Chapter Twenty
Hunter
I never imagined I’d see my vision of heaven while sitting in an old vinyl-covered booth in a dingy diner while an overworked server sets a steaming hot plate of hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast in front of me, but here I am. Here I am, and there she is — sitting across from me, Charlie on her lap, a short stack of pancakes in front of her, and a dollop of whipped butter on her nose; she’s unaware of the butter, but I’m sure she’s aware of the effect she’s having on me. After a lifetime of fighting, of wandering, of not having a home, I find myself with her, feeling like maybe I’m long overdue for something honest, something real, for putting some roots down, feeling like maybe this is my best chance at having a life I never thought I deserved, and feeling like I’m lucky as hell that this opportunity is staring at me from across the table with such an attractive face.
Because she looks at me like I’m the man I want to be.
And Charlie… well, he looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, which is how he looks at everyone, because he’s four months old and everything on earth fills him with a sense of wonder. Right now, he’s tearing strips from a napkin and trying to eat them, while seeing his efforts foiled by Emily’s watchful eye.
He doesn’t cry at defeat, though. Just waits a moment, gathers his strength, and then tries again. That’s the Hayes way — we may not be the brightest men on earth; we may fucking think that baking soda and baking powder are interchangeable; but we are determined and we will eat that fucking napkin, god damn it.
“So, when is your next shift with the motorcycle club?” She says over a forkful of pancake.
The whipped butter is still there on her nose. I can’t stop looking at it, but I’ll never tell her it’s there — because then she’d wipe it off.
“Whenever they call. This isn’t a usual nine-to-five thing. It depends on the business and what the club needs. When you start with an MC, you’re at the bottom of the totem pole, and until you earn your stripes, your schedule is at their mercy.”
Emily nods, her fork pausing mid-air as she contemplates my words. Her eyes dart quickly to Charlie, who is now fascinated by the glint of the silverware in her hands.
"At their mercy, huh?" she repeats, a hint of concern clouding her bright blue eyes. "I guess that means you won't be building a predictable life anytime soon."
“I’ll have to make sacrifices at the start, but Charlie won’t. There are others in the club that can help and watch him, too.”
She stiffens a little. “Others? Other people in this motorcycle club?” She sounds defensive, and she gives Charlie a look like she can already imagine someone else watching him and she’d rather have her fingernails ripped out by red-hot pliers than see that happen in real life. “You’d let one of them watch Charlie?”
“Not if I can help it. But it’d be a last resort.”
“We’ll try not to let that happen. My schedule’s flexible, Maggie’s willing to work with me a lot, and as long as I can find time to work on my research paper — which shouldn’t be much of a problem around Charlie, since he’s so calm — I’m available. I just want to do what’s best for him.”
The way she looks at Charlie, and the way he looks back at her, it’s the same way I feel about her; Emily brings something special and her own cute, nerdy, responsible sense of fire to my life.
She’s got this aura of determination that's as fierce as it is gentle, reminding me of why I was drawn to her. She is the woman who would walk through fire for those she loves and still smile afterward.
“He’s a lucky kid,” I say, my voice softening. “Having you around means everything.”
Emily’s eyes meet mine, and there’s a moment of shared understanding — a quiet agreement that whatever chaos our lives might bring, we’re in this together. It’s balm to my soul. It soothes the part of me that’s weary of endless combat, endless roaming. I could have a home here. A home, a family, something that once only seemed like a dream.
“So,” she says, breaking the silence with a small grin, “are you going to tell me why you’ve been staring at my nose this whole time?”
I chuckle, unable to hold back. “You’ve got whipped butter on your nose.”
Her eyes widen in surprise before she bursts into laughter.
“Oh crap, thanks for telling me now!”
“I didn’t want to ruin the magic,” I reply with a shrug and a grin of my own.
She grabs a napkin and wipes her nose, blushing slightly but still smiling. For a moment, her face disappears behind the paper, but when she takes the napkin away, her eyes center on something behind me, and her smile disappears for one frozen moment.
“Emily? Is there something wrong?”
My voice is bitter, my blood ice; in one moment, every ounce of warmth within me disappears, replaced by the brutal readiness to kill and the frustration with myself that I’d get so fucking relaxed that I’d take a booth that doesn’t give me a clear view of the diner’s door. How the fuck can I forget such a basic rule as always keeping my eyes on the exits?
“Nothing… it’s nothing. I just thought I saw something, but it’s nothing.”
I swivel in my seat to see the back of a man’s head. In that quick second, I gauge that he’s tall, that he’s got a heavy, muscular frame, and he put a fright into the woman I care about. If we ever meet face-to-face, he’s a dead man.
“Are you sure? What did he look like?” I say.
My thoughts go to those men I saw running from my brother’s home, the glances I caught of them before I turned my attention to my dead brother, his dead wife, and getting my nephew out of there before the flames took my last surviving family member from me. Did any of them look at all like the man who just left the diner?
Has Victor Moretti found me already?
My hand drifts below the table, reaching for the gun that I always keep on me.
“Emily? What is it?”
She shakes her head, hair tousling in a way that, if I weren’t on alert to kill, I’d find cute. Instead, I find it unnervingly distracting.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, standing. Her breakfast sits only half-eaten on the table in front of her. Her voice shakes like a leaf in a hurricane. “I just remembered that I need to go.”
“Go? Why?” I say. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong, Hunter. How many times do I have to say it? I just remembered that I have to work today, and it’s going to take me a long time to get ready. I have to shower, get clean clothes, do a bunch of chores around my place because I spent the night at your place doing babysitting duty, which means I didn’t have time to do any of the things I normally do at my home. That’s all.”
There’s a cold, hard edge to her voice that’s so out of place with the fear I see in her eyes.
She leaves the booth and starts toward the door, and I reach out, taking hold of her by the wrist.
“Talk to me, Emily. I can help.”
“Oh, so are you volunteering to do my laundry?”
“You and I both know you wouldn’t like the outcome if it came down to it,” I say. “But I can help.”
“I don’t need you to do my clothes, Hunter. I just need you to let go of my arm.”
I do.
She leaves.
Head down, shoulders hunched, wrapping her arms around herself like it’s suddenly twenty-degrees colder. When the door shuts behind her, I shovel a bite of food into my mouth and look at Charlie. He looks just as confused as I feel. Of course, that is not saying much, considering he finds wonderment every time he discovers he has toes. “What the heck just happened, little man?”
He gurgles. A snot bubble forms and bursts in his left nostril. It’s about as logical a summation as I’m going to get about what Emily just did.
Two hours, a plate of hash browns, bacon, sausage, eggs, a diaper change, and a few errands later, I pull up in front of Ironwood Falls Meds & More. Five minutes pass while I just stare in at the place. Emily’s already at work. I can see her behind the pharmacist’s counter, her head down, buried in her paper.
A while passes where all I can do is just watch her.
The way she plays with her hair when she’s focused, how she twirls some strands around her finger and slow tugs, the gentle smile that pulls up her lips when she’s focused on something she enjoys — like any time she talks about her paper, or the aspects of being a pharmacist that she’s looking forward to the most once she gets her degree, or any time Charlie does something cute, which is pretty much all the fucking time — and how she chews her lip when she’s dealing with a vexing problem.
I could do this all day.
Just watch this woman and think about how, not long ago, I’d be asking myself: am I really thinking about settling down and what the fuck is wrong with me? And how, now, I look at her and think: damn, how lucky am I?
We haven’t even fucked, or kissed, and who the fuck knows, she may not feel exactly the same way about me as I do about her — which wouldn’t surprise me, she’s still so damn young compared to me, both in years and mileage — but even having her around to help is incredible. This woman makes a new life possible.
Damn, how lucky am I?
Real fucking lucky.
I get an urge then. It hits me hard and fast — I need to tell her, to talk to her, because holding these things back when someone like Moretti and his men are skulking around means I could die with regrets — and, at first, it’s so strong it sends me for a walk around the block. My heart palpitates, my breath comes shallow and rapid, and I bounce Charlie in his papoose while he looks up at me with questioning eyes. What the fuck are you waiting for, old man?
“This is big, little man,” I say. “Huge.”
He burps.
“Yeah, I got no idea why it’s got me so shook. I mean, I’ve been shot at how many times? Nearly died twice, too. I’ll tell you those stories when you’re older. But the question is: why am I waiting? I mean, how lucky am I that I’ve got her around? I need to tell her.”
We walk the block a few times while Charlie stares at me with the wide-eyed enrapturement of a four-month-old who has no idea why his caretaker is freaking out over a woman — practically a girl, considering her age — who fits so easily in his life and makes him feel so damn good.
Because, if I fuck this up, Charlie, we’ll lose that damn good woman.
Eventually, he calms me down, because he’s a smart kid. Somehow, we’re related.
I get back to the pharmacy and stand in the parking lot for a moment, eyeing Emily through the window and feeling like a weak-kneed teenager about to bare his soul to his high school crush. If only the guys in my old unit could see me now, they’d have a fucking fit.
Step by step, I start towards the door.
Enough waiting. It’s time Emily and I had a talk. Got the truth out in the open.
As I pass by her car, something catches my eye and I come to a full stop.
I turn. Carved into the paint of Emily’s car are the words Ur dead bitch .
My eyes go wide and I put my hand over Charlie’s — as much to protect him from the poor grammar as anything else.
One thing is clear: Moretti’s men are close.
“Well, little man, it looks like we’ll be getting back at the man who took your dad away real soon.”
No sooner do those words leave my mouth than my phone rings.