9. Kaitlyn
CHAPTER NINE
Kaitlyn
NOW
Oh god. Why do I feel like I’ve just walked right into the middle of something?
“Good morning!” I greet, trying to lighten the tension in the room.
Mirabelle blinks, looking away from Bailey, and I move to hug her briefly. “Hey, Mira, how are you feeling today?” I ask, sliding into the seat next to her. Her morning sickness never really went away after the first trimester, and it’s been a struggle for her.
“We’re having a good day so far,” she says, her mouth curling into a warm smile while her hand drifts to rest on her growing belly.
I can feel Bailey watching me, and I tuck my hair behind my ear, smiling widely at him.
“It’s a perfect day to go surfing. Think you still remember how to do it, or have you turned into a total kook?
” I ask, and Bailey’s eyes sparkle at the challenge.
The idea of Bailey being clueless on the water is laughable, especially considering he was always the best out of the Walker family at finding the perfect swell.
“I bet you wipeout more than I do,” he says, and for a moment, it’s painful how familiar this feels. It’s a conversation we’ve had so many times over the years.
“You in?” I turn toward Mirabelle, and she’s beaming.
“Hell yeah. I need to get in all the surfing I can before I’m too big to pop up on the board.”
“Awesome,” I say, starting to wonder if Hunter has come downstairs yet today. “Is Hunter up yet?” I ask, and by the way Bailey looks away, I’m guessing the twins still aren’t talking.
Mirabelle clears her throat, pulling my attention to her. “I don’t think so. When I talked to him yesterday, he said his insomnia’s keeping him awake most of the night, so he’s probably still sleeping.”
“Not for long,” I sing, getting out of my chair. “We’ll meet you guys at the shed in a few.”
Maybe surfing is exactly the right shove the twins need to get them talking.
I take the stairs two at a time, knocking on Hunter’s door softly. “Who is it?”
“It’s Kait,” I say, chuckling as I open the door.
He’s still lying in bed, his blond hair messy, and his mouth curls into a smile as he takes me in. “I thought you weren’t coming over until later?” he asks, his voice scratchy with sleep, and I move to sit next to Hunter on the bed as he stretches.
“It is later,” I tease, and he reaches for his glasses, pushing them on before grabbing his phone, eyes widening when he sees the time. God, sometimes I wish he would wear his contacts less because somehow they have a way of making him look hotter than he already is.
“Oh shit.” Hunter sits up, dragging a hand over his face, and I try not to stare at his muscular chest, tanned from summer days out in the sun.
I’ve tried to paint him hundreds of times, but I can never seem to get it right.
I can never capture the golden hue of his skin or the way Hunter’s sun-kissed shades of blond get perfectly tousled by the wind.
It’s a shame to be so beautiful it can’t even be captured by art.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Fine, I’m just tired,” he answers vaguely, climbing out of bed to walk toward the bathroom he shares with Bailey.
I wait for Hunter to come back out, mildly disappointed to see he’s put his contacts in, before leading into the plans I made with his siblings. “Do you think surfing could make you feel better?”
He smiles, making his way toward me. “I can think of a couple of other things that’d make me feel way better than surfing,” he teases, leaning over me as I fall back onto my elbows.
The weight of his body over mine is distracting, but when his soft mouth finds the hollow of my neck, it’s easy to forget why we’re talking about surfing in the first place.
“Hunter.” I laugh when his hand grazes my side where my shirt’s ridden up.
“You’re cute,” he says, lifting his head to kiss me for a moment. Hunter’s skin is hot beneath my palm and the way he’s looking at me right now makes it tempting to find out exactly what he’s thinking.
“Cute enough we can go surfing?” I ask, giving him a sweet smile.
“Will it just be us, or . . .” Hunter trails off, his face shuttering when he answers his own question.
He rolls off me, pulling away both figuratively and literally. I don’t want to fight with him about Bailey again, but I think if they just talked, the twins would be able to work out whatever it was that happened between them.
“Or Mira, Bailey, and Javi are going to join us? ”
It might have been better if JJ and Marley were here to be an additional buffer, but my mom told me this morning they were driving to Charlotte to grab some of Thalia’s portraits from storage.
“I don’t want to.”
I have never heard those words come out of Hunter’s mouth before. I swear, normally I have to drag him out of the water, and I’ve even wondered if he’s actually part fish. The only reason he doesn’t want to is because Bailey will be with us.
What the hell happened between them? Could it have really been so awful?
“Babe, please? It’ll be fun, and if it’s not, then we can come back inside,” I promise, sitting up to look at Hunter as he closes his eyes.
I feel awful for pushing him to talk to Bailey. I know Hunt better than anyone, which is how I know if Bailey leaves before they have a chance to talk, he’ll never be able to forgive himself without the closure a conversation would bring.
“You can’t avoid him forever.”
“Except I can. I’m sure he’s planning on leaving the second that kid is fixed. He made it pretty fucking clear it’s the only reason he came back.”
My mind is churning, regretting having never asked Hunter if something happened between him and Bailey.
I think I’ve been afraid to know the real reason Bailey called JJ instead of his twin, but I’ve never wanted to ask.
I hate hearing Hunter talk this way about Bailey when I know all he’s asked for the last few years is for his brother to come home, but this isn’t adding up.
“Does it matter why B came back? He’s here now, and for the time being, he won’t be going anywhere.”
Hunter sits up, a long exhale escaping him. “I’ll go surfing, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to talk to him,” he says, his gaze slow to meet mine.
“Sure, whatever you say,” I agree, unable to help my wide smile from forming.
It still hasn’t faded by the time Hunter’s changed into his board shorts, and shows no signs of budging as we approach the shed behind the house where their surfing equipment is stored.
It’s more like a separate garage, but we’ve always called it the shed.
“So can you do cool tricks?” I hear Javi ask Bailey when Hunter opens the door for me.
“I used to. Guess we’ll find out if I still can,” he answers, and I can practically feel the tension radiating off Hunter as Javi and Bailey glance at us.
“I was starting to wonder if you’d ever show up,” Mirabelle says, her bump far more noticeable in a swimsuit. She’s had a rough go of it with morning sickness so far, but I’m happy she’s feeling well enough to go out on the water with us.
“I can go back to bed if you’re going to complain,” Hunter says, his tone lighter than I expected.
This is going to go great. I know it.
I move toward Javi after grabbing my board, while Hunter helps his sister by carrying her board out for her as she puts on sunscreen. I don’t miss the way he glances at Bailey. “Javi, do you know how to swim?” I ask, crouching down in front of him.
“No.” Javi lowers his gaze to the ground. It’s such a drastic change in his demeanor from when I first got here, but I don’t know what I did wrong.
Bailey’s arm brushes against mine as he mimics my position, and I hope the breath of air I inhale is subtle enough for him to miss it, as my body jolts from the fleeting contact.
“What’s wrong? You couldn’t stop talking a few minutes ago,” Bailey says, and Javi shrugs .
I try not to focus on the scars scattered across his arms and the sadness they make me feel for him. “He doesn’t like me,” he whispers, and the only possibility is Hunter.
“Everything okay?” Mirabelle asks, noticing something’s wrong. Bailey rests his hands on Javi’s shoulders, turning the little boy to face him.
“Buddy, it’s not you he doesn’t like, okay? It’s me. He’s mad at me, but not at you,” B reassures him, but Javi doesn’t appear convinced, based on the wariness I can still see lingering.
“Is he one of the people who hurt you?” Javi asks, and I swear my heart stops beating for a few moments. Is that what Bailey told him? That we hurt him?
Bailey goes as still as a statue, and I try to wrap my head around the kernel of information I’ve just gathered.
“Yeah. He did,” Bailey admits, his voice soft. I know I don’t know the full story, but all I can think is thank god Hunter didn’t hear him. “It’ll be okay, Javi. That’s between me and Hunter, I promise.”
“So I can still surf with you?” he asks, shuffling his feet in the warm sand.
“If you wear your lifejacket, but you can’t play with it. It’s to keep you safe.”
I can feel my smile slipping, and I need a second to regroup.
Mirabelle looks like she needs a minute too, but her eyes never leave Bailey.
“I’ll grab a life jacket for him,” I say, my voice tight from the feeling of being strangled by whatever secrets the twins are keeping.
I retreat into the shed to find a lifejacket small enough to fit Javi.
Soft footsteps follow me through the door, but it’s the silence that gives Bailey away. We don’t have enough time for me to ask questions, so I do the next best thing and ignore him.
I stall longer than I should, not wanting to turn around to face him. Unless I plan on walking backward out of here, without bumping into anything, I can’t avoid him.
Still, it rocks me to my core to see Bailey staring at his board, the orange, yellow, and red hues as vibrant as he used to be. He brushes his fingers over the deck of the board, but he seems like he’s a million miles away.