Chapter 2 Hunter
HUNTER
“Are you going to be okay here?” Lizzy asks as she wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Liz, come on. It’s me. Why wouldn’t I be?”
She eyes me as she purses her lips. “You’ve never lived in a big city like this, and you’ve moved away from everyone and everything you know.”
“And you think, what? I’m going to get mugged or crash out every day and become depressed?”
She shakes her head as she grabs a box from the top of the stack at her side and sets it on a lower stack for better access. “No.”
“I’m more worried about you on a daily basis than you need to be about me in the big city.” I use air quotes when I say big.
My sister is always worried about me, about herself, about life, about everything. She’s a worrier. I don’t know how she even functions with the amount of stress she puts on herself.
She jams a knife into the taped seam and tears through the box like she’s gutting a fish. I don’t know if it’s impressive or scary with how flawlessly and effortlessly she does it too. “It’s just a big move, and it’s not like you picked this city yourself. You didn’t have a choice.”
“Exactly. There was no other choice than to move here. I plan to make the best of it too.”
“I know she’s going through a lot, but she’s a jerk for moving away from you in the first place.”
Lizzy still can’t bring herself to say her name. She never liked Natalie, especially how things ended with us. The final nail in the coffin was when Nat announced she was moving out of state and taking our daughter with her.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I wasn’t going to get into an extended court battle that would cause more harm to our daughter than the trauma she’d already been put through with our divorce.
I made the choice to go wherever she did to be close to my little girl. I’d move heaven and earth for her, and that includes moving to Chicago to make sure I am in her life and won’t miss a thing.
“What’s done is done,” I tell her.
My sister shakes her head. “You’re too nice sometimes, Hunt.”
“All that matters is Amira, Liz. If she’s happy, I’m happy.
She deserves two parents who aren’t at each other’s throats all the time.
Natalie may be the one going through treatments, but Amira is living through the stress and uncertainty right along with her.
I want to do whatever I can to make her life even the slightest bit easier. ”
I’d already planned to move here in the spring, but when Natalie called and told me she’d been diagnosed with leukemia and was starting treatment immediately, I sped everything up and made the move in two weeks.
She needs my help, and Amira needs me around because life is going to change dramatically for her too.
“You’re a good man and a good dad.”
“That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Lizzy.”
She waves her hand at me. “Why are you standing around? Move some boxes. I can’t stay longer than this weekend. And I don’t know where all these things came from, but you have a lot of everything.”
I move quickly, grabbing a box and tearing into it. “I don’t have that much stuff.”
She grunts. “All of these boxes would say otherwise.”
We work in relative silence besides streaming my sister’s new favorite songs. It’s not my type of music, but I can appreciate it for what it is…noise.
After twenty minutes of not talking, she finally breaks the seal again. “So, the neighbor…”
“Not happening.”
A smile spreads slowly across her face. “I don’t believe you, and you deserve some fun.”
“I’m not here for fun.”
“Maybe you can be friends.”
I pin her with a stare. “How many female friends do I have?”
“None because you sleep with them all, but I think it’s possible—if you can keep it in your pants for any period of time. You could use a friend around here. Someone to look out for you when I’m not around.”
“And the neighbor is a good idea because…?”
“Because, what’s the term you used?” Lizzy taps her lips like she’s trying to remember, but my sister forgets nothing. “The hottie next door.”
And she is that. The woman is an absolute stunner. But sleeping with her would be a huge mistake. If we didn’t end well, which likely we wouldn’t, I couldn’t just up and move. And the last thing I want is to share a wall with my ex.
“I can appreciate her beauty without wanting to date her.”
Lizzy raises an eyebrow, knowing me better than anyone else in the world. “You haven’t been on a date since her.”
I somehow stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Natalie.”
“Yeah, her. She was the last.”
I can’t argue with her. She’s right. I thought Nat would be my forever, and when she told me she wanted a divorce because she fell in love with someone else, I was beyond devastated.
But looking back on things now, all the signs that she’d started having an affair were there, but I was too in love with my wife to believe she had eyes for anyone else but me.
It didn’t help that I had just lost my parents in a tragic car accident, a drunk driver crossing over the center line and killing them on impact. I was so mired in my grief that I had ignored her needs, and she found someone who met them for her.
It’s water under the bridge now. Years have passed and, looking back on things, it was for the best.
I hated that Amira was stuck in the middle and was the only true casualty of our relationship falling apart. But I did my best to mitigate the damage by being as present as I could be without living in the same house.
“I’m not ready to get serious with anyone.”
Lizzy pulls down all the coffee cups I had organized, not liking how I put them into the cabinet. “Top down, Hunt, or else you’ll get dirt and debris in them.”
“What dirt?” I ask her, confused.
She ignores my question as she places the coffee mugs back inside upside down. “It’s been three years. I think it’s time.”
“Well, as long as you think it’s time,” I tease.
She throws a dish towel across the island, smacking me in the chest. “You deserve to be happy.”
“And when are you going to get serious with someone?” I ask, giving her the same energy in return.
“I’m too young to get tied down.”
“You’re thirty-two.”
“And you’re thirty-five, and we’re both single. When you get serious about a relationship, I will too.”
“Hello. I’ve been married before. I have a kid, remember? You’re behind.”
“We’re both starting fresh. You’re not ahead in anything.”
Our parents’ deaths took the wind out of both of our sails.
It’s hard enough to grieve one person, let alone two.
And with my marriage falling apart, I wasn’t in the mood to even think about getting involved with someone else.
I didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity for anything besides Amira and survival.
My sister was the same. It’s like our lives stopped when theirs did.
“And you’re in a new city. It’s a completely fresh beginning. Take advantage of that.”
“Why don’t you move here?”
Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t think I’m a big-city girl.”
“I think once you see the Magnificent Mile, you’ll change your mind.”
The one thing I know my sister loves more than being a serial dater is shopping. She has no idea what Chicago has to offer, but I’ve done enough research about my new home that I know Lizzy will visit often, if not for me, then to shop.
“I’ll visit a lot. I need to see my little niece as much as I possibly can.”
“She’s going to need you,” I tell her, not trying to make her feel guilty, but stating a fact.
Amira will need as many people around her who love her as she can possibly get. Nat’s parents aren’t in her life because they aren’t good people. With our parents gone and her parents estranged, Lizzy and I are the only other family she has besides Nat and her current husband.
“I promise I’ll be around. It’s only a six-hour drive. I can come every weekend.”
“Let’s not get extreme,” I tease her.
“You’re a jerk.”
“I know, but you love me.”
“I do,” she says and sighs.
“I’m going to work on your bathroom.”
“You sure about that?”
“It’s the cleanest it’ll ever be,” she explains.
Growing up, we shared a bathroom, and we both barely escaped with our lives. My sister is a clean freak and a germaphobe. I’m not either, and that caused more than a few fights when we were kids.
“I’m going to unpack my bedding,” I tell her.
“What about the stuff for the guest bedroom?”
“It’s in a box on the bed.”
“I’ll do that after the bathroom. Don’t touch it.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I reply.
Lizzy wants her bed made a certain way, and no matter how hard I’ve tried to replicate it over the years, I never get it right. How many ways are there to make a bed correctly? According to my sister, there’s only one way, and it’s not how I do it.
By the time the sun sets, we have almost all the boxes unpacked, and I am fairly settled into my new place.
“When do you start work?” Lizzy asks, clutching a glass of wine to her chest as she stares out over the twinkling lights of the city.
“Tomorrow night.”
“They’re lucky to have you. You’re very talented.”
“But you won’t let me do a piece on you.”
She looks over at me and smiles. “I’ve been thinking about that lately.”
“What?”
“I think I want something to memorialize Mom and Dad. Not as big or as intricate as what you have, but something delicate and meaningful.”
“I can work on some designs.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” She sniffles, and I know the pain of losing them is as fresh and biting to her as it still is to me.
They say time heals all wounds and that, in time, the sorrow of loss fades, but it’s bullshit. You just get used to the pain. It becomes your new normal.
“Give me a bit, and we will work on it until it’s perfect.”
“If I am ever going to put something on my skin, it should be for them.”
I chuckle a little, trying to lighten the mood. “You know Mom hated tattoos, Lizzy. It’s not the way she’d want you to memorialize her.”
“She had one on her ass. Did you know that?” she asks, like we’re talking about the weather and not a revelation about my own mother.
My gaze snaps to hers. “What?”
Lizzy laughs softly. “She told me about it once. It was a small heart just above her ass.”
“Mom had a tramp stamp?” I’m flabbergasted. Never in a million years would I have thought my mom had something like that.
“Dad liked the look of it.”
I blanch a little, hating to think about them sexually even if they’re no longer breathing.
“She said it made him happy. She lost a bet with one of her girlfriends and had to get one because of it, and that’s what she chose.”
“How come I never saw it?” I ask in disbelief. If I didn’t know my sister better, I’d say she was totally pulling my chain.
“I never saw it either. It was right above her crack.”
I bristle just thinking about my mom’s butt crack. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. She said it was just an outline of a heart and it was below the line of her swimsuit and pants, so only Dad got to see it.”
I didn’t think there was anything new to discover about my parents, but obviously, I was wrong.
“What else do I not know about?”
Lizzy shrugs. “I thought you knew about the tattoo.”
“No. Why would she tell me?”
“Since it’s your profession, I thought maybe she’d share.”
“Why did she tell you?”
“She used it as a reason to tell me never to get one. She said it’s forever and not to make dumb bets like she did because they could follow you for your entire life.”
I guess you never really know a person, especially your parents.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget they’re more than a mom or a dad.
They had an entire life before you took your first breath.
They were once young and dumb, making crazy decisions because they were living life for the first time, just like you did.
“Did Dad have a mysterious tattoo too?” I ask her, figuring my sister somehow has way more dirt on our parents than I ever did.
“No, but he had a piercing.”
I stagger back and clutch my chest. “What?”
“Just like you,” she says, her eyes dipping downward.
“You’re shitting me.”
She giggles before she takes a sip of her wine, leaving me to have a mild panic attack.
“Please tell me you’re lying.”
“I am,” she says around the rim. “Can you imagine if he did?”
I wince, unable to even think about it. “No.”
“You’re a much hipper dad,” Lizzy says.
“Hipper?”
She shrugs. “You’re covered in tattoos and have more piercings than I do.”
“It’s not hard to beat having only your ears pierced.”
“You have more metal in your body than someone who’s had a hip replacement.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Where’s the lie? Maybe you can share your love of metal with that hottie neighbor.”
I shake my head. “I can’t risk it.”
“Pity,” she whispers and moves her gaze back to the nighttime skyline.
It is a pity because the woman next door is exactly my type. But I don’t want to mess up my fresh start before I even get settled.
“I need more wine. Want a refill?” she asks.
I know I’ll regret it tomorrow, but I say, “Yeah. Sure. What’ll it hurt?”
But I know I’ll wake up with a headache that will follow me throughout the entire day.
“Good, because you know I don’t like to drink alone. Want to watch a movie?”
“Which one?”
“Goonies.”
“I’m in,” I tell her, because watching entertaining and equally bad movies from the eighties is our thing.
“I’ll get the wine while you make the popcorn,” she tells me as she stalks toward my kitchen.
“Somehow I got the shit end of that stick.”
“You make it better,” she says. She has always used that as an excuse not to be the one staring at the microwave to make sure it doesn’t burn.
I rest my ass against the counter as I press start on the microwave. I love this loft, which is something I could’ve never found in our small hometown. There’s something about this place, this city, that already feels like home.