I left my car at the restaurant, so I’ll have to find time to get it today. But the Uber driver last night sang along to every Britney Spears song on his playlist, listening to that for the twenty-minute drive made me think I deserved at least one drink for applauding him.
See, I can be nice.
“You look like shit, dude,” Trent tells me, lifting his eyes up from his computer to quirk an eyebrow at me. I don’t acknowledge his comment, or the way the water in my stomach roils when I sit down too quickly at my desk.
“So I look like you normally do?”
Trent’s silent, which is weird for him. He loves regaling me with tales, whether they be random thoughts he comes up with during the day or stories from his life. When he first started working for me, he was always telling stories about his ex-boyfriend, Kian. I swear to fuck, if he starts telling me stories about Hunter, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
The clock on the wall ticks loudly. Has it always been that loud, or is my headache making it worse?
“Hunter told me,” Trent finally says after I count to 240 ticks, four full minutes of uncomfortable silence.
I don’t say anything, trying to keep my focus on the computer in front of me. There are invoices to be sent out, bills to be paid, and products to be bought. I have a lot on my plate today, andwith the way my stomach is unsettled right now, I’m thinking that this might not be the best conversation for me and Trent to be having. Because Hunter and I are in the past.
“You’re kind of an asshole, you know that, right?” he says, not rudely but matter-of-factly. There’s nothing I can say to defend myself, because he’s right, as much as I don’t want him to be.
He huffs, an annoyed gust of breath forced out of his lungs.
“How are you such a good guy, but then you also act like that?” Trent’s poking the bear, and I’m sure Hunter told him exactly what he heard. But he didn’t hearallof it.
Talk about the worst form of miscommunication.
“You are a grump, always in a surly mood. But then you make sure every member of the crew gets paid way above average, you made sureIwas okay after everything that happened, and you also don’t make enough profit off these jobs to justify what you spend. So technically, every time we take on a job,you’relosing money.”It’s just money, I want to tell him, because to me it is. I have no use for as much money as I have. I divided up my inheritance and split it between charities to be donated to every month to keep the resources flowing in. Even a fraction of the money I have could make major differences in people’s lives, and what kind of asshole would I be if I kept it all for myself? I would become the one thing I never wanted to be, my father.
“You keep everyone at arm’s length, even me. I don’t know what your favorite color is, or that you like hiking on the weekends. I had to figure those things out from my boyfriend, because he confided in me last night about your history.” He inhales harshly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What was there to tell?” I finally break my silence, looking at him.
“I don’t know! Something, anything. I feel like I don’t even know you sometimes, and last night proved that.” He soundssad, and I feel bad. Trent is one of my closest friends, so I can offer him a sliver of myself. The surface level boundaries I’ve kept on my side while he’s spilled every detail about how shitty his childhood and teenager years, leading to his adulthood.
“My favorite color is brown,” I offer, genuinely.
“Of course your favorite color would be shit-brown,” he remarks.
“I’m sure yours isn’t any better.”
“It’s green,” he says quietly, almost a whisper. The soft moment between us gives me the motivation to maybe, just maybe, let him in. Not much, because the thought of letting him in scares me, but fuck. It’s been eight years. In some ways, life passes by quickly; one moment you’re working on fences, and the next, you’re sharing an office and working on building an empire that will outlive you and give him the financial stability that he told you he craved.
“My parents died when I was younger. It kind of fucked me up.”
“You think?” He balls up a piece of paper and throws it at me, completely missing and bouncing off the wall to the right of my head.
“You have shitty aim.”
He laughs, and I join in, the sound rusty coming out of my mouth.
“I have to ask, is it weird that I’m dating your ex? If it is, I can talk to Hunter…” He trails off, and I would be an asshole of ultimate proportions if I told him it did bother me. They deserve each other; they both need happiness and love. They can provide that to each other, and I’ll just make sure that I keep a smile plastered on my face when I see them together, no matter how much my heart is begging for me to put it out of its misery.
“No, don’t worry about it. It’s practically history at this point.” But there’s a famous saying about history always repeating itself.
43
HUNTER
FIVE MONTHS LATER
My intuition is never wrong. The feeling deep in my gut always attempts to steer me in the right direction. Do I ever listen to it, though?
