Chapter Thirty #2
And, well. It was pretty tough to be too brooding when you were learning about apatosauruses and being used as a jungle gym.
“That’s so cool!” Hunter enthused, picking the kid up. Wolf’s four-year-old sister, Lena, was half hiding in the doorway, clutching a fluffy purple dragon plushie to her chest. Still holding on to Wolf, Hunter knelt down in front of Lena and held out his fist. “Hey there, pumpkin.”
“’M not a pumpkin,” Lena mumbled, shying away with her body but extending her fist to bump her knuckles gently against Hunter’s.
“You sure? You look like you’d make a delicious pie.”
“Mo-oooom!” Wolf launched himself off Hunter and went careening toward the other room. “Uncle Hunter wants to bake Lena into a pie.”
“What have I told you about cooking my children?” Kyra emerged from around the corner, a wry smile on her lips. She’d chopped her dark hair shorter since the last time he’d seen her, and she was dressed in a fluffy orange sweater and mom jeans.
It was way, way too good to see her.
“Don’t think it’s come up, actually.” Hunter rose to his feet and gave his sister a hug. “How was the drive?”
“Interminable,” she said into his ear. She pulled away, a tired smile on her face. “But we’re here now.” She gave him a quick look up and down. “You look like you had a rough day.”
“Understatement.” He wasn’t going to go getting into any of it, though.
He glanced past her into the living room, where his dad was sitting on the couch, watching Wolf gather up a couple dozen plastic dinosaur figures in his little arms. Hunter raised a brow meaningfully. “How’s it going with Dad and the kids?”
Kyra shrugged. “Same as usual.”
The usual, of course, was their dad barely interacting with his grandchildren. A bitter stone lodged in Hunter’s throat.
“Don’t make that face,” Kyra chided him. “It’s fine.”
“Is it, though?”
If she had any reply, she got interrupted by her husband, TJ, coming out of the kitchen with a couple of juice boxes. TJ was a bald man with medium-brown skin and glasses; he and Hunter didn’t have much in common, honestly, but he was good to Kyra and their kids, and that was all that mattered.
Hunter had about twenty seconds to exchange a perfunctory hello with his brother-in-law while the kids sucked down their juice.
From there, he immediately got swept off into pretend play involving dinosaurs—naturally—as well as sword-fighting knights, unicorns, and an intrepid infectious disease researcher (Lena’s suggestion).
Pizza arrived, and they cleared all the clutter of their dad’s dining room table so they could eat.
Conversation was lively if mostly nonsensical.
Once or twice, Hunter glanced at his dad, and that bitterness threatened the back of his throat again as his dad just ate his pizza and otherwise mostly kept his mouth shut.
After dinner, Hunter cleaned up while Kyra and TJ got the kids ready for bed.
They came down in pajamas, and TJ put on a movie—about dinosaurs!
The kids flopped on top of their dad on the threadbare old couch, while their grandpa sat in his recliner, alone in a roomful of people, and Hunter’s jaw clenched as he fought so hard to swallow down bile.
“Hey.” Kyra had two bottles of Oktoberfest pumpkin ales in hand. Raising a brow in question, she nodded toward the porch.
It wasn’t a hard decision. Grabbing their jackets off the hooks by the door, they made their way outside. Once he’d popped the tops off both of their beers, they made for their usual spots, her on the decrepit porch swing, and him on the stoop.
She glanced up at the chain holding up the swing before she sat, giving it an experimental tug the way she always did. “One of these days…”
This entire house was falling apart from neglect, or maybe just plain despair. Hunter came over from time to time and tried to help his old man keep the place standing, but he tended to focus on the functional stuff.
The swing didn’t come crashing down when she sat, so it was apparently still sound.
“I’ll give it some TLC come spring,” Hunter promised.
Spring seemed a long way away right now, though.
They’d already had their first frost, and the air had that sharpness to it, like the cold was ready to settle in for good.
As if to prove his point, a gust of wind blew through the trees, sending crispy brown leaves scattering across the weed-strewn walk.
They sat there in silence for a minute, sipping on their beers, before she squared him with her annoying Big Sister look. “So, spill.”
He scrunched up his brow, looking over at her. “Huh?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You’re in a pissy mood, and we both know it.”
“I am not.”
She rolled her eyes and did an impression of him that was straight out of their childhood. “Am not.”
“Hey—”
“Look, you did a good job fooling the kids, but you can’t fool me.” She reached down and grabbed a leaf off the ground and threw it at him. It missed by a mile, but she waved a hand like he knew what she meant by lobbing it at him. “Out with it.”
“It’s nothing. Just a rough couple of days.
” He took a swig of his beer, but it didn’t buy him any time.
She just kept staring at him in the yellow glow of the porch light, waiting him out.
He looked away, off into the darkness of the woods on the other side of the road, until he couldn’t stand the weight of her expectation. “Fine, just—”
He cast about for someplace to start that didn’t involve him making a total fool of himself.
He surprised even himself when he landed on “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Me?”
“Dad.” Wasn’t it obvious? “The way he just sits there. Doesn’t play with the kids, hardly says a word to either you or TJ. Just sits alone in this run-down house like he’s waiting to die.”
The bitterness wasn’t just in his throat anymore. It burned his tongue and leaked into his words.
Lines appeared between his sister’s brows. “Well. It certainly sounds like it’s bugging you.”
“Of course it’s bugging me.” He gestured at their surroundings with his beer. “It’s always like this.”
“It doesn’t seem any different from usual to me. I know I don’t see him as much as you do, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.” She shrugged. “Of course I wish he were a little more hands-on, but he is how he is.”
Hunter shook his head, fire gathering in his chest. “He didn’t use to be, though. Before—before—”
His throat locked up.
Before Mom died…
Something in Kyra’s features softened. “Oh.”
“How can you do it?” he asked. The question felt like it came from out of nowhere, but suddenly, it seemed like the only question in the world.
Because it wasn’t his father’s behavior that was bothering him; well, not any more than it usually did.
What bothered him was his own future spreading out in front of him, full of risks he’d decided never to take.
He might have talked a big game, earlier, with Alix and Greta.
But deep down, he knew where all roads led.
Heartbreak and a house in ruins, a life that didn’t have any life in it anymore.
He looked right into his sister’s eye. “How can you be with TJ and raise these kids, knowing it could all just…” He swallowed. “Knowing you could end up like him.”
And God, he hated the pity in her eyes. “How can you not?”
He laughed, the sound raw and grating. “Easy.”
“Is it, though?” She set down her beer and pulled out her phone. She didn’t turn it on, though, just fiddled with it between her hands. “Does this have anything to do with the cute brunette?”
His ribs crushed inward. “What?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I went into town for two minutes to hit the ATM, and no less than five people spotted me and ran over to ask me if you’d introduced me to Emma yet.”
This freaking town. He rubbed his eyes and scrubbed his hand down his face and over his beard.
“Also,” Kyra said, humming slightly, “Dad mentioned he walked in on the two of you”—she made finger quotes in the air—“‘canoodling.’”
“Dad needs to learn how to knock.” And yes, yes, his father had knocked, but then he’d barged in without waiting for an answer, which was almost worse.
“So? Don’t make me toss another leaf at you. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said again, automatically, and why was he doing that? Pretending everything was fine was Emma’s move, only…
Only maybe it was his move, too. He pretended it was fine and pretended it was fine. For years, he lived alone in the woods. And then she came into his life, and nothing was fine anymore.
It was amazing. She was amazing. She’d breathed life and wonder into him after all that time spent stagnating and alone.
She was beautiful and brilliant and easy to be around, fun to talk to.
He’d never had so much fun in bed or felt a deeper connection.
And they didn’t even have to have sex. She made everything better just by being around, and so he’d…
Pushed her away.
All because he was terrified of losing her.
“I just—” His voice threatened to crack, and he took a deep pull on his beer.
Slowly, in fits and starts, he laid out the entire story for his sister—well, the PG version of it, in any case. She listened attentively, sympathy gathering in her eyes, which he freaking hated, but he was being pretty pathetic here, so he had probably earned it.
“The thing is that she’s new in town, and she had this whole life back before she moved here,” he rambled. “She’s changed so much, and she’s still changing. What if she decides not to stay?”
One side of Kyra’s mouth drew higher. “Or—what if she does?”
A bubble of hope rose inside him.
Only to pop instantaneously.
“That’s what I thought.” Kyra shook her head.
“What?”
“Your whole face just fell.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“It did.”
It definitely had, but he wasn’t going to admit to it.
“You’re thinking about Dad,” Kyra accused, but there wasn’t any heat. Just more of that awful sympathy.
The worst part was that she was right.
“Of course I’m thinking about Dad.” He went to take another sip from his drink, but it was empty.