12. Hunter
CHAPTER TWELVE
HUNTER
M om has been here all week, and I’ve managed to avoid seeing her. That streak ends in approximately thirty minutes, all because my baby sister got herself a date to the Winter Formal. My only saving grace right now is Ashlie, who offered to do Artie’s hair for the dance. I agreed to a quick dinner at Dad’s. That’s all I’m willing to give.
“You look so cute!” Ashlie squeals, and Artemis beams back at her. The tiniest smile teases my lips as I watch their interaction from the bathroom doorway. They’ve been in front of the double basin vanity for hours, makeup and hair supplies strewn across the beige travertine marble. With some products from her magic hair box, Ashlie has morphed Artie’s tight curls into large ringlets that flow down her back. Wearing makeup and a sparkly, floor-length lavender gown, my baby sister has transformed into a fifteen-year-old princess. “Now sit still so I can finish your eyes.”
“Can I look yet?”
“No, Artie. The sculptor decides when the masterpiece is ready.”
“He’s gonna be here soon...” Artie whines, kicking her feet in the air as they dangle off one of the kitchen stools. “Are you almost done?”
“If he’s the guy for you, he won’t mind waiting. You’re worth it, girl,” Ashlie replies, pushing on her shoulders to stop her from moving.
The sisterly nature of their relationship has always been like this. Ashlie came along at a time when Artemis needed a role model who looked like her. She showed Artemis it was okay to be herself. There are still those teenage moments of insecurity, but Ashlie continues to build up Artie’s confidence. It’s something I will always adore about Ash.
The doorbell rings, and I snort at the matching panic in their eyes. “That’s my cue.” I smirk.
“Hunter, if you embarrass me, I swear?—”
“Huh?” I tease as I walk down the hallway. “Can’t hear you. Gotta go answer that!”
By the time I make it down the curved staircase, Dad is standing by the Tudor panel door next to a trembling football player. The poor kid is shaking all the petals off the corsage in his hand. He straightens his pale purple suit, and the light gleams over what looks like an entire tub of gel in his brown hair. Meanwhile, Dad peppers him with questions about where they’re going for dinner and how the football team is playing this year.
“Hunter!” The back door slams, and I hear him before I see him. By the time I catch a glimpse of the strawberry blond hair, my younger half brother, Theron, already has his arms wrapped around my waist.
“Hey, T.” I ruffle the unruly strands on his head and smile at the almost eight-year-old. “How you been?”
“This place is so cool! Yesterday, we got to swim in the pool, and then Ken let me play in the game room!” He stands straight, beaming up at me. That’s probably the most action the game room has seen in years. I have no doubt Theron will be in there every day.
“Yeah? Maybe we can have a game day while you’re here.”
“ Really ? Like a brothers’ day?”
The pang of guilt hits me out of nowhere, and I glance away from his eager expression. Avoiding our mother the entire week has meant inadvertently avoiding him too. “Yeah, bro, the whole day. We can get pizza and whatever other snacks you want.”
“Well, that sounds fun.” I look up into the dark brown eyes of my mother as she smiles timidly. “Hi, Hunter.”
“Charlotte.” Setting my jaw, I glare back, watching the hope in her eyes fizzle into wounded disappointment. Good . It’s about time she felt some kind of remorse. Her straight black hair is shorter than I remember, hitting just above her shoulders as it frames her olive-toned face. Dad clears his throat, and I recognize the sound and his expression for the warning they are. I suck my teeth before turning back. “Hey, Mom.”
Ashlie appears at the top of the stairs, followed by a beaming Artemis. Shuffling across the diamond lattice tiled floor, Ash stands next to me, already snapping pictures on her phone.
“You look beautiful, Artie-girl,” Dad says as she reaches the bottom step. We all turn to Football Boy, who’s standing in front of her, catching flies with his gaping mouth.
Sidestepping, I bump his shoulder and whisper, “This is the part where you tell her how great she looks…”
Artemis takes a tentative step forward, but her heel catches on the hem of her dress. She lunges toward the floor, and all of us pitch forward to catch her. The football player reaches her first, dropping the corsage in the process.
“Are you okay?” he asks, brows pulling together while he holds on to her elbows. She nods, and he smiles. “You look so amazing.” He stoops to pick up the discarded flowers and secures them around her wrist.
If this isn’t the cutest little puke-inducing epitome of high school dances, I don’t know what is. I feel like I’m watching a preview for the newest coming-of-age movie.
“Home by eleven.” Dad smiles as he opens the door for them. The pair giggle as they hurry down the front steps. Dad waits, waving at them once they reach the car.
“That was adorable,” Ashlie squeals next to me. “He was so nervous! Were you that nervous for your first dance?”
“Naw. I don’t even remember who I took to my first dance.”
“ Wooow .” She draws out the word dramatically. “Noncommittal even in your youth. That shouldn’t surprise me.”
“Isn’t that what your youth is supposed to be?”
With a slight head tilt, she scrunches her mouth to the side. “So what’s your excuse now?”
“I’m still young.” I smirk and toss her a wink before walking into the dining room for dinner.
Ornate mahogany beams arch across the ceiling and trim the cream-colored walls. A matching dining table is set in the middle of the room, with Dad’s baked ziti cooling in the center. He’s busy dishing up servings while we find our seats. Theron and I sit on one side, facing Ashlie and Mom, while we save the head of the table for Dad.
“Didn’t Artie look magical?” Ashlie asks as we dig into the food.
“That dress contrasted nicely against the dark summer tan she’s hanging on to. I just wish Artemis would have let me straighten her hair. It gets so wild when it’s curly, and I’d love to see how long it’s gotten.”
The room falls silent after Mom’s criticism. She constantly compares Artie and I to her French ancestry like procreating with a dark-skinned Black man wouldn’t produce Black-ass kids.
Ashlie purses her lips and glances at me. “I put so much product in there, I’d be surprised if any of her curls frizz by the time she makes it home. You’ll have to let me know.” She smiles sweetly, but that look in her eyes is anything but.
“Don’t get me wrong. You did a great job. I just wish she knew how much prettier she would be with her hair sleek and smooth instead of?—”
“Curly like mine?” That faux smile glitches so briefly I doubt anyone else caught it.
Mom has always had this weird complex about Artemis. Constantly commenting on the shade of her skin or her curl pattern. How polished she would look if she changed this or that. Ashlie’s defensiveness is in direct correlation to some of those harmful things Mom has said. Things that Ashlie has worked hard to eliminate from Artie’s psyche over the years.
“She doesn’t like to straighten her hair,” I say, scowling at Mom across the table. “You’d know that if you took the time to listen to her.”
Mom slowly meets my eyes, face flushing before she returns to her food. After a few minutes of silence, she tries again with a smile on her face. “Hunter, your dad was telling me you work from home now.”
“Yep.” I take a sip of water so I don’t have to say anything else.
“That must be so distracting. How do you get anything done?”
“Oh, I don’t.” The sarcastic bite in my voice makes her shoulders tense. “I just sit at home and let Daddy Wallet over there promote me through his company.”
Her smile falls. “I just meant that you were so unfocused when you were younger. I imagine that would make it hard to be home all the time.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a child anymore.” I stare at her until she lowers her eyes, which only amplifies the pulse pounding in my ears.
Dad clears his throat. “Hunter is one of our top data analysts. Being at home without the office distractions has vastly improved his work. He’s up for a supervisor position.”
“That’s fantastic, Hunter. I’m proud of you!” She grins, and the crinkle lines around her eyes are as familiar as I remember… before she left and everything went to shit .
“Thanks,” I murmur, wishing Dad wouldn’t have opened up the door for her to be in my business. I set my eyes on Ashlie, who’s been silently watching the whole exchange. “You ready?”
“Oh, you’re leaving already?” Mom asks. “You just got here.”
“ We have been here for hours,” I say. “ You just got here.”
Ashlie pushes back from the table, placing her napkin next to her plate. “Thanks for dinner, Kendall. It was delicious.”
“Come over anytime. And thank you for helping Artie. You did a great job.” He smiles and stands from his chair. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
When we reach the stairs, Ashlie runs up to grab her things. I avoid looking at Dad, knowing he’s about to give me one of his abbreviated lectures. My scalp prickles as he watches me. “Just say it!” I snap.
“Cool it, Hunter.” That’s all he says. I know exactly what he’s talking about, and he knows I know. He claps me on the shoulder, his stare softening. “It’s nice seeing you, son. Don’t let your mom keep you from coming over. This is your home, not hers.”
I nod and open the door for Ashlie, who’s almost to the bottom of the stairs. “Bye, Dad,” I say, before jogging down the front steps.
“Well, that was the most intense dinner I’ve ever sat through,” Ashlie jokes once we get in the car.
“Yeah. Charlotte St. Clair tends to have that effect on people.” My mind fills with the worst kind of memories as I head toward the freeway. We drive most of the way back to Ashlie’s apartment in silence until she breaks it when we reach her neighborhood.
“…Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” I mumble. From the corner of my eye, I watch her stick her thumbnail between her teeth. She’s gonna ask for details .
“I’ve never heard you talk about it. Can I ask what happened?”
Fucking called it . Laughing to keep the searing rage in my chest from taking over, I remember why I don’t talk about what happened after Mom left. I’m still livid as fuck about it. No amount of time or distance can put a damper on the emotion roiling through me.
“O-oh, let me tell you.” I huff a humorless chuckle. “When I was sixteen, I came home from school early and found my mom and Nils in bed together.”
Ashlie covers her mouth with both hands. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah. Imagine hiring a babysitter so you could cheat on your husband in his own bed.” My throat tightens, and the longer I talk about this, the harder it is to concentrate on the road. Thankfully, Ashlie doesn’t ask another question until I park behind her car and rub my eyes.
“Did she see you?” Ashlie’s facing me now, seatbelt dangling behind her, legs crisscrossed on the seat. The concern on her face as she listens makes me want to run and hide and reach out toward her for comfort all at the same time.
Nodding, I blow a puff of air from my lips. I hate talking about this, but with Ashlie, I can’t seem to keep the words from spilling out. “I went back to my room, and she followed me, wrapped in the blanket from her bed, begging me not to say anything to Dad.”
The memories flood through me while I stare out the windshield. I’ve spent a decade trying to push them all down, but here they are, as vivid as the day they happened. “Of course I told him. He’s my dad. I told him, and everything fell apart. Every time I looked at her, I saw red. It was so bad, I stayed with Chase’s family for weeks. I couldn’t get the image out of my head—her and him . The thought of going back to that house made me want to break things.”
“Shit, Hunt…”
“That day is the only time I’ve ever heard my dad yell. They screamed at each other for hours. Mom blamed me, saying I should have minded my business. Dad completely closed himself off. And my girlfriend at the time dumped me because I was pissed at everything.”
Ashlie reaches across the center console, putting her hand on mine. The soft pressure serves as a distraction from the torrential hurricane swirling inside of me. Focusing on her, I breathe out the emotion building in my throat.
“This explains so much about you, and I hate that you had to go through that,” she says with a squeeze. “But Hunter, it wasn’t your fault.”
“No? If I would have kept my mouth shut, we could have avoided all the drama. Mom blamed me for it, and I think Dad did too, for a while.”
She shakes her head with a frown, scrunching her lips. “It wouldn’t have mattered. If she was bold enough to do what she did in her own bed, she would have slipped up some other way. Your dad would have found out eventually.” Her thumb strokes mine tenderly, but I can’t dwell on it. “She was wrong for asking you to keep it a secret, Hunter. It wasn’t your responsibility to?—”
“I know it wasn’t, but what was I supposed to do? She completely broke him and left me to pick up the pieces.”
Ashlie’s eyebrows dip in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“He was okay after finding out she cheated on him. Angry, but still functioning. But when Mom took Artemis, Dad stopped eating and sleeping. He hyperfocused on work. Nothing else mattered.”
“ Took her ? That sounds scary as hell.”
It was terrifying. I was a kid and didn’t know how to deal with any of that shit. There were some nights he didn’t come home from work, opting to power through at the office. He always made sure I had the Wilmingtons to fall back on, but I was left to my own devices often.
The warmth from Ashlie’s fingers seems to travel through me, wrapping me in a cocoon of safety where it’s just me and her. For the first time in a long time, it’s okay to talk about this—okay to feel . I blow out another breath, searching for some sense of calm in the storm of memories. “Chase’s parents were the ones who stepped in, got Dad back on track, and helped us get Artie home. It took years. It was a nightmare, and I hate her for it.”
Ashlie rubs her hand up my arm, a consolation prize that would, under any other circumstance, leave me with goosebumps. Now, though, it just makes me want to dive into her comfort. “I think that’s valid.” Ashlie nods. “Your mom?—”
“Naw.” I suck my teeth, looking straight ahead. “She’s not though. Moms don’t leave their kids like that. She made it perfectly clear which children she wanted, and she lost that title with me ten years ago.”
Ashlie cups my face in her hands, turning my head so I have to look at her. “Listen to me, Hunt. This was not your fault?—”
“I know that!”
Hot tears prick my eyes as I stare at Ashlie. I choke them back and try to turn away, but she keeps my head steady. “Hunter, her abandoning you, that was not your fault. She was wrong, and she shouldn’t have left. No amount of you doing anything differently would have changed the choices she made. That was all her. It all falls on her.”
Ashlie leans in, the compassion in her brown eyes lancing me. She isn’t doling out judgment or telling me I’m wrong for feeling this way. And like a flash of lightning, I’m hyperaware of the beating of my heart while her thumbs stroke my face. Her touch engraves possibilities into the desire I’ve stifled for years, her memory-inducing scent fogging through my head like an ether leading me to delirium. I could kiss her.
And I do.
It happens in slow motion, me leaning forward to press my lips to hers. For the briefest moment, she kisses me back, a soft and slow tug-of-war while we sample this forbidden fruit. I reach toward her for more, but just as fast, she drops her hands from my face and pulls away, leaving me craving her touch as soon as it’s gone.
“Hunter.” She shakes her head, eyes plastered below my chin. “Y-you’re upset,” she says in a breathless whisper.
“ Shit .” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, fully aware I just messed up. We don’t cross this line. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. “Fuck!”
“Hey…” The gentle soothe in her voice makes all of this worse. “It’s not a big deal. We can forget it even happened.”
“Yeah.” I scoff with a sardonic snort.
“Why don’t you come in? We can watch a movie or something.”
“Naw.” Shaking my head, I turn back to the road. “I need to go home.”
“Then I’ll come with you. I don’t like the idea of you being by yourself when you’re upset like this.”
“I’m not upset, I just want to be alone. I’m fine.” I feel her studying me, but I don’t risk another glance, fearing I’ll latch back on and drown in her vortex. I need to go home and sleep off whatever hex my mother’s presence has put on this day.
“Hunter, it’s okay to need people…” She puts her hand back over my arm, and I shrug away. As much as I craved her touch moments ago, it’s too intense right now. I just need to get out of here. “Will you text me when you get home?” she asks quietly.
I nod, feeling her eyes on me again before she slides out of the car. Without another word, she grabs her supplies from the back and walks up the stairs to her apartment. What the fuck did I just do ?
Ashlie
Did you make it back okay?
It’s been two hours…
HUNTER, IF YOU DON’T ANSWER, I’M COMING OVER.
Me
My bad. I’m fine…fell asleep.
Ashlie
Boy! You irk me.
Me