24. Hunter
24
HUNTER
Now
F amily dinner.
That’s Rae’s answer to my request. Weekly dinners at her place with her, Riley, Aaron and his mom. When she first offered it up as a way for me to have more time with my daughter, I almost laughed in her face, but then I saw she was serious and that Riley was excited about the prospect of showing me her room, and I was left with no choice but to agree.
If anyone ever needed proof that there’s not a thing in this world I wouldn’t do for the two of them, they’d just have to peek through the blinds in Rae’s dining room every Thursday night at seven p.m. sharp to find it. This is my second week inside the shrine to perfection Rae calls a home, and I have to say, I don’t understand her decision to be in this place, with these people, anymore now than I did when I was standing on the outside looking in.
The house, while beautiful and in the perfect, trendy neighborhood, is nothing like the home Rae once told me she wanted. There’s no knick knacks on the shelves tinged with nostalgia and precious memories. No family pictures on the wall. No messes to stumble over or warmth to expel the chill in every room that emanates from the white furniture and metal surfaces.
“What happened to your hand, Daddy?” Riley’s voice pulls me out of my head and back into this hellscape of a dinner. She keeps her touch light as she runs her fingertips around the perimeter of the scrape on my hand.
“Oh, that’s nothing. I just hurt myself when Taurin and I were out in the yard the other day building?—”
“Who’s Taurin?” Aaron asks, cutting me off in the middle of my explanation. I turn my head slowly in his direction, working hard not to look as annoyed as I feel, and give him the attention he’s so desperate to have from me.
He’s sitting at the head of the table, his posture rigid and hostile, though not quite as unwelcoming as his mother’s. She’s all barely audible mumbles and disapproving eyes that will drill a hole into the side of my face until I leave.
“Taurin is one of my sponsees.”
Aaron frowns. “Is doing yard work for you a part of his twelve-step program?”
Rae, who’s sitting to Aaron’s left, puts a hand on his forearm, a silent warning to pull back. She does that with him a lot. Warning him. Protecting him. Keeping him from tap dancing on my last nerve.
“No,” I say, threading patience through my voice. “He’s staying with me for a while, and when he saw me working on something, he offered to help.”
Marcy’s eyes go wide, and she chooses now to speak to me for the first time tonight. “Is that smart? Two addicts under one roof?”
I don’t appreciate her tone or the way she makes my house sound like some kind of den of iniquity, and it’s hard for me to keep my frustration and impatience off of my face. Rae must see me struggling because she jumps in, saving me from having to explain myself to a woman who just wants to see the worst in me anyway.
“Well, it’s definitely not traditional, but I think it’s better than the alternative, which was Hunter leaving him on the streets to fend for himself.” Her voice is tight, packed with frustration, and, if I’m not mistaken, a bit of pride. “Getting clean is hard, but it’s even harder to do when you don’t have a safe, loving environment to do it in. Hunter is giving Taurin that, and I think that’s amazing.”
Yeah, that’s definitely pride. It’s in her voice and now in her eyes as she looks at me.
“I think Will would be proud of you,” she says.
“Thank you, Sunshine.”
I don’t mean to use the nickname. It’s a private thing. Something that belongs to Rae and me. Something I don’t want tarnished by the other two adults at the table who kill everything with their judgment and negativity. I don’t mean to use it, but it pops out anyway, the way it always does when I’m caught up in a moment where it feels like there’s no one else in the world besides me and her. When I’m trapped in her gaze and have no intentions of looking for a way out. When my heart is brimming with unspent love that has no where to go.
Aaron clears his throat, snapping the moment in half, and Rae forces a smile, picking up her fork and spearing a green bean with it while I try not to watch the way her lips curve around the gleaming metal.
“What were you building?” Riley asks, bringing us back to the start of the conversation.
I focus my gaze back on her sweet face. “A treehouse.”
Rae coughs, and everyone, including Riley, turns a concerned gaze in her direction. She waves her hand, assuring her silently that she’s fine while Aaron claps her on the back.
“A treehouse?” She wheezes once she’s finally recovered and taking slow sips of her water. “You’re building a treehouse?”
The funny thing about history is that it will always find a way to make itself known, and when you have as much history with a person as I have with Rae, it happens more often than it doesn’t. Every conversation we have, every look we share, is the equivalent to navigating a minefield. No matter how careful you are or how slow you move, every time you take a step, you run the risk of triggering a bomb.
No one else in this room knows that I did exactly that when I mentioned the tree house. They don’t know that they’re now standing at the site of an emotional explosion, covered in the shrapnel of a steamy night where four years of longing turned into lost inhibitions and confessions of love.
But Rae knows.
She remembers, and now she knows that I never let myself forget.
“A treehouse,” she repeats, her eyes soft, her voice softer.
“A TREEHOUSE!” Riley shouts, bouncing in her seat. “That sounds so cool!”
“It is cool,” I assure her when I manage to tear my eyes away from her mom again. “There’s this big tree at the edge of my property that overlooks the lake my daddy and I used to fish in. That’s where I’m building it.”
Riley’s eyes are as big as saucers. “Ohhh, can I see it?”
“Well, I don’t have any pictures of it, but maybe one day, when you come to my house, I can take you out there so you can see it in person.”
It takes me a second to realize my mistake, but when I do, I immediately wish I could take the words back. Rae and I haven’t talked about Riley coming to my house. At all. Since becoming a part of Riley’s life, I’ve been content to let Rae lead, only pushing for more when I felt it was likely I’d get the result I wanted. I’d love to bring Riley to the house, to bring her into my world just a little bit more, but I haven’t asked Rae, and I don’t want it to look like I’m trying to force her hand by mentioning it to Riley first.
The thing with kids, though, is that they always hold on tight to the things you want them to let go of. And judging by the curiosity dancing in Riley’s eyes, she’s not planning on letting go of this house thing any time soon.
“Can I come and see it today?” she asks.
“It’s a school night, Ri,” Rae responds, and I hope the reminder is enough to end this conversation, but it’s Riley, so of course it’s not.
“This weekend, then! I’ll help you build the treehouse and make sure you don’t hurt yourself again,” she says, her eyes on me even though I don’t have any power here. I hate that I don’t have it, that I have to look to Rae for help while ignoring the smug smile on Aaron’s face as he watches me flounder for a response.
Rae smiles gently at Riley, her tone soft. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nugget.”
While I knew what her answer was going to be, I still feel unprepared for the pain that lances my heart when I hear it. I’m even less prepared for the way Riley’s face crumples with disappointment.
“But why?” She whines, looking between Rae and me. “I want to help Daddy build the treehouse. I can be a good helper.”
“You’re a great helper, Ri,” Rae assures her while I put a soothing hand on her back, rubbing small circles between her shoulder blades because it’s all I can do. “But I’m not going to be here this weekend, so I can’t take you over there.”
“Aaron has planned a romantic weekend for him and Rae to reconnect,” Marcy adds between bites of rice pilaf, chucking the information in my direction even though I don’t want it.
“Two full days alone in Atlanta with no interruptions,” Aaron says.
Rae’s eyes flash with self-consciousness as she looks at me. “Riley’s going to be staying with Jayla and her daughter, Sonia, for the weekend.”
It hurts to know that I’m at the bottom of the list of childcare options for my daughter. Below Dee’s little sister and Aaron’s mom and a stranger on the fucking street, but I hold the pain in, swallowing it because nothing good will come from letting it out.
“You don’t have to explain,” I tell her, even though I do want an explanation. I want to know what I have to do to make my way to the top of the list of people she trusts to be alone with our daughter.
“I don’t want to stay with Jayla and Sonia,” Riley says, pounding a little fist on the table. “Their house is stupid. I want to stay with Daddy.”
“Riley.” Rae narrows her eyes, speaking her name like a warning. “We don’t call people’s houses stupid, and you can’t stay with your dad because Taurin?—”
“Taurin will be gone for the weekend,” I interject, even though I’m not exactly sure how Rae was planning on using him to put Riley off. “His girlfriend, Alyssa, has asked him to go with her and her friends on a college tour.”
For the first time since T brought up the trip, I’m grateful that I agreed to let him go. I’m still going to have to give him a long talk about setting boundaries and making good decisions when he’s surrounded by temptation, but I’m willing to do that and a hell of a lot more if it means making Rae comfortable enough to let Riley stay with me this weekend.
Rae lets out a long, exasperated sigh that almost makes me feel bad for stripping her of another excuse. Almost. She picks up her glass of water and takes a sip before looking at Riley and me and saying, “I just don’t think we’re ready for an overnight visit yet.”
Although I’m disappointed—with her answer and with myself for allowing even a modicum of hope to swell in my chest—I nod. “That’s fair.”
“No, it’s not!” Riley wails, shooting to her feet. There are tears spilling down her cheeks and her bottom lip trembles with indignation. “That’s not fair at all!”
“Nugg—” Rae starts, but before she can finish, Riley runs out of the dining room and up the stairs, sobbing all the way to the second floor. She ends her dramatic exit by slamming her room door.
Marcy tuts her disapproval, muttering something under her breath about the perils of never saying no to your child, and Rae silences her with a glare as she stands and tosses her napkin on her plate. “I’m going to go check on her.”
Aaron places his hand on her arm. “Just let her work it out on her own, babe. You can’t go running every time she throws a fit.”
Now, I’m the one glaring. The one wishing my eyes were lasers so I could turn the fingers wrapped around Rae’s arm, and the man they’re attached to, to ash. Rae snatches away from him, rolling her eyes as she walks out, leaving me to sit in awkward silence with her little boyfriend and his helicopter mom until she returns.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long.
When Rae comes back into the room, she’s alone but there are tear stains on her shoulder and chest, which I can only assume have come from Riley.
“Is she okay?” I ask, rising to my feet because the moment I know they’re both good, I’m out of here.
“Yeah.” She nods, running a hand over her dress. “She was pretty upset, but I managed to get her calm enough to talk to me, and we came to an understanding.”
I don’t know what it is exactly that tells me the tides have just turned in my favor. Maybe it’s the way Rae keeps biting her lip and shifting her gaze between Aaron and me, or the gentle understanding in her eyes, or maybe it’s just that I know her so well that I can get a line on her without her needing to say a thing. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it because it means I get to sit in the glory of her decision before Aaron and his mom ruin it.
“I’ve decided to let Riley stay the weekend with Hunter,” Rae says, her eyes trained on my face, cataloging exactly what her words have done to me. I make sure to show her the joy and the absolute appreciation, but I hide everything else—the love, the adoration, the desire to grab her by the shoulders and kiss her on the lips.
“Are you sure?” I ask, returning her intense stare with one of my own.
She nods. “Yeah, I’m sure. She wants to feel closer to you, to know more about you and your world, and she can’t do that if I don’t give her the chance to.”
There’s sincerity in her voice, but there’s certainty, too, which tells me that she didn’t change her mind because Riley shed a few tears or threw a temper tantrum. In fact, she didn’t change her mind at all. Riley’s raw reaction just acted as a catalyst, helping her to honor a choice she’d already made but was just too afraid to acknowledge.
“So you’re just going to let your nine-year-old daughter spend the weekend alone with a virtual stranger?” Aaron asks, incredulity and an unmistakable hate glittering in his eyes as he looks between Rae and me.
“No,” she says evenly, like she anticipated this question. “I’m going to stay too. If that’s okay with you, Hunter.”
“If that’s what you need to feel comfortable, Sunshine,” I say, my voice rough with emotion at the thought of having both of my girls under my roof for an entire weekend and my mind working overtime to try to figure out how to turn two measly days into a lifetime.