Chapter 23
Theo
I jolt awake in Hunter’s truck. Ugh, I’m pretty sure I was drooling on myself. I try to carefully wipe my mouth without drawing attention to it.
Hunter has music playing softly, and it’s dark now. We must be getting close. “I’m sorry I fell asleep again.”
“No need to be sorry,” Hunter says. “Get as much sleep as you can.”
I glance over at him. It’s really for the best we decided to take his truck. I’m not sure how many more trips my car could handle without an oil change. Even if I could afford to take it to a shop—I can’t—I’d be terrified. It’s probably falling apart like everything else in my life.
At any rate, it’s been nice. I drove for a little bit, but it’s mostly been Hunter.
I’ve been watching him. Not in a weird way. Well, kind of in a weird way, I suppose.
He just does everything with so much competence. Taking care of the animals, horseback riding, and driving. Even now, he’s slouched in his seat, completely at ease, with his left hand loosely gripping the steering wheel and the other resting on the seat between us.
He’s got a bench seat up front, and I seriously considered sitting in the middle and leaning against him.
It would have been much more comfortable to nap that way.
Instead, I just slept upright. Depression sleep knows no bounds.
I could probably fall asleep standing up if my shitty brain demanded it.
It demands, and I do. It demands that I sleep, and I crawl into bed. It demands that I self-isolate, and I cut people off. It demands that I jump off a parking garage, and well… Every so often I can resist what it wants.
Fuck, I think Hunter might be right. Maybe I do deserve better than this.
I shouldn’t have to walk around feeling this way. And maybe the medicine won’t work. Maybe it won’t help at all, and maybe I’m doomed to feel this way for the rest of my life. Maybe it’s punishment for some past crimes I didn’t even realize I’d committed.
Or maybe… Maybe I don’t deserve this at all. Maybe there’s no rhyme or reason. Maybe sometimes people just get stuck with shitty mental health, and they use the tools they have available to them—therapy, medication, community—and they survive.
“I want to live,” I say.
“I know,” Hunter answers immediately.
His faith in me makes me feel like I can do this.
Like I can survive. I allowed my depression to pull me away from him, but he was still right there waiting for me, and maybe I didn’t deserve that.
Maybe I don’t deserve a friend like him.
Friend. That word doesn’t even feel right, but it’s all I’ve got.
Weeks of texting and calling and FaceTiming and animal pictures and farm updates. Weeks of his quiet, compassionate care don’t feel like friendship. Not to me.
Sleeping in his arms doesn’t feel like friendship. Burying myself in his warmth and finding freedom there, being unchained from the shackles holding me down, doesn’t feel like friendship.
It feels like salvation.
Hunter Lock might be my salvation. And calling him a friend when he’s all of those things feels wrong.
I clear my throat. “Can I sit in the middle?”
Wordlessly, Hunter moves his arm, and I unbuckle and scoot to the middle then fasten my seatbelt again.
“Gonna take ya another nap?” he asks quietly.
I glance up at the GPS. We’re less than an hour away, and I feel better than I have in weeks. Not great, but better. I’m nowhere near my normal baseline, but when I was sitting at zero? This is everything.
“No. I just want to…” I let my voice trail off, then rest my head against Hunter’s shoulder.
His arm tenses, and for a second I wonder if he doesn’t want me to be doing this, but before I can move, his arm is resting over my thigh, his hand gripping my knee.
“Okay?” he asks softly.
“Okay,” I sigh.
Perfect, really.
The world passes us by as we fly down the interstate, and I just let myself exist.
After a few minutes, I place my hand over Hunter’s, and he turns it palm up.
I trace patterns along his fingers with my own. Trace the lines of his palms. Feel the calluses on his fingers from working. Brush my fingertips over his wrist.
His breath catches in his throat, but I don’t think it’s bad, so I keep going.
It’s mindless, almost. And soothing. I just like being near him. Touching him and being touched by him reminds me I’m alive.
And more than that, it reminds me that I want to be.
When Hunter turns into the parking garage for my apartment, my stomach sours a little. I really don’t want him to see the worst of my worst. But he hasn’t flinched at anything I’ve shown him yet. Not a single thing.
So when he puts the truck in park and climbs out when I do, I steel myself and lead him to the elevators.
My apartment is on the third floor, and it’s a miracle the rickety elevator even makes it. This was one of the few places I could afford without working my ass off. At this point, the world knows I can’t work my ass off.
Even still, it’s shitty. And Hunter is about to witness my shitty.
We step off the elevator together, and he surprises me by hooking his fingers around mine.
I give his a squeeze and make the short walk down the hall to my apartment.
It feels like it’s been a lifetime since I’ve been here.
There’s something hanging on my door, which isn’t a big surprise. There are all kinds of restaurants around here that drop off flyers with their specials, so when I stop in front of the door, that’s what I’m expecting.
Instead, I take in the bold words on the paper with a rock in my gut.
Dropping Hunter’s hand, I pull the paper off the door and hold it in front of me.
Eviction Notice
Perfect. I skim the text. Pretty straightforward. I have thirty days to vacate the premises.
I just stare at it for a second, hoping that if I keep looking at it, maybe the words will change.
No such luck.
“What is it?” Hunter asks.
I hand it to him without a word as tears burn my eyes.
Fuck, I’ve made such a goddamn mess of my fucking life. You have to pay your rent—I get it. But I was. I was working hard to get caught up. I thought my landlord was understanding and that we had an agreement. I guess not.
Hunter hums, but I can’t even look at him. Can’t bear to see what he thinks of my failure.
“What are we gonna do then?” he asks after a second. “What’s the plan?”
I bark out an incredulous laugh. “I don’t have a plan. My plan was to get my shit together for once in my life and get things caught up.”
Fuck, this is so goddamn embarrassing.
“Okay, but that didn’t happen.”
Ouch. “I know that, but thank you for pointing it out to me.”
“Theo.” I ignore him, choosing instead to stare at the door of my apartment. Well, the apartment that’s mine for the next thirty days. Or maybe twenty-eight. I don’t actually know what date it was put here. “Sweetheart.”
Damn him and that fucking pet name.
“Please turn around and look at me.”
With a sigh, I do. He’s holding the eviction paper loosely at his side, but his eyes are on me. “We need a new plan. That’s all.”
I scoff. “That’s all? I’m glad this is so fucking easy for you to just… just—” I wave a hand through the air. “I don’t know… rationalize. But it’s not that easy for me.”
Fuck. I hate this place, but it’s the only place I had. I could live in my car, right? At least until I can afford something else. There are enough parking garages in the city—well-lit with security cameras. It’s summer, so it would be fine.
It wouldn’t be the worst thing. Not really.
I could join a gym and shower there. Could sleep in the back seat.
“I can sleep in my car,” I blurt out. “It’s summer. That’ll give me time to figure something out and get a job.”
Hunter looks appalled. “No.”
“What do you mean no? You don’t get to just tell me what I can and can’t—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “No. You don’t get to tell yourself that living in your car is an acceptable next step when you’re already hangin’ on by a thread.”
I turn my head, clenching my jaw so I don’t break down in tears. That’s the last fucking thing I need right now. “I’d be fine. You don’t get it.”
Warm fingers brush my jaw, and it forces tears to well in my eyes. I want to laugh at myself when one falls, rolling down my cheek in what feels like slow motion. Hunter brushes it away.
“I do get it. You’re embarrassed. And probably scared. And it feels an awful lot like you’re trying to downplay your emotions so you don’t—I don’t know, really—have to admit to yourself that you’re a human with needs.”
Another tear slips from my eye and falls, and again, Hunter wipes it away before exhaling slowly. “Please look at me, Theo.”
I don’t. I can’t. I’m gonna lose it if I have to see pity in his eyes.
As it is, I can pretend that I’m not standing in the hallway outside my apartment with tears rolling down my cheeks and a new emptiness inside me that didn’t exist half an hour ago.
“Sweetheart, you’ve been through a lot,” Hunter says anyway. “You lost your job, your sense of security. It’s a lot.”
“I should have handled it better.” Of course I should have. People do this every day. They work, they pay bills, and they manage relationships, cleaning, and their fucking lives.
“Maybe,” Hunter says quietly, and somehow, having him confirm my thoughts is worse than when I’m thinking them. “Or,” he continues, “maybe this was just bigger than you could handle on your own. You’re not alone, Theo. I’m right here.”
My throat burns, and my eyes are still leaking, and I am so, so fucking tired of feeling this way. I turn to him and step into his warmth, pressing my face to his shoulder so I can hide. “So what’s your plan, then?”
Hunter sighs in what sounds like relief. “We go inside, pack as much as we can, and you come home with me.”
My breath stutters in my chest. “I can’t just move in with you. Your mom runs a damn business. I can’t take from customers and from her pay.”
“My mom is fine, Theo. It’s not like we have people beating down the doors to stay with us.
Besides, I figured you’d just stay with me.
” My stomach flips. “If you want to, of course. I’d never make you.
But you kinda already have been since you got here.
Well… not here, here. To me here.” He stops talking, then exhales a slow breath. “Sorry, I’m ramblin’.”
I press my face harder into his shoulder, breathing him in as I try to get my stupid fucking eyes to stop leaking. “You’re sure?”
“So fucking sure.”
He sounds it too. Sincere and confident and sure.
“I don’t want to be a burden.”
Strong fingers sink into my hair, and my knees go weak. “You’re killing me here. Please look at me.”
I huff. “Why are you always wanting me to look at you?”
“Because I want to see those pretty blue eyes of yours when I tell you that you’re not a burden.”
With a deep breath, I come out from my hiding place and meet his gaze.
I’m surprised when he squeezes his eyes closed before opening them again. “Jesus, there you are, sweetheart.” He wipes under my eyes, his thumb gentle, and then he just holds my face and stares at me for a second. “Are you okay with this plan?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah.”
He leans in, and I’m so sure he’s going to kiss me that I draw in a sharp breath in anticipation, but his lips land on my forehead instead of my mouth.
My eyes flutter shut when he pulls back.
“Alright, let’s get as much as we can loaded in the truck, okay?
And when we figure out a plan, we’ll come back for the rest.”
Without opening my eyes, I whisper, “Okay.”
Hunter doesn’t drop his hands from my face, and I don’t really want him to. “I have another idea,” he says, and my eyes fly open.
“What is it?”
“We could talk to your landlord,” he starts, though he sounds tentative and unsure, almost, “and if they agree, I can loan you the money to get caught up.”
That would be easy. I could stay here. I wouldn’t need to stay with Hunter at all.
I don’t want to do that. “Is that what you want?” I ask carefully. It didn’t seem like it, given the way he just rallied for me to stay with him. But if it is, I guess I’m not really in a position to disagree.
“Do you want the truth?”
“Of course I do.”
He shakes his head. “No. That’s not what I want at all. I want to load your things up in my truck. I want to take you home with me. I don’t want you to be alone in this shitty apartment. It breaks my heart to think of you all alone here, Theo. You shouldn’t be alone. You should be with me.”
My heart’s about to pound right out of my chest, and I can’t even deny how amazing that sounds.
If relying on people—on Hunter—makes me weak, then so fucking be it.
I’m so tired of doing this alone, and he’s standing right here in front of me, offering me a solution.
Offering me safety. And care. Himself, even.
My salvation, indeed.