“She’s a cute baby. She’s safe,” he said, leaving that for Hunter to interpret however he liked.
Hunter’s head whipped around, and he frowned down at Payne. “Yeah, so what?”
“So nothing is going to happen to hurt her while she’s surrounded by these guys, and nothing’s going to happen to you if you get close to her,” Payne said, meeting Hunter’s gaze.
Hunter stared at Payne, his face pale. He swallowed hard, then looked away. “I know.” Hunter’s voice was ragged, and he cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. How do you know I don’t like kids?”
“We can call it intuition,” Payne said gently. “I’m willing to bet you were good with kids before.”
With a scowl, Hunter stuffed his towel into his gym bag. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to shower before we go on duty.” He glanced back at the cluster of mercs, who were now passing the baby around and listening to Alec animatedly describing the joys of fatherhood. Hunter went still, an expression of intense grief and pain crossing his face, before his mask slipped back into place once again. He picked up his bag and headed toward the locker room. “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Sure, I’ll do the same and meet you at the van,” Payne said, recognizing the cue to stop prodding. For now, at least. Hunter needed to face whatever was haunting him, but this wasn’t the time or place.
Hunter headed out of the room, not seeming to notice both Herc and Alec were also watching him leave. Payne rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he knew whether he was helping or hindering Hunter’s progress. Maybe he ought to push Hunter a little harder, because Hunter didn’t seem inclined to move forward on his own, but he worried that pushing would drive Hunter away. Payne didn’t want Hunter to return to Lawson and Greer while he was still in this frame of mind or God forbid, join up with a group that wouldn’t care about Hunter’s mental stability as long as he could fire a gun.
But for now, they had a job to do, so Payne said goodbye to the others and headed off to clean up. Maybe tonight, he’d tell Hunter all about his favorite foods. If that didn’t work, he could try favorite vacation spots, favorite album, and his bucket list plans. Surely one of those would coax a response out of Hunter, and if not, well, he had plenty of other ideas. If nothing else, Hunter would know far more than he probably wanted to about Payne by the end of their time together.
