21. Hunter
21
HUNTER
Then
“ F our years is such a big deal!” Indigo squeals. “We should be doing more than just going out to dinner. We should go dancing or get?—”
She stops, catching herself before she suggests that I celebrate four years of sobriety by taking a trip to a bar, club, speakeasy, or whatever the fuck kind of haven for vices she frequents with her friends. I’m not judging. I know everyone doesn’t have the same issues with self-control as I do, but I am tired of having to remind Indigo of my limits. I’m even more tired of her looking disappointed every time she remembers them.
“Never mind,” she says, reaching up to fix the collar of my shirt even though it’s fine. Her posture reeks of self-consciousness with an undercurrent of annoyance, and I wish I felt compelled to comfort her, but I don’t.
I don’t feel anything when I look at her but confused about why I’m still doing this thing with her, especially after knowing what it’s like to kiss Rae. To hold her body in my hands and hear the sounds of her pleasure, her desire , in my ears.
“You look handsome,” Indigo tells me, her smile too wide as she runs a hand down my chest.
“Thanks. You—” She looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to finish my sentence, but the compliment I was about to pay her gets all tangled up in my throat as Rae walks into the kitchen. She’s wearing a sky-blue baby doll dress that matches the stripes in my shirt, and her hair is down around her shoulders. Recently, sometime after the kiss that we still haven’t spoken of, she had Dee give her face-framing bangs that make her almond eyes look wider and even more brown.
And now those eyes are on me and Indigo, taking in our closeness while the scent of her perfume—an expensive formula with notes of pear and vanilla that I got her for her twenty-third birthday just last week—floats into the room around us.
“Oh, Indigo, you’re here.”
The snark in her tone isn’t evident to Indigo, but I hear it.
“Yeah, Hunter asked me to come to his ceremony, and I thought it was important for me to be here to support him.”
I can’t read Rae at all. Her expression is flat, her eyes emotionless. It’s the way she looks when she’s got a million different things going through her mind, but it’s not safe to let them out. She told me once that she mastered the skill when she first started dance, and her teacher, Ms. Alice, told her she needed thicker skin if she was going to make it as a Black ballerina. I’ve never, not once in the four years of us knowing each other, seen her deploy the skill. That she’s doing it now means I’ve fucked up tremendously, and I don’t even have to dig deep to know how because the answer to that question is standing right beside me, her arms wrapped around my waist possessively.
“Well, isn’t that nice,” Rae says finally, moving further into the kitchen. She moves parallel to us with long, graceful strides that carry her over to the shelf at the back door, where she always leaves her shoes.
And even though I want her to, even though I plead with her silently using only my eyes, she doesn’t look at me. She just picks up her shoes and turns her back to me, planting a palm on the wall to steady herself as she lifts one leg and then the other to put them on.
“Is Will ready?” I ask, desperate to draw her into conversation.
“Yep,” Will says, appearing out of nowhere and stealing my chance to talk to his sister. “Let’s go get you chipped.”
The drive to the church where we have our meetings is filled with Indigo and Will’s chatter and Rae’s silence, which is louder than anything else. Every chance I get, I try to catch her eye in the rearview, but she intentionally keeps her gaze on her phone. As I navigate the streets, I wonder if she’s texting Dee, telling her all about my fuck up. I wonder if Dee knows about the kiss and if Rae has told her how hurt she is that I brought Indigo into a day she and I have celebrated together for years because it’s not just the anniversary of my sobriety; it’s a commemoration of us.
Truthfully, I didn’t ask Indigo to be here. She invited herself when I told her I couldn’t go to the movies with her tonight because I was getting my chip, and I was just too weak to tell her she couldn’t come. I’ve been too weak for a lot of things lately.
To break up with Indigo.
To talk to Rae.
To stop thinking about that kiss.
It’s still on my mind at the end of the meeting when Will calls me up to receive my chip, when Indigo slaps me on the ass and whoops loudly as I walk up to the podium, when I stand behind that podium, with the chip clutched in my fingers, and find her in the crowd. Indigo had insisted on sitting beside me, taking up a space in the rows reserved for addicts, while Rae stood towards the back of the room by the table with all the coffee and snacks.
Now that I’m up here, she doesn’t seem to be able to look away from me, which is fine because I can’t look away from her either.
“As many of you know, I hate public speaking,” I say, smiling ruefully. “But I’m a fan of speaking up when there’s something that needs to be said, and tonight, I need to say thank you to someone special.” My gaze is still on Rae, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see Indigo shifting in her seat, the lines of her body fraught with anticipation. “Someone who has been by my side for the past four years, whose graceful steps and compassion have carved a path for me lined with love and acceptance, who’s made it possible for me to be standing in front of you all today. Clean. Whole. Happy.” Even from this distance, I can see the tears well up in Rae’s eyes. They make her irises glossy, shimmering with emotion. “Rae—” There’s a sharp intake of breath from the section where I left Indigo sitting, and I don’t have to look to know it’s from her. She must be pissed, but now that I’ve started, I have to finish. “Rae,” I say again, swallowing past the lump of emotion in my throat. “I never had a best friend until you came along. I never knew what it meant to be witnessed in all my imperfections and faults and still be loved, so this” —I hold the chip up in the air, a silent toast to the person who means more to me than anything in this world—“this isn’t just for me. It’s for us, for everything we are and everything we’ll become.”
A single tear slips down Rae’s cheek as I finish, and even though I want to go to her, to scoop her up in front of everyone and kiss her like she belongs to me, I don’t. I return to my seat to the sound of scattered applause. As soon as I’m seated, Indigo clutches my hand and plants a smacking kiss on my cheek.
“You did so good, baby,” she says loudly, as if she’s trying to remind everyone, including me, that I’m here with her. Not wanting to embarrass her by pulling away, I give her a tight smile and turn my attention to Will, who’s now cracking some joke about me delivering a whole monologue despite my aversion to being the center of attention. Everyone laughs, and we wrap the meeting on a good note a few minutes later.
When it’s done, everyone comes up to me and congratulates me on making four years, and while I’m grateful for the well wishes, I’m eager to make my way out of the basement and find Rae. Indigo clings to me as we climb the steps that lead to the parking lot, her hand in mine, a weight I can’t bear to carry anymore. When we get to my truck, Rae is there with Will and his sponsor, Nate—an older Black man with a kind smile and hard eyes.
“Everything okay?” I ask, noting the concerned look on Nate and Rae’s faces.
“I think I tweaked my back at work,” Will says, wincing in pain.
“You should go to the ER,” Rae replies, rolling her eyes when he waves her off.
“Nah, I’m good. I just need to go home and ice it.”
“You sure, Will?” Nate asks.
“I can take you to the ER,” I offer, already digging out my keys.
“No. No.” Will shakes his head. “You’ve got reservations at Hill House, and I’m not going to let you miss them.”
“Hill House?” This, from Indigo, who can’t read a room to save her fucking life. “I love Hill House.”
“Then you and Hunter should go,” Rae says, barely containing the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll ride with Nate, and we’ll take Will to the ER.”
“I’m not going to the ER!” Will insists, a little more forcefully than necessary. Everyone’s brows rise in surprise, but Rae is the one who gives him the ‘who the fuck are you talking to’ look that makes him take a deep breath before trying again. “I’m sorry for yelling, but I don’t have any interest in going to the hospital and racking up five thousand dollars in medical bills just for them to tell me what I already know and write a prescription I won’t use. I pulled a muscle at work, and I’ll be fine after I spend the night cuddled up with my heating pad.” He straightens as best as he can and places a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Now, I’m going to get Nate here to take me home. You three,”—he waves a hand to indicate Rae, Indigo, and me— “go ahead and head out because your reservation is at eight.”
“Oh, no, I’m not—” Rae starts, but Will holds up a hand to silence her.
“Rachel Renee Prince, you’ve been looking forward to the crème br?lée at Hill House all week, and we’re not going to let a little back pain stop you from getting it, so get in the car, have a nice night, and bring me some home.”
There’s an authoritative boom to his voice that leaves no space for argument, so we don’t argue. Rae and I watch Will hobble off with Nate at his side while Indigo claps her hands.
“I really do love Hill House!”
Awkward.
That’s the only word for the dinner Will ordered us to have at Hill House. He couldn’t have known it was going to be like this, or maybe he did know, and he faked back pain to get out of it. Maybe I should have faked back pain, too, or pulled out the oldest trick in the book and said my stomach was hurting.
Anything not to be sitting at this table in between Indigo, who can’t stop talking, and Rae, who hasn’t said a word to anyone but the waitress.
“Baby, you have to try this salmon,” Indigo gushes. “The cream sauce is to die for.”
“He’s lactose intolerant,” Rae blurts, surprising herself and Indigo. She’s been so quiet, I think the girl actually forgot she was here.
“It’s not an intolerance,” I reply, and while I maintain that it’s true, I don’t take a bite of Indigo’s salmon.
“Oh.” Indigo shrugs, taking the bite for herself. She chews thoroughly and swallows before turning her attention from me to Rae. “So, I didn’t realize Rae was short for Rachel.”
“Yep,” Rae says, pulling in a breath that screams impatience. She hates it when people use her full name.
“That’s cool. Are you excited about returning to New York?”
Rae looks at me. Her brows arched in a way that asks me to get Indigo off her case, but I shrug like I’m helpless because I want to know the answer to that question too. The call to come back for another round of auditions with the American Ballet Theatre came in the day after the kiss, and Rae was so excited she screamed loud enough for everyone in the house, which unfortunately included Indigo, to hear. Despite her initial outward display of excitement, we haven’t talked about it much since then. We haven’t talked about much of anything since then, and I welcome the chance to hear the joy in her voice, even if Indigo is the reason why.
Setting her fork down, Rae nods. “I mean, I’m just going back for auditions. I’m not sure it’ll turn into anything more.”
“It will!” Indigo assures Rae, coming off a little too overzealous even to me. “And then you’ll be out there on your own, living your dreams and figuring out how to be independent.”
“I mean, the pay isn’t that great,” Rae says, her brows furrowed. “If I do get the job, I’ll still probably have to have four roommates to afford to live there.”
Indigo’s eyes take on a dreamy look. “That’s part of the charm, though, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” Rae shrugs, picking up her glass of water and taking a sip before muttering, “If you find poverty charming.”
“No, not at all!” Indigo places a reassuring hand on Rae’s arm. “I just meant that the whole roommate thing is part of the New Yorker aesthetic. You know, the struggling artist with the fifth-floor walk-up, working their ass off by day, sleeping around at night. I mean, you must be chomping at the bit to get back out there on your own, so you don’t have to worry about this guy choking all your dates out, am I right?”
I’m not sure which part of that little diatribe is the final straw for Rae, but as soon as Indigo finishes talking, she stands, tossing her napkin onto her plate. “I’m going to go call Will and see if he’s okay,” she says, lying through her perfect teeth.
We watch her walk away, and Indigo turns to me with furrowed brows. “Why doesn’t she like me?”
“She likes you just fine, Indie.”
She scoffs. “Don’t lie to me, Hunter. I see the way she looks at me even though I go out of my way to be friendly. I mean, you see that I’m trying to be friendly, right?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t try so hard.”
The sound of Indigo’s fork crashing onto the ceramic plate in front of her draws the attention of nearly everyone in the dining room. Concerned eyes linger on us for a moment before everyone goes back to what they were doing.
“I try hard because I care about you, and you clearly care about her. Do you think I want to be friends with some twenty-something who thinks she knows everything about life already, Hunter? Hmm? Well, I don’t. I just want you, but apparently, I can’t have you without her, so I’m trying, and it’d be nice if you encouraged the little brat to try, too.”
“Don’t call her a brat.”
She looks at me like I’ve spontaneously sprouted a second head. “Are you serious right now? I say all of that to you, and all you care about is me calling her a brat?”
Her voice is growing louder by the second, and tension lines my shoulders as I think of all the ways this situation could go wrong. I’m a big, Black man with a history of drug addiction in the middle of a fancy, mostly white restaurant with a woman screaming at me, so there are a lot of them.
“Lower your voice, Indigo.”
“Do you love her, Hunter?” She asks, her tone only marginally softer.
I know the answer to that question like I know the way back to my house. It comes to me easily, as natural as drawing my next breath, but I don’t dare speak it out loud. I won’t let the first time I acknowledge how I feel about Rae be wasted on a woman I shouldn’t have gotten involved with in the first place.
“She’s my best friend, Indigo.”
“That’s not what I asked, Hunter.”
“But it’s the only answer I’m willing to give.” I reach across the table and grab her hand, but she snatches away. “Listen, Indie, this isn’t working out.”
Her open palm collides with the side of my face, and my head turns from its force. The lady at the table across from us gasps in shock, and I swallow the urge to laugh.
“Fuck you, Hunter!” Indigo shouts before storming out.
After she’s gone, our waitress appears, her cheeks red with second-hand embarrassment. “Will you be needing any boxes, sir?”
I glance at Rae’s uneaten plate. “Just one and two orders of your crème br?lée to go, please.”
Once I’ve settled the bill and secured the leftovers and dessert, I set out to locate Rae for the second time tonight. When I find her, she’s sitting on the bench outside of the entrance with her legs crossed and an odd expression on her face.
“I saw Indigo leave,” she says, taking my hand when I extend it to her and allowing me to pull her up off the bench. “She seemed pretty upset.”
“I told her it wasn’t working out.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She’s not sorry. It’s clear by the way the corners of her mouth twitch, but I let her believe the lie because correcting it will just lead us to a door neither one of us can walk through right now.
“Me too,” I say, dropping her hand and giving her the bag of food. “Food and desserts are in there. Let’s go home.”
The ride back to the house is quiet. Mainly because I don’t feel like talking, and I don’t think Rae knows what to say. When we arrive, I put the car in park and sigh. Rae, who has already unhooked her seat belt and opened the door, pauses, turning to look at me.
“You wanna talk about it?”
I shake my head. “Nah, I think I’m just gonna ride around for a bit to clear my head.”
She closes her door. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’ve already endured enough of my bullshit for the day. I’m sorry, by the way. I shouldn’t have let Indigo come. I shouldn’t have put you in the middle of my shit.”
Rae shrugs. “You don’t need to apologize. That’s what happens when you love people. You have to deal with their triumphs and their mistakes.”
I glance at her, keeping my eyes trained on her face even though they want to know everything there is to know about the expanse of her skin being exposed by the dress riding up her thigh.
“You think Indigo was a mistake?”
“I think she wanted you to be someone else when the people who know you love you for exactly who you are.”
I consider her words for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
Silence descends on us. Thick and suffocating because it’s weighed down with all the things we won’t say. “Are we ever going to talk about the kiss?”
My pulse quickens at the idea of letting everything I’ve felt and thought since the first time my lips met hers out into the open. It sounds like heaven. It sounds like hell. It sounds like a risk I can’t take tonight.
“I don’t think there’s anything to say.”
Rae shifts her body around, folding one leg up in the seat so she can face me head-on. “Are you serious?”
“Look, Rae?—”
“Because I have plenty to say about it,” she says, her voice taking on a low, sultry tone that only exists to unravel me. “Let’s start with the fact that ever since we kissed, all I’ve wanted is to do it again.”
“Rae, please,” I beg, needing her to stop talking because, on a night that’s all about acknowledging self-control, I’m surprised to find that I have very little.
“I think about kissing you all the time now, Hunter,” she whispers, a confession meant for my ears and my ears alone. “When I fall asleep at night, I dream about you coming into my room and kissing me again, not just on my lips but—” She pauses, reaching over to grab my hand, and I’m weak, I’m so fucking weak because I let her take it. I let her place it on the inside of her thigh and guide it up, up, up, until the tips of my fingers graze the warmest, softest part of her. Rae pants, and my dick twitches. “Here,” she says finally, rolling her hips into my hand.
“ Sunshine. ” I’m pleading with her, advocating for my sanity and the last shred of my restraint. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” she assures me, pushing up onto her knees and climbing across the center console into my lap. Her hands go to my shoulders, and her pussy is perfectly aligned with the growing bulge in my pants, and her titties, those perfect fucking titties, are right in my face.
“Jesus,” I groan, my hands finding their way to her ass. My fingers are rough as they clutch two handfuls of her flesh, and I curse because nothing has ever felt as good in my hands as she does.
Holding Rae is like holding a firecracker, a burst of sunlight. She’s strong; I know that because I’ve seen her strength, but she’s also precious. I have to remind myself of that fact because I know the things my hands can do. These hands have been bloodied and broken, beaten a man within an inch of his life, demonstrated life-saving maneuvers to the women in my gym, held destruction in the form of powder, pills, and needles, and welcomed them like old friends, but they’ve never held perfection.
They’ve never held anything like Rae and what she’s giving me at this moment, and I don’t know if I can be gentle. I don’t know if I can be patient and loving. I don’t know if I can be the man she looks at me and sees.
She comes down, ghosting her lips over mine as she grinds into my lap. “I want you, Hunter. I want this. I want you to be my first.”
Fucking hell.
I close my eyes, pushing out breaths that are meant to restore some of my calm. They don’t.
“You haven’t—” I swallow even though my throat has gone dry. “You’ve never?”
I stumble over the words like a teenage boy instead of a twenty-eight-year-old man, but Rae understands what I’m trying to ask. She shakes her head, gentle, uncertain fingers running tiny circuits across my scalp. “No, I was waiting for you.”
My eyes fall shut again, and I shake my head. “Oh, Sunshine, you deserve so much better than me.”
Rae leans back, and for a second, I think that’s it, that she’s finally come to her senses, but when her weight never moves off of my lap, I open my eyes once more to find myself face-to-face with berry brown nipples. I snake my hands around her waist, dragging them up her ribs and over those fucking tattoos before cupping her breasts. She gasps, licking her lips.
“Maybe I deserve more than you, Hunter, but you’re all that I want.”