Chapter 11
ELEVEN
AMY
Iturned the corner toward home. The usual blanket of fog wasn’t hanging over the town but the moon was nonexistent.
It was hard to see where the sea ended and the coast began.
Most of the houses were dark. Our neighbors were quiet, keep-to-themselves types and most liked to look the other direction when it came to the two shabby houses in the center of the block.
I suspected that had more to do with the people living in the houses than the overgrown front yards and peeling paint.
They’d also looked the other way when the houses weren’t so rundown and the brothers were struggling to survive a horrible childhood.
When I was younger, my mom would stop and talk to neighbors on her stroll to the mailbox or picking up the paper, but that had stopped long ago when she’d decided everyone was out to get her.
Our television flickered through the broken blinds on the front window. The new medication was making her sleep a lot, and I was actually thankful for that. She couldn’t tape up the house or hit people with vases or poison her only kid with cookies when she was sleeping.
Tonight had been my third date with David.
The first dinner had gone all right, but he’d seemed preoccupied by something and I wasn’t feeling myself either.
Our conversation hadn’t flowed like it had in the coffee shop, and I was still being constantly plagued with the stupid habit of mentally comparing David to Hunter.
David was always coming up on the short side of the comparison.
Tonight, we’d given it another try. As usual, he’d been a perfect gentleman, something I wasn’t used to.
So far, he’d only kissed me and taken hold of my hand.
Tonight, he’d picked me up after my shift at Lazy Daze.
We drove to the beach with a blanket and bottle of wine.
We talked awhile and kissed a lot, but I wasn’t ready for anything else.
David had accepted that with some disappointment.
But he’d kissed me goodnight and told me he wanted to see me again.
My head was swirling like fudge ripple ice cream when it came to David. One minute I thought he might be someone I could fall for, and the next, I was telling myself to end it before things got deeper.
Hunter’s motorcycle was in the driveway, but the house was dark.
I had a strange, very fleeting desire to talk to him about this new situation with David.
Hunter was the person I always went to when I needed to talk.
Jade was fairly new in my life and our friendship had been sealed almost immediately.
Still, there was only one person who I’d always told all my deepest secrets and feelings to and that was Hunter.
He knew me better than anyone, and while he wasn’t always the best listener or advisor, I had always counted on him to be there for me.
I smiled at the idea of discussing my newest dilemma with him.
I saw the tiny red glow of a cigarette or joint on his front porch as I pulled into my driveway.
The giant silhouette sitting on the front porch was easy to recognize.
No one else had shoulders that nearly spanned the entire top step.
Immediately, my pulse raced. That alone might have been the reason I was so on the fence about David.
He hadn’t made my pulse race or my knees weaken or even my hands tremble, physical reactions I always had when I saw Hunter.
I stepped out of the car on jelly knees. His handsome face was halfway hidden by the shadows of the porch, but I could tell he was looking at me. We hadn’t spoken in a week and everything about that felt wrong, almost as if I hadn’t taken a decent breath for seven days.
“You’re out late,” he said.
The sound of his voice caught me off guard. It was a sound that could leave me breathless or filled with heartbreak. I willed my feet forward. “And you’re in early.” I pushed out my most casual tone but just having to push it, made it sound completely forced.
I sat on the porch next to him, took hold of the joint and stuck it between my lips. He stared out at the street. It seemed he was straining not to turn and look at me.
“Jade said you met someone.”
“Huh. Did not expect you to lead with that.” I handed him back his joint.
“Seemed like a good topic.”
Jade had a theory that the only thing Hunter needed was a little shove, and she was sure me dating another guy would do the trick. But I wasn’t at all convinced she was right. “Guess I was tired of going in circles, chasing my tail like a puppy.”
He nodded, but I could feel the tension radiating off his body. Apparently he was having a hard time trying to act casual too. “I made no promises. Not saying that this isn’t twisting me up inside, Street. Cuz it is.”
A rare confession of feelings from Hunter was hard won, and this one was particularly hard because I missed him badly. Not talking to him for a week was sucking the wind from me. Talking to him now was keeping me just as breathless.
“Who is he?”
A dry laugh shot from my mouth. “Should I write down his address so you can go stand on his porch and glower at him?”
“Nope, just making sure you’re not hanging out with a bad element.” A smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “But I guess just about anyone who isn’t me is a step in the right direction.” He extinguished the joint on the porch step. “Just want to make sure you’re safe, Amy. Old habits die hard.”
“Tell me about it.” I tossed my keys on my palms, weighing just how much I wanted to tell him.
“He’s got money, but I’m not sure what his business is.
Just like I have no real idea what you and your brothers are doing.
All I know is he treats me well.” I looked over at him.
His profile with his straight nose and long dark lashes was always heartbreaking.
It somehow made him look more innocent, hiding all the ugliness he’d been through. “He treats me like I matter.”
He faced me. His eyes flickered with something, an emotion that I’d rarely seen in his expression. “Don’t fucking sit here and pretend you don’t matter to me, Street. Just don’t.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees to hold myself tighter. There was no damn way I was going to cry in front of him. We both fell silent.
I looked out at the other houses with their neatly trimmed lawns and thoughtfully planted hedges.
It was no wonder everyone looked the other way.
“Sometimes I think our crappy childhoods stunted our growth. Our asshole fathers are gone, but they both still have control of us. We never grew past what happened in these houses. We never allowed ourselves to say— hey I survived and dad is gone and good fucking riddance.”
Hunter stared down at the ground. “Sometimes the memories are so tightly wound around my throat, I can’t even take a decent breath. Colt, Slade and I were living in hell.”
“And I wasn’t? Sure, my dad wasn’t nearly the monster that yours was, but he was pretty fucking low on the fatherly love scale.
So don’t try to bottom out your upbringing, Hunter, because I’m still dealing with my fun.
” I waved toward my dark, pathetic little house where my mom slept in her drug stupor.
He reached back to the cut on his head. “Yep, the stitches in my head remind me of that.”
“Didn’t you go back to the doctor to get them cut out?”
“Nah. Slade’s going to cut them out tomorrow.”
I remembered, then, about an unexplained wound on his arm that Jade had mentioned. I could still see the gauze under his shirt. “What happened to your arm?”
“It was nothing. Something that happened on the job.”
“The job. Right.”
“See. I live a sketchy life. That’s why I’m not worth the bother.”
I shook my head. “Hang on while I go get my violin, Mr. Woe is me.” I released my legs and leaned my hands back behind me. “I’ve decided I’m done being held hostage by my past. I’m going to clean up my house, maybe paint it, and I’ve decided to have someone fix the engine on my dad’s boat.”
“Why? Are you going to start fishing?”
I rolled my eyes. “I can sell it and use the money to fix up the house. My dad left us with some bitter memories, but he also left us with a house and boat. I’m moving on.”
“With some guy who has cash in his pocket and treats you well.”
“Nope, I’m moving on alone, and if I find a nice guy in the meantime then that will be the frosting on top.” I stood up. “I’ve been waiting for—”
He gazed up at me, and I lost the words for a second. It was him. I’d been waiting for him to come around. But he hadn’t.
The light on our front porch turned on. My mom was up. I stood up, but before I could walk away, he took hold of my hand.
I couldn’t bring myself to look down at him as he gripped my hand. Or as he spoke. “I’m not going to lie, Street. Nothing is right without you. Feels like the ground beneath my feet is giving way, but—” His words were interrupted by the squeak of his front door.
A tall brunette walked out dressed in just a t-shirt and panties. I was pretty sure her name was Shelly, but I didn’t care enough to puzzle it out. “Hunter,” she said sweetly, “aren’t you coming back to bed?”
Now I turned to face him. He kept a grip on my hand and stared up at me as if a half-dressed girl hadn’t just asked him to return to bed. I yanked my hand free and ran across the weed covered yard to my house.
As I put my foot on the first step, our screen door popped open.
“Off my porch!” I heard my mom’s voice but didn’t see the garden shovel until it glinted in the light.
As I covered my head to block the end of the shovel, I squeezed my eyes shut to brace for the imminent blast of pain.
But it didn’t come. Heavy footsteps pounded the wood steps and a thudding sound followed.
“It’s your daughter, you fucking loon. It’s Amy,” Hunter yelled over my mom’s hysterical cries.
I lowered my arm and lifted my face. Hunter had hold of the shovel, and he held my mom’s arm. Mom stared at me for a second as if she was trying to figure out why I looked familiar. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused from the medication.
“Amy, my god.” She sobbed, covered her face and ran back inside.
Hunter’s chest rose and fell with deep breaths. I glanced back to his house. He’d crossed the space between our houses as if he had rockets on his feet. His visitor was still standing on the porch. She’d witnessed the whole embarrassing episode.
Hunter lowered the shovel and reached for my face. But I stepped back. The last thing I needed was to feel his touch. He looked at my front door and then at me. “Fuck, Amy, you’ve got to—”
I held up my hand to stop him. “No, don’t Hunter. I don’t want to hear this tonight. She’s just on new meds is all. They always take awhile for her to get used to.” I was holding it together, but it was an act. Inside, I was ripping apart. “Go back to your slumber party.”
He stood there towering over me and staring down at me as if I’d just pulled out any final strings still holding his stony heart in place. Then he stomped down the steps and swung the shovel at our tree, hitting it hard enough to wedge the metal end into the trunk. I turned around and went inside.
My mom had climbed into bed and had already fallen back asleep. I went down the hall to my room, shut the door and slid to the floor. I wrapped my arms around my legs, pulled my knees closer and cried.