Chapter 21
Hunter Eleven Years Ago
W hat about Clementine?” I ask, biting back a smile. Dev has turned down all thirty-seven of my girl name ideas, and six of them have been fruits, just to mess with her.
“For the last time, Hunter, we are not naming our baby a fruit. Just look how Lemon Perkins turned out.” She wrinkles her nose at me through her reflection in the floor-length mirror of her bedroom, covered in peeling pink flower stickers I helped her put there over a decade ago. She always was destined to be my girl.
Both my girls, soon.
I stand, moving behind my pregnant girlfriend and wrapping my arms around her. My hands cradle her swollen belly, my lips pressing soft kisses behind her ear. She sighs, relaxing and leaning her weight against me, just like I want her to.
“You’re so damn perfect, Dev. Holding my daughter inside of you. All swollen and full. You’re irresistible.” I guide her to the bed, lowering her onto her back and leaving a trail of kisses across her stomach.
“Hunter,” she moans, threading her fingers through my hair, and that alone thrills me. I want to make her feel good. She’s having so many sick days lately, and my girl’s been a badass, putting on a face so nobody knows our secret. Carrying on like she isn’t superwoman in disguise, growing a human, winning pageants, going to school like a normal teen.
It worries me she’s got too much going on.
We’re interrupted by thumping feet running up the stairs and a loud knock, followed by a hushed whisper from Dusty through the door, “It better be PG in there. Mom’s on her way up!”
“Great,” she says, groaning as she rolls onto her side.
“Hold on,” I say, getting to my feet and helping her to a seated position on the bed. Luckily, we still have our clothes on, except for Dev’s baggy sweater, which she pulls rapidly down over her baby bump just before her mom comes waltzing in with no knock or notice at all.
I owe one to Dusty for his warning.
“What are you two doing in here?” Mrs. Campbell teases, eyeing the two of us with a smirk that is fuckin’ fake as shit because she’s trying to be the cool mom who seems like she doesn’t care if we were just fooling around, but she’s such a crazy bitch that her own daughter is seven and a half months pregnant and so afraid to tell her that she’s been wearing extra-large hoodies for the last month and she has yet to notice. I mean, how fucked in the head can you be to not notice your own daughter is about to have a whole-ass child?
I wish we could tell her. I’ve been part of this family for longer than I feel like I’ve been a part of my own. That might be an exaggeration, but there’s some truth to it. I never had a mom growing up. She died giving birth to my brother Sam, and shit…I’m just lucky I had her for the first few formative years of my development. Because Sam? He’s got shit to work through. I hardly recognize him these days.
The Campbells have practically raised me. My old man’s been in and out of jail most of my life. Technically, Aunt Sarah has custody of me and Sam, but I don’t think he stays there any more than I do. I have a bed in Dusty’s room, for fuck’s sake. Sam has a few friends he splits time between. Parents don’t question the constant sleepovers as much when you’re Sam’s age, but when you’re seventeen or eighteen like me… they just start to feel sorry for you. At least, the Campbells did. Even if Devyn and Dusty’s mom is a complete lunatic, she’s always served me the same shitty spaghetti and Cheerios she gives her own kids.
Their dad’s not too bad, when he’s around.
Doesn’t excuse the anger I feel when I look into the green eyes of her mother. Eyes that dare to look almost identical to Devyn’s, but different at the same time. Darker. Blacker. Like they’ve lost all their sparkle. And that makes me sad for her.
I focus on Dev, tugging her shirt down over her belly to hide any signs of our growing baby from her mother. Just a little longer, babygirl. We only have to hide a little longer. Her mom has always made her feel fat and ugly. A naked, plastic doll nobody could ever love unless it’s dressed up and made up. Flawless. Pinching her love handles, making off-handed comments about too many cupcakes or slices of pizza that everyone else eats triple of.
My jaw clenches. I can’t wait to take her away from it all. To our little farmhouse.
Just me, my farm, and my girls.
And I’ll never let them lose their sparkle. Not in a million years.
“What do you think, honey?” Mrs. Campbell says to me, her eyebrows raised in question.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.” I wink at Devyn. “I was distracted.”
Mrs. Campbell rolls her eyes. “Oh, Lord, Hunter, you are too much.” She swats me like we’re friends, getting way closer than I want my girlfriend’s mom to be, her hand lingering awkwardly on my arm. Devyn sighs, shaking her head and offering me an apologetic wince. I peel Mrs. Campbell’s fingers from my arm. She smells of tequila, and I really hope Devyn doesn’t catch a whiff of it before she leaves. Pretty much anything causes her morning sickness at all hours of the day now.
“Distracted?” She laughs, the smell wafting out from her mouth and filling the space around me. I scrunch my nose and back away, but she doesn’t notice. She’s laughing at what I said. “Distracted by my daughter? This little chunk?”
She reaches for Devyn, to pinch the small roll of flesh hanging over her pants, and all it takes is one beat of nothing before I lose it.
I lunge forward. “Don’t touch her!” My voice is thick and commanding, assertive and menacing in a way it’s never been before. It’s me, the happy-go-lucky class clown. The boy who charms your southern mama and steals a cola from your fridge on the way out.
That boy is gone. The one standing in his place is a man ready to fight anyone, including his girlfriend’s own mother, if she so much as touches his girls.
“What has gotten into you, Hunter Isaac?” Mrs. Campbell shrieks, placing her arm in front of her daughter in a show of protection, which is just fucking laughable. She’s protecting Dev? With calorie counting? Reverse psychology? With tanning beds and juice cleanses? Naw.
Hell, naw.
“What’s wrong is that I don’t appreciate you making her feel like shit for what she looks like or how much she weighs!” Devyn’s eyes are glassy with the promise of tears, but true to her nature, she doesn’t let them flow down her perfectly made-up face. Anything so her mother still thinks she’s pretty.
It’s messed up, but that isn’t Devyn’s fault.
She sniffles, smiling at me, and even though she’s sad and confused, my heart soars when I see the sparkle still there in her eyes. It’s not dull. Not like her mother’s.
Not anymore.
How could it be? We have each other. We have our girl.
For a moment, I let myself live in the bliss that will be our life together, and I smile down at the beautiful, perfect girl in my arms. Not a pageant queen or the star of the dance team, but so much more. The girl who made summer camp magical and Monopoly unbearable. The one who chucked a roller skate at my head for making fun of her ballgowns, but still let me lead her across countless dancefloors wearing them.
The girl who holds my baby inside her. She’s mine to take care of now.
“I’m taking her out to eat as much as she damn well pleases,” I tell a still shocked Mrs. Campbell. She doesn’t do anything, though, just lights up one of her Virginia Slims and throws her satin robe back over her camisole and shorts, mumbling something about the party and what the neighbors will say if the Junior Miss Southern Rodeo Queen isn’t there… not Devyn…The Queen.
And with Dustin, it’s always The Grades. The Sports. The Reputation. My fist curls at my side, and it’s all I can do not to punch a hole in the wall with the anger I feel toward this woman who raised two of the best people I know. And she doesn’t even see how amazing they are. She just picks and picks and picks.
“I don’t give a shit what they say,” I tell her.
But her eyes rear back angrily, scorching me with a fire I wasn’t sure Mrs. Campbell even had left inside her. I can take it, though. I’ll fight any fire-breathing dragon for the right to save my princess. Forever and always.
“She needs to be back for the party.” She points her long, manicured finger at me. Funny how someone can pay thousands for beauty and still be genuinely ugly at their core. She casts her gaze down on Devyn, her own daughter, who she should love and adore no matter what she looks like or what the number on the scale might be, and my breath stills in my lungs, because all she looks…is disgusted by her. And by me.
“You! You are just like your mother,” she hisses. “Always trying to save everyone.” Her lip curls up in a penetrating sneer, and it stings to hear mention of my mother from such putrid lips. Mrs. Campbell’s eyes flare when she hears my sharp inhale, and she digs her talons in deeper.
“What you need to realize, and what your poor mother never could, is some people simply aren’t worthy. And they must learn to save themselves.”
Devyn gasps, putting a hand to her side in a way that her mother won’t notice, but I can feel, being pressed against her.
“Hurts,” she whispers into my chest, pressing her face against my shirt. And I’m not sure if it’s the pain in her side she’s talking about or her mother’s words. Either way, we’re done here.
I stand, locking eyes with the woman who somehow created the angel currently lacing her fingers through my own and shake my head. I remember a time when she wasn’t like this.
Or do I?
“One day,” I say, “I hope you sober up and see how amazing your children are. I only wonder if you’ll be worthy of their love when that day comes.”
I lightly tug Devyn’s hand and lead her out the door, brushing past her mother, like the knight in all those books from years ago. Saving my princess from the castle, whisking her away to a kingdom all our own.
Giving her the Happily Ever After she deserves.
We’re halfway to the Sugar Stable when Devyn finally speaks. She’s been crying softly for about five minutes now since we left her house, the emotions of the fight with her mom finally hitting her, I guess. Or maybe she’s just comfortable enough with me to cry. I smile at that thought, but only a little. I can’t smile for long when Devyn’s hurting.
“Ellie,” she says, sniffling and wiping her tears on the back of my hoodie sleeve. I gave it to her to wear when we got in the car because she was cold, and because I love the little humming sounds she makes when she smells it, because it smells like me.
“I want to name her Ellie.”
“Ellie.” I test out the name. It rolls off my tongue easily enough, and even though I won’t tell her this, I was going to say yes to any name she finally settled on regardless of what I want. I couldn’t want anything more than my two girls healthy and happy and home…with me. I want us to create a life for our daughter that is filled with love and comfort and happy family memories. Ones that don’t include weigh-ins or divorces, deaths and custody fights, social services, and hidden pregnancies.
Fuck, our parents didn’t know what the hell they were doing.
And we don’t either. But as long as I live, I’ll do whatever I need to protect my family. I swear it. I won’t be like my dad, a bachelor and a gambler. And Devyn won’t be like her mom, broken and lost. And our baby will be loved. Always.
“Ellie.” I repeat the name, turning to Devyn in the passenger seat and smiling.
“I love it.”
As we pull through the intersection, it feels like we’ve just crossed a new barrier in our relationship. I can see the sign for The Sugar Stable now, and I can’t wait to scoop her up into my lap and get her the extra-large strawberry milkshake she won’t admit she wants; the one I know always brings a smile to her face.
But she’s not smiling. Her eyes are wide when I look over at her, and she’s—
“Hunter!” she screams, and then I see it.
An eighteen-wheeler coming straight toward us…
In the wrong lane.
I grip the wheel, searching, scanning, praying to God for a way out. For a path of freedom. For something I can do, but there’s no way out.
My heart is racing to the beat of my thoughts.
My girls. My girls. My girls!
There’s nothing I can do but pray. I steal one last glance at the woman beside me, the one who feels like a walking representation of my heart, sitting outside of my body, pleading with me to save her.
To save our daughter.
“I love you,” she breathes.