7. HUNTER
7
I 'm sitting on the step of my porch, enjoying the sun warming my skin, even though I feel dead inside. Numb. My feet anxiously tap the wood of the steps while I’m swiping through my phone. Basically avoiding my mom until Charlotte arrives to bring my truck back.
“You’re nothing but a freeloader.”
The winning comment of the day. I would love to say that’s the worst she’s ever said, but that would be a lie. At this point, I’m surprised she hasn’t wished me dead yet.
Fuck knows I have.
The first time she started telling me I was shit, I went to my room feeling exactly that.
Like shit.
Wishing I was the one in that damn car with my dad, and that my brother would’ve been the one to survive. But then I would realize I’d never want my brother to have to deal with this version of my mother, so I was glad he was spared the experience.
How fucked up is that? Considering your dead brother lucky, because at least he doesn’t have to deal with your alcoholic mom?
I grunt at my own thoughts, shaking my head to push my self-pity away by looking at the messages on my phone.
LIZA: LAST NIGHT WAS FUN ;)
HUNTER: IT SURE WAS.
LIZA: WANNA DO IT AGAIN 2NIGHT?
HUNTER: MAYBE
Not if Charlotte is willing to spend her night with me instead.
LIZA: WORD IS UR HAVING A FIGHT TONIGHT …
HUNTER: I DO.
LIZA: WANT ME TO BE YOUR PERSONAL CHEERLEADER ?
No.
Fuck no.
I don’t take people to my fights other than Jason, but most of the time I go by myself. It’s a business transaction for me and nothing more. The last thing I need is some bunny-hopping girl begging for my attention while I’m trying to knock people out.
Though, her question does spark an idea.
The tips of my fingers hover above my screen to reply, when the roaring engine of my truck makes me look up, and excitement across stretches my face. My bad mood disappears that tiny girl parks my big-ass truck in the driveway like a badass. The last few weeks, she’s been the only one who can really make me smile; my light in the dark tunnel that is my life. I walk over to my truck, leaning in the open window on the passenger side.
“Hey.” She looks gorgeous as ever in her blue jeans and a simple white t-shirt, her blonde strands framing the swell of her breasts.
Her eyes narrow at me as she cocks her head, lips pursing.
“You had another fight?”
I swear, I can’t hide anything from this girl. She can read me like a fucking children’s book, quickly and without any effort. She notices the smallest change in my mood and it’s as terrifying as it is comforting that she knows me this well after just a matter of weeks.
A sweet smile ruffles my lips, hoping she’ll drop it while I open the door.
“Hunt.” She glares when I reach for the contact and pull the key from the ignition, using it as an excuse to be closer to her. Her flowery shampoo is intoxicating, and I breathe in deeply as I close my eyes. When the key is in my hand, I look up, rest my gaze on her innocent face, resisting the itch to brush my thumb over the soft brown freckles on her cheek.
“I got you something.” I open the glove box, pulling out the book I stuffed there yesterday.
Her eyes narrow with a little amusement. “You’re deflecting. ”
“I know.” I lift up the book in front of her face, and her jaw drops, her green eyes wide like the most gorgeous marbles you’ll ever see.
“Hunt!” She stares at my smirk, then flicks her eyes back to the book and gently takes it from my hands. “You got me the new Aubrey Carrington book?”
The gratitude in her expression melts my heart while pride straightens my shoulder.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she adds.
“It’s no big deal. I saw it when I walked past the bookstore yesterday.”
A smile splits her face, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. “Thank you. I love it.”
The look she’s aiming at me has my pulse galloping and running straight toward the drug that’s Charlotte Roux, as I already wonder how I can replicate that smile once more.
“Now…” She tilts her head accusingly. Shit. Thought I saved myself out of that one. “Your mom giving you a hard time again?”
“Yeah,” I finally admit with a tight voice, letting my head hang above the center console.
“’Bout what?”
I softly snicker, straightening my back to bring up my arms, leaning them against the top of the car.
“About you.” A frown forms on her face, and I send her an apologetic look. It was a first, my mom being bothered by whoever I hang out with, but fuck me, it quickly had my anger reach a boiling point and walking out the door. My mother can have an opinion on any other girl, but not Charlotte. She can keep Charlotte’s name out of her mouth.
“What about me?” Her lips part in shock, though a curious glint bounces through her expression. A grunt of confliction rumbles into the truck. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I also don’t want to lie. Not to her .
“She basically called me an idiot for giving you my truck all the time, when we’ve been friends for less than a month. Then she started ranting about me being stupid and always hanging around with low-life bimbos.” I carefully watch her features, expecting her to freak out on me. But to my surprise, her lips are vigorously pressed to hold back a laugh. Her eyes spark with joy, and I let out my pent-up breath in relief.
“I’m a bimbo now?”
“No.” I playfully roll my eyes. “I told her you were anything but a bimbo. That you weren’t like that. That you’re my friend.” My voice lowers with the last sentence, as if I’ll be caught in a lie any second now. “Then she was all like, ‘I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never met the girl.’ And after that, it all went downhill.”
Our gazes stay locked while I tug my lip between my teeth, waiting for her to say something. Finally, she lets out a full belly burst of laughter, which is music to my ears.
“Well, she’s not wrong about the bimbo part.” I press my tongue into my cheek to hide the smile that wants to slip through at her accusation. “She is wrong about me , though.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I mutter.
She shakes her head, then leans back, staring at me with her clear lake-colored eyes.
I swear one day I’ll drown in them, and I doubt I’ll ever come back from that.
“What?” I won’t be able to think straight if she keeps looking at me like this. Like she actually sees more than just a rebellious teenager with a fucked-up life.
“You want me to go inside and introduce myself to your mom?”
Wait? What?
“You would do that?”
“Sure.” She shrugs. “If it’s important to you. Of course I will.”
She says it with an ease that would be logical if my mom was the mother she was before my dad died. But she’s not. She knows this. She’s listened to my dreadful stories almost every night now since the moment we met. But she still sits here with a relaxation I wouldn’t expect after knowing what she knows.
“Really?” I ask again, my heart pounding a little from anxiety. If my dad was still alive, I would’ve been jumping for joy, because Charlotte is the kind of girl you want to bring home.
She’s fun.
She’s sweet.
She’s gorgeous.
She’s the whole package, and I know it.
But to my mom, on the other hand?
“Why is that such a weird thing?” I just keep looking at her in awe. “She’s your mom. Of course I want to meet her.” She gets out, putting her words to action and rounding the car. Clearly being dead serious about this, and I bite my lip, not knowing what to fucking do. Part of me wants to introduce her to my mom, hoping that one day life is different and we can all share a meal together. But then the other part is not even considering it, feeling the primal and utter need to protect Charlotte.
“Charls, I don’t know.” I grab her wrist before she can make her way toward the front door, and a serene look peers up at me through her thick lashes.
“What do you mean?”
“My mom. She—” I pause, rubbing the back of my neck. “She’s not fun to be around right now. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this.”
“I don’t, silly. I want to.”
“She’s not nice,” I offer, hoping to change her mind.
She rolls her eyes, tugging her wrist out of my grip, and starts walking to the front door. She’s the sweetest thing I’ll ever meet, but she’s also a stubborn piece of work when she wants to be. I learned that in the first week when she stole my debit card so she could pay for the ice cream we were getting.
Throwing my hands up in defeat, I jog behind her, making sure I’m the one walking through the door first. Hesitant to open it, I give her a final warning.
“Babe, she’s probably drunk. It’s not a pretty sight.”
“Hunt.” Her palm connects with my wrist, her green eyes hitting mine with a level of affection that makes it impossible to say no to her. “I know this. But if introducing myself to her can make your life a bit easier, I will do it. “
She’s so fucking adorable.
I can’t argue with her, and even if I wanted to, her adamant stance isn’t something I can go against anyway.
With a sigh, I open the door, just in time to catch my mom saunter from the kitchen to the living room. A bottle of wine in one hand, a glass filled to the rim in the other, with a cigarette dangling between the tips of her fingers. My spine tenses, yet I hoist a smile on my features.
“Hey, Mom, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Her hazy eyes slowly shift to us as a look filled with aversion washes over her face. In that moment, I wish the world could swallow us whole, knowing that whatever comes out of her mouth next won’t be pretty. Hell no is the first thing that flies through my head, because Charlotte doesn’t deserve this, but before I can say anything, my determined little blonde takes a step forward.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hansen. I’m Charlotte.” Charls offers her hand with a beaming smile, and I suspiciously wait while my mother eyes her from top to toe. Her brown eyes are bloodshot, and the gray tone of her skin makes her look more dead than alive, yet Charlotte keeps her smile bright.
“So you’re the girl fucking him for his car?” she spits, and I notice Charls’s face fall, but only a little, her hand still hanging in the air .
“Mom,” I seethe.
“Actually, he’s just lending me his truck out of the kindness of his heart.” Charls chuckles, dropping her hand back beside her body, as if my mother’s comment didn’t affect her.
“Oh, so you’re a freeloader, like he is?” she snarls, stepping a little closer with an ominous look. Without thinking, I step in front of Charlotte, shielding her from any outburst that might occur in the next second, but she lays her hand on my arm, forcing me to look at her with a single glance.
“It’s okay.” She smiles, then puts her focus back on my mother. I try to detect the bullshit, but before I can find any, she puts on a warrior expression.
“I guess I am, Mrs. Hansen. But he definitely isn’t. Thanks to him, I can get my mom to the hospital without the hassle of an Uber or taking the bus.” The corner of her mouth curls in a grin that doesn’t match her eyes as she keeps talking. “Call me whatever you want, but your son is anything but a freeloader.”
I raise my eyebrows in shock, feeling a renewed sense of pride. Ever since it’s been just my mom and me, I’ve felt alone, dealing with my demons and fighting my mom on a daily basis. I don’t bring friends home. I avoid my house as much as possible. Jason knows how life changed after the accident, but he doesn’t know how awful it really is.
He would never expect that I may need some backup every once in a while.
And to be honest, I never thought I did. But seeing this little spitfire go head to head with my mother, in the most polite way, makes me realize that’s exactly what I need.
Someone to back me up every now and then.
“You listen to me, little girl,” my mom growls, stepping closer, trying to move around me. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know your son is doing the best he can, considering you leave him to fend for himself every day,” Charlotte says, way more calm and collected than I am, though I don’t miss the accusing tone. I roll back my shoulders, lifting my chin, not sure I know what I did to deserve this girl defending me.
“He’s a grown ass man!” My mother’s pale features grow flush with each word spitting out of her mouth.
“He’s a teenager who needs his parents to take care of him. Who needs his mother. ”
Oh, damn. This girl says all the things that cut straight through me.
“He’s almost eighteen! He should take care of me!”
My insides constrict as I swallow away the lump in my throat that’s as dry as the fucking Arizona dessert. I try to keep reminding myself that my mother is sick. She’s grieving her husband and her son, and she doesn’t really mean all the shit she says.
“Respectfully, but isn’t that exactly what he’s been doing?” Charlotte retorts.
“Shut your pie hole, you fucking hussy!” My mother takes a threatening step forward, and I throw my arm in front of Charlotte’s chest.
“Mom, back off.” My jaw ticks, fueled by the rage spreading heat in my stomach. If my mother comes any closer, I won’t hesitate to put myself in front of her and protect Charlotte at all costs.
“Don’t you tell me to back off, boy!” Her attention snaps to me with a vicious glare. “And you!” She flicks her devilish gleam back to Charlotte, a piercing finger pointed at her. “How dare you come into my house, talking to me like you know it all!”
Charls’s hand squeezing my bicep, and I take a deep breath while her presence calms the anger running through my veins.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect, ma’am. You’re right. I don’t know it all. But I know Hunter.” Her tone is resolute, swelling my chest. “And that’s enough. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Hansen.” Her words combined with the anger surging through me makes it hard to breathe and relax, but I heard them loud and clear. She sticks up for me like I’m hers to stick up for, and even though I’m furious as hell, I’ve never felt better at the same time. Charlotte moves her gaze up to me while I keep my focus on my mom breathing through her nose like a raging bull.
A very drunk, raging bull.
“Are you coming?” I don’t know how she does it, but this girl either has balls of steel or she’s a damn good actress.
Without waiting for my answer, she tugs my arm, pulling me over the threshold and into the warmth of the sun again, as I give my mom another disappointed glare.
I wish it was different. I wish she was still the mother who would be excited to meet the friends I brought home. Especially if it’s a girl.
But this is just one more reminder of what used to be.
“Bye, Linda!” Charlotte tauntingly beams with a wave, lifting another astonished chuckle, then closes the door behind me. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”