us out to the porch. I hand the spoon to Trav, and he scoops a generous portion, trickling it under our new friend before he’s a victim of honeybee burnout.
My burly brother leans against the door with a lot of skepticism playing out on his face. “Is that even doing anything?”
“First time I saw him doing this, I didn’t think so either.” They drink for a long while, and it’s hard to tell if they’re drinking or drowning.
“You sure it’s not dead?” he asks. “It’s looking pretty lifeless.”
My smile stretches wider the longer I watch my man, brow knit together with firm concentration, murmuring little honeybee blessings. “He’s just tired. Keep watching.”
He’s not wrong, though. It appears as if his pollen-collecting days are over, but I’ve seen Trav do this too many times.
“That’s it, little guy. Drink up,” Trav encourages him politely, all while maintaining that dark and dangerous predator’s stare that I love.
All his hard angles and shadowed stubble soften as he cheers on an insect.
His thick, callused knuckles—the ones that broke my brother’s nose about an hour ago—rest beside the honeybee, providing comfort without touching him.
It takes a couple of minutes. Honeybee’s antennae wiggle, testing the air, and then he takes flight. He buzzes by Trav as if to say thank you, and Trav salutes him, expressing gratitude for his pollination services to humanity.
“Can someone tell me what that was all about?” Hunter says. “Is it really worth it to go through all that for one honeybee?”
“Depends, Hunter. Do you like eating food?” Trav says.
Dash groans. “Oh, god. You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed.”
“Without them, we die,” Trav says, stone-cold serious. “Everyone should be concerned about our dwindling bee population. One hundred and fifty-six species are vulnerable, twenty are endangered, and eleven are critically endangered. They’ll go the way of the dodo if we don’t help them.”
I can’t help but adore him, maybe especially when he gets all crazy with his bee talk. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go toast our bee friend’s long bee life over cinnamon buns.”
“Hmph. You’ll all thank me one day,” he carries on, taking my hand and kissing it with all the devotion in the world, allowing me to guide him into the house.
Hunter raises his brows. He can’t figure Trav out, but soon he’ll come to see what I do. Trav is a hard man with shadows, but swirling in his inferno is tenderness that’s just for me.