Chapter 16
Maisie
“MOTHERFUCKER!!!”
The plate I was drying slips from my hand and slams onto the floor with an almighty crash, sending pieces skittering over my toes and scattering into all four corners of the kitchen.
My heart crashes against my chest a million miles a second.
I’m in bare feet and afraid of stepping on a sharp piece of crockery, but that isn’t what’s keeping me frozen on the spot. It’s the terror of what usually comes after a man yells.
For two seconds, there’s complete silence.
“You okay?” Hunter, who was helping me wash up, asks quietly from close beside me.
I flinch when he squeezes my shoulder, and he murmurs an apology and takes his hand away again. I should be the one apologizing. Not him.
He did nothing wrong.
I’m the clumsy idiot.
I’m the one who couldn’t handle Elias cursing without flinching, terrified that a punch was coming.
“Maisie?” Hunter prompts, reminding him I haven’t responded.
“Fine,” I tell him with a smile. One Hunter doesn’t buy since he doesn’t return it. “I’ll get this cleaned up.”
Before I can move, he’s grabbing the dustpan and brush. “I’ve got it. Don’t move. You’re not wearing shoes.”
He isn’t either, but he doesn’t seem to care that he’ll be the one stepping on a piece of the plate I dropped.
I stand there, feeling small and stupid and so damn inadequate.
Today was a good day. No, it was a great day.
Nico filled his truck with ingredients and equipment so I could keep doing something I love from this gorgeous farmhouse kitchen.
I spent today with Hunter organizing the pantry and refrigerator.
We laughed and talked so much. I learned more about him as we watched TV, sat on the back porch to eat our lunch together, and made dinner when Elias, Knox, and Wyatt came home from work.
After we all ate dinner together, I told Hunter I’d help him clean up while Elias went into the living room to play his computer game, Knox went for a run, and Wyatt went out to his workshop.
Now I’ve ruined today by freaking out for no damn reason.
Living in a house with a man again has been a weird learning experience. In my mind, I know where I am. I know that none of the men in this house will hurt me. They’ve been in and out of the diner for the last month, being sweet and kind and endlessly patient.
Wyatt ran into a burning building to save me.
I spent most of today laughing in the kitchen with Hunter as we baked pies together.
Yesterday, Elias was so sweet and caring, making me breakfast and helping me organize my bedroom with all the stuff the locals donated to me.
And Knox didn’t just spend money he shouldn’t have on a security system to protect me; he threatened to throw a man headfirst through a window when the man tried to touch me.
I am safe here. But my body reacts to a raised voice as if I’m back with Derek: I instinctively brace myself for a blow that never comes.
“Is everything okay?” Elias appears in the doorway, frowning as Hunter finishes sweeping up the last of the broken plate and empties it into the trash.
When Hunter doesn’t say a word, I give Elias the same tight smile I gave Hunter, and his forehead furrows.
“Give us a sec, Maisie,” Hunter says to me, shooting me a smile that looks as forced as mine felt.
Hunter drags Knox out of the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him.
Footsteps move away. Another door closes—the living room or the downstairs half-bath, maybe? Whatever it was, I still hear Hunter unload on Elias about scaring the shit out of me by screaming at his stupid fucking computer game.
I don’t know whether I’m embarrassed, grateful Hunter cares so much to yell at Elias like that, or upset my past reared up to ruin a perfectly good day, but I finish washing the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher when I can’t think of anything else to do.
Hunter returns two minutes later, pushing the kitchen door open and pausing when I turn to face him as I wipe my hands on a cloth.
“How much of that did you hear?” he asks, squinting at me.
I consider lying, but what’s the point?
“If I said not much, would you believe me?”
He walks toward me, face twisted in annoyance. “Elias likes to play computer games to unwind after work. He says blowing shit up helps him to decompress, whatever that means,” he mutters.
“It’s like surfing for you,” Elias yells, proving the walls in this house are paper-thin. “It helps me relax.”
Hunter’s raised eyebrow communicates that the two are not the least bit the same. “I forget that he sometimes shouts and occasionally likes to throw his control pad across the room.”
“Why’d you quit surfing again?” Elias calls out, amused.
Hunter rolls his eyes. “I knew he would bring that up.”
“Why did you?” I ask, curious.
When we talked at the diner, he would tell me things about himself. They all would. Hunter told me he used to be a semi-pro surfer based in Malibu, with enough wins under his belt and sponsorships to go pro.
“Grab a seat at the table while I finish up the rest,” he says.
As if he needs something to do with his hands, he picks up a cloth and starts wiping the counters.
I take a seat at the dining table for an explanation that I have a feeling is longer and more complicated than he could have given me between serving up slices of pie and topping up his coffee in the diner.
“After every win, I spent more and more of my time dodging dickheads while living in a shithole, which led to me throwing things sometimes.” He stops wiping the counter to wince at me. “Sorry for saying dickhead.”
I swallow my smile, wondering how I went from a hellscape of a life to landing in a gorgeous farmhouse with four alphas who never get tired of doing things for me. “You’re allowed to say dickhead around me.”
He flashes me a grin and resumes wiping the counters.
“I loved to surf. If it was just surfing, I’d still be doing it.
But it became about competition and less about fun.
It was about hitting the tricks that would score me the biggest points, and less about doing whatever I wanted just because.
Turning pro makes people competitive, and it can turn people into real dicks.
Even the people that I used to call my friends. ”
“But not you?” I ask, resting my chin on my hand.
Hunter doesn’t strike me as a dick, but I’m curious how he avoided becoming one if everyone around him was changing.
“I didn’t care about the money or the sponsorships.
When a hobby becomes a career, you have to start caring about those things.
You have to meet with your agent and corporate types to get sponsorships and worry about keeping them.
Then there are Zoom meetings and dealing with the money side of things, which has always made my eyes glaze over.
” He tosses the cloth into the sink and leans against it, rubbing a hand over his face as if just talking about it is enough to send him to sleep.
“All that noise takes away from something I only started doing with my big brother to have fun. I never went into surfing thinking I’d be good at it, then it stopped being fun and started feeling too much like work. ”
I lift my brow. “So, you became a construction worker?”
He flashes me a crooked grin. “I fell into it, actually. Most surfers are not pros. It’s not easy to do it alone.
A lot of people have another job that pays the bills.
Barista, bartender, stuff like that. It’s why I was living in houses with other surfers.
Would not recommend.” He does a full-body shudder as if still haunted by the experience.
“I’m not a neat freak or a slob, but some people are disgusting.
Pissing in the shower, having sex in your bed and not cleaning up after kind of disgusting. ”
Yikes.
I scrunch my nose. “Gross.”
He hums. “Anyway, I got talking to some guys. They were working on a site and a man down. When they heard I was getting out of surfing, they asked if I wanted to help out, and I did, if only to afford to move out since I lost all my sponsorships. I learned on the job, and I liked the work. Then I met Elias, Knox, and Wyatt, and enjoyed doing the job with them so much we stuck together.”
“You don’t miss surfing?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes. When I miss the waves, I jump on a plane and head to Malibu for the weekend. I get to hang out with my family and surf my little heart out.”
I laugh.
With a grin, he continues, “Then I get back on the plane and come back to the guys who feel like family. Means I get to keep surfing for when I want to have fun, which is all I really wanted it to be. I’ll take you sometime. We usually all go for a week between jobs and make a vacation out of it.”
Wary of the deep sea and being eaten by a shark, I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t know. The open sea sounds kind of scary.”
“It’s not as terrifying as it sounds. Even Wyatt gets on a board, and he hates water. The best parts are sometimes just sitting on your board in the middle of the ocean, the beach miles away. You can talk shit or just think. It’s peaceful as hell.”
“I’ll think about it.”
With the kitchen clean and Hunter studying the contents of the refrigerator, deciding what we might need from the grocery store, I’m heading upstairs to bed when I pass the living room.
Knox must still be out on his run, and Wyatt is in his workshop because Elias is alone, playing his game with the volume down low.
The moment I pause in the doorway, he switches the game off the big screen and gets to his feet, shooting me an apologetic glance. “Sorry. You want to watch TV or a movie?”
We’re all early-to-bed types since we’re all up around six most days, so at nine, it’s too late for a movie. I’m not interested in watching TV either.
When he starts putting his PlayStation 5 controller away, I ask, “What are you doing?”
He glances at me. “Putting these away for the night.”