Chapter 10 Hunter
Hunter
Another morning that is too loud. Not bad. Not good either. Just… wrong.
I’ve been in my office all morning, trying to focus on emails, contracts, app statistics, anything that keeps my brain from drifting to last night in the garage.
But concentration is impossible when the entire mansion is buzzing. Laughter, clattering pans with overlapping voices, and warmth. Aunt Jane’s voice lifts above the rest, bright and animated.
“More cinnamon, darling! Not too much—no, no, that’s perfect!”
Mrs. Lane chimes in, mock-scolding, “If you keep eating the apples, you’ll ruin the ratio!”
And then a softer laugh, Adaline’s, light, breathless, and real. Too real for someone who’s only supposed to be temporary. My fingers still over the keyboard, the sound of her laughter shouldn’t get to me.
This mansion has been silent for years.
Even holidays were quiet, just me, Aunt Jane, and maybe a few polite conversations that never filled the air the way my mom used to. I lean back, closing my eyes for a moment.
The scent sneaks in past the office door, warm apples, brown sugar, buttery pastry, and drags my past with it.
Aunt Jane's famous apple pie.
She used to make it every fall when I was a kid. The smell pulls memories forward like they’ve been waiting for an excuse. Mom in the kitchen, humming. Aunt Jane sitting at the table, peeling apples while Mom sprinkled cinnamon with ridiculous enthusiasm.
I’m darting between them, stealing slices of raw apples. Laughter everywhere, real laughter. Before everything changed.
In the kitchen, Aunt Jane suddenly shrieks with laughter. “Hunter is going to smell this from his office and come running!”
Adaline giggles. “Should I hide some for him?”
“Hide?” Aunt Jane scoffs. “Please. If he wants pie, he can come out here and charm us for it.”
I huff out a sound that might be a reluctant smile. Charm them. Right. As if I could. But the noise… the life in their voices… It stirs something warm and painful inside me.
Things used to be good. Really good. Before Richard. Before my mom forgot who she was outside of loving him. Before the fights and everything fell apart.
I rub a hand against my jaw and push back from the desk. The past doesn’t wait for permission; it crowds in the moment. I stop resisting.
I had just started junior year in high school when Mom met Richard. I would spend every afternoon at Reeves’ Repair Shop, learning to build cars. Mr. Reeves was like a father figure I didn't have.
Richard moved to Rose Hills and invested in Reeves’s Repair Shop, fast, confident, like he already owned the place. Mr. Reeves thought Richard would help him expand his repair shop.
He thought Richard was smart, charismatic, and generous. I didn’t.
The one place where I felt at home after school was also gone once Richard started taking over after their partnership. There was something off about Richard from the beginning.
The way he looked at people, like everyone was beneath him, already sorted as though every conversation was a performance. But Mom? She was dazzled.
“Hunter,” she used to say with a dreamy smile, “he’s such a good man. He wants to build a future with us.”
Us. I swallowed those words for years.
I started spending more time at Aunt Jane’s just to get away. She would ruffle my hair and shove homemade cookies into my hands like she could fix everything with sugar and unconditional love.
But Richard didn’t like me being gone. And I didn’t like him being there. We butted heads constantly, arguing over curfews, my grades, and how I “disrespected” him. Mom begged me to behave, begged me to understand that Richard was only trying to help. Help. Right.
That’s when the detentions started. Fights in the hallway. Pushing back in any way I could, hoping Mom would finally look at me, really look, and see that something was wrong.
Instead, it made me look like a problem kid. A reckless teenager. A warning tale the community loved whispering about.
I didn’t understand any of it back then. Not really. Not the way I do now.
Back then, all I could think was: Why am I not enough? Why doesn’t she choose me?
I swallow hard, pushing away from the desk and pacing slowly across my office. The morning noise from the kitchen drifts faintly through the door, warm, alive, completely at odds with the cold knot forming in my chest.
When I was seventeen, the world was simple. My mother and I were a team. She worked long shifts, I kept myself busy at Reeves’s shop, and we survived. We always survived.
But Richard… he walked into her life with polished shoes, fake charm, and a smile that made her feel seen. Wanted. Loved.
Things that were missing in her life for years.
“Mom deserves someone,” Aunt Jane had told me once, her voice gentle. “She’s lonely, Hunter. Let her have something good.”
A bitter sound slips out before I can stop it. "Good." Right.
Richard showered her with gifts, flowers, jewelry, and expensive dinners in nearby towns.
Everyone saw his devotion and praised him for it.
The outsider who invested in a small-town repair shop.
The generous man, giving back to the community.
The devoted partner who brought stability into poor Lisa Rexon’s life.
It was all calculated.
Every smile. Every gift, and every sweet word. And the moment the ring was on her finger, everything changed. After they married, everything worsened. Richard knew exactly how to exploit her loneliness, and Mom let him.
I drag a hand through my hair and drop into the armchair near the window—one memory claws forward, sharp, and vivid.
It was late fall when the fire happened. Cold night. Oil fumes lingering outside the shop. I had gone home early, forced out by Richard after another shouting match.
Mom had cried. And I had screamed things I didn’t mean.
“I’ll destroy you one day, Richard! You don’t belong here—you don’t belong with us!”
Stupid. Emotional. Teen anger that meant nothing.
Except… it meant everything to him. Later that night, flames swallowed half the repair shop.
Sirens. Smoke. People running.
And Richard standing there with tragic eyes, arm around my mom, looking like the picture of a devastated partner.
I remember the way everyone stared at me with suspicion, whispering.
Mr. Reeves shaking his head, confused and heartbroken. Then Richard’s voice, soft and sympathetic—
“Hunter was angry. He… said some things. I don’t want to believe he’d do this, but…”
My mom turned to me, pale. “Hunter? You wouldn’t…?”
The words hit like a slap, sharp, public, impossible to take back. “Mom, no! I would never—”
But it was too late. She looked disappointed or maybe scared of me. Richard filed a complaint. The sheriff questioned me while my mother stood beside Richard, silent. Charges were dropped when the investigation couldn’t find any evidence.
But the damage was done. Mom left with Richard the same week he collected the insurance money. Aunt Jane took me in without a question. She wrapped me in her arms and whispered, “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
But the town didn’t forget.
By senior year, I wasn’t “Hunter who loves cars” anymore. I was “Hunter Rexon—the troublemaker.” The kid who almost burned down the shop. The kid who destroyed his family, and the kid no one wanted their own kids hanging around.
I left Rose Hills for college the second I graduated. And I swore I’d never let anyone close enough again to break me the way my mom did.
A shout of laughter erupts from the kitchen, a bright, bubbling sound that pulls me back into the present. Adaline’s laugh.
I stiffen.
She’s here. In this house. In my space—where I don’t let anyone stay. Bringing noise and warmth and questions I don’t want answered. And she’ll leave. Everyone always does.
I tell myself I don’t care, that she’s temporary. Just an employee.
But the memory of her bending over me in the garage, her fingers brushing my forehead, her voice soft with concern—that memory refuses to fade.
I grit my teeth. I shouldn’t care or even want her here. I definitely shouldn’t want her to stay.
But the truth is, the idea of her eventually leaving this house…makes something in my chest twist painfully. I hate that she matters.
Because nothing good has ever come from letting someone in. And the problem is—I already let her closer than I should have.