Chapter Three
Hunter
“Tonight should be fun.” Haven wraps her arms around me from behind, pressing her lips between my shoulder blades as I pull on my underwear.
She’s a hookup who’s become a friend—at least in the only way I let people be my friends anymore.
It’s nothing more than sex to either of us.
She knows I don’t have it in me to love anyone after Ellis.
I made sure she understood the score from the first time, but what started as just sex has morphed into liking to spend time with her.
She doesn’t ask more of me than I can give, and honestly, if I ever did want more—which I wouldn’t—Haven would tell me to fuck off.
That’s why it works with her, why she’s a good fuck buddy for me to have.
“It’s a party at an art gallery. How fun can it be?” I ask, half joking, half serious. I don’t know anything about art. It’s just not something that’s ever been on my radar or something I’ve thought about enough to care about learning more.
“You’re just allergic to fun. I can’t believe I got you to go.”
She’s right. I don’t do much, and when I do, it’s stuff that the old me didn’t care much about—like going out or finding a woman to fuck.
Haven pulls on her G-string, then her tiny black dress.
I grab a black suit from the closet, get dressed, and soon we’re sliding into the back seat of a luxury sedan, her driver behind the steering wheel.
Haven is a self-made millionaire who’s married to her job even more than I am, which works for me. Don’t get me wrong, she knows how to have fun, but between that and always being on the go, I have no idea when she sleeps.
“Kismet just opened a couple of months ago,” she tells me, “but it’s already making a name for itself.”
“Art galleries make names for themselves?”
She swats my thigh. “Yes, asshole.”
“What does one do at a party at an art gallery?”
“Drink and socialize. Be nice, or I’ll have Leon drop you off right here.”
I chuckle, then immediately feel guilty for letting myself enjoy something. Still, I manage to hide the weight bearing down on me. “That’s not the threat you think it is.”
“Fine. I guess I’ll just blow you to see if that helps your mood.”
Leon laughs from the front seat. From what she’s told me, Leon has been her driver and friend for years, and there’s no one she trusts more.
She doesn’t blow me, though, and that would likely be a step too far for me even in my current wannabe-bad-boy era.
Before I know it, we’re pulling up at the gallery in the Arts District in Downtown LA.
“Have a good night.” Leon smirks at me. “See you next time, Mr. King.”
We’re not leaving together tonight. Haven has a flight to New York after midnight, so Leon will take her to the airport, and I’ll get myself back home. I’m hoping that means she won’t want to stay out late, but knowing Haven, she won’t leave until the last minute.
The gallery is on the bottom floor of a large warehouse.
I wonder if it has roof access… I’d much rather be up there tonight than in a room full of people.
The collar on my shirt already feels too tight, and I slip my mask further into place—the mask of the guy who doesn’t care about anything other than football and having a good time.
It’s what everyone wants. They don’t want to see me grieving.
They want me to be nothing but the Hunter King they’ve always known.
I’d do anything to get back to being him too, and not feel so empty all the time.
I place my hand on the small of Haven’s back as she shows the doorman our tickets.
She’s the one the media, fans, and football VIPs would like me to be with.
They were never happy about my relationship with Ellis, but when you’re good, that’s all that matters, and I’ve always been good.
But Haven is safer in the controlled bubble the league has tried to create.
It makes it easier for them to forget I’m queer.
Not far into the gallery, we’re stopped by a man holding a tray with champagne glasses. “Would you like a drink?”
“Thank you,” I say, taking one for me and one for Haven, before we begin to shmooze.
She’s good at it. I am too, when I want to be.
It’s something Coach Blake taught me—how to play the game, how to give people what they want, how to say all the right things.
He tried so hard to mold me into a mini version of himself because he wanted me to succeed.
Ellis was always there for me in that way too because their world was so far from my experience that I often struggled with it.
But I don’t anymore. No one would know how much I hate being here, the way I feel like I’m suffocating, that it all feels so fucking fake and useless that it takes everything inside me not to scream for some kind of release.
I finish my champagne, then grab another. We walk around the gallery, looking at art, Haven speaking to everyone we run across.
They all know who I am too, that’s nothing new. I’m the bisexual running back who was drafted openly queer, spent the first few years breaking records, then lost my boyfriend, and shit’s gone downhill since.
“You going to take us all the way this season?” one of the women Haven is speaking with asks me, and I give her my famous smile.
“Oh, you can count on it.”
“That’s what we want to hear.” She reaches over and touches my arm.
We talk for a while before the women excuse themselves, leaving me alone with Haven.
“You should hook up with her. She wants to fuck you.”
I shrug because, honestly, that’s the last thing on my mind. I do hook up, but I don’t crave sex. It’s more like something else I’m supposed to do.
“Are you trying to pimp me out to your friends?”
“You would make me rich.”
I chuckle. I don’t know many people like Haven. I’m thankful for her, though I’m pretty sure I’ve never told her that.
A couple of hours pass. Haven and I break away from each other at some point, and I take that as a moment to pretend I’m into the art, that I understand what different brushstrokes or photographs mean or are trying to say.
I hear people talk about art that way, that it’s saying something, but my brain works better in plays and football formations than it does with this type of creativity.
When I figure enough time has passed that I can leave without upsetting Haven, I pull my phone from my pocket and text her. She replies with an emoji sticking its tongue out, then tells me she’s proud of me for making it this long.
I slip my cell into my pocket and begin making my way through the gallery, managing to get all the way toward the back…
when I see him. I freeze, my heart beating like crazy.
Lucas Blake is standing about twenty feet away, a crowd surrounding him, but he’s not talking to any of them, the conversation going on without him as he just… stares at me.
I haven’t seen him since Ellis’s funeral. From everything Coach Blake says, he never comes home, so I’m fairly certain that’s also the last time he or Abbie have seen him.
He looks the same but older. He’s wearing a black suit like most of the men here.
His white skin is pale, in stark contrast to his deep-brown eyes, and his blond hair is messy, like he hadn’t taken the time to comb it, which is how it always looks.
He’s got high, sharp cheekbones, and hooded, closed-off eyes.
Lucas has always looked like a model, but one who’s nonconforming, edgy…
someone who doesn’t follow the rules, who’s toeing the wrong side of doing what’s right.
He’s got a chunky ring on, his nails are painted in a dark color, and his jaw is smooth, like it’s always been. He’s somehow looking both good and like he doesn’t give a fuck. And as far as I know, Lucas doesn’t give a fuck about many things besides art and photography. Certainly not his family.
I feel the intensity of his stare, not cold, just…curious. Then he tilts his head in this simple up-nod, as though I’m a random man he knows casually rather than someone who grew up with him, someone who was a part of his family, someone who loved his brother.
When he smirks, a flood of anger hits me, anger I don’t even understand, not really.
Is he not allowed to smile? Have fun? Be happy?
Just because it’s all an act for me doesn’t mean others aren’t allowed to grieve differently.
I don’t get mad at Abbie or Coach Blake for moving on, so why is a mischievous smirk from Lucas sending me into a tailspin?
My heart pounds against my chest, memories of our childhood overwhelming me.
Watching Lucas take photos, hearing him fight with Ellis or his father; that time we both ended up in the kitchen in the middle of the night for a drink and got in an argument about football, or that time he sneaked out and came home drunk and I found him, helped him to his room so no one knew; the time when I found a photo in my mailbox—a black-and-white one of Ellis and me laughing together—and knew it was from him.
I don’t know what to think about Lucas. Never have.
One minute I feel like I hate him, the next like he’s got more secrets than I do.
But what’s certain is I don’t know how to look at him, not anymore.
I don’t know how to look at Coach Blake or Abbie anymore either, only it feels easier with them.
Like they’re not dissecting me with their eyes, looking inside me to discover my secrets the way Lucas does.
Bile burns in my throat. The room seems to be getting smaller and smaller, filled with more and more people by the second.
I turn for the door, trying not to lose my shit in here, but when I do, I see the elevator doors.
I go straight for them, wondering what in the hell Lucas is doing here.
I’m not surprised he’s in LA, but that out of all the places he could be in the city, he’s in this gallery right now, with me.
The elevator doors don’t open, but tucked in the corner is a sign for the stairs.
The thick door is unlocked, and seconds later, I’m running up the stairs, needing fresh air, needing fucking something, anything, to pull me out of this moment.
The last thing I expected was to see Lucas tonight, and I’m not sure how to deal with it, how to feel about it, or why it matters at all.