He made me feel like if the whole world was ending, it would be okay because we had found each other. That’s something I won’t easily give up, no matter what Momma says about men.
Chapter Five
Hunter
My heart feels lighter than it has in years as I take the steps up to my apartment two at a time. Smiling to myself like a damn love-struck fool, I don’t even notice the person standing at the top of the steps until I reach my door and he shoves off the wall and into the light.
“Well damn, I haven’t seen anything put that kind of spring in your step since you won the Dick Howser Trophy last season!”
Rolling my eyes, I push past his annoying ass and enter my key into my door.
“Don’t you have some tail to chase somewhere, Roberts? Or has the word ‘no’ finally sunk into your inflated male ego.”
He laughs like the ass he is and follows me inside. I walk into the kitchen and pull two beers from the fridge. Rex follows close behind and shrugs out of his jacket, throwing it across the back of the couch before grabbing a beer from my hands and plopping down on the sofa. Well shit, I guess he plans on staying. Wasn’t exactly how I envisioned this night ending, that’s for damn sure. I rather thought I’d take a cold shower and entertain fantasies of a brown-haired, green-eyed angel. The sooner I find out just what the hell he wants the better.
“Where ya been, Hunter?” He starts off asking as if he doesn’t already know and is just waiting for me to say it. “You know, I thought about going to the Delta Gamma luau, but hell catching you going back on what you swore you’d never do felt way more entertaining.”
I take a long sip of beer and glare at the back of his head from across the room. The cold crisp taste floats down my throat while I debate not actually answering him, but like a snake that’s been prodded, I snap back, “And just what the hell would that be, Rex?”
He takes a long sip of his drink as the silence settles between us. Rex has known me for a long time and is the only one besides my stepsister who knows most of the skeletons in my closet. He rises, takes another long gulp off his bottle, then turns and meets my stare. He walks a few steps over to the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room and sets down his bottle. “Consumed, surrendered, to a fate that may break you before you even get started.”
“I don’t break that easy, Roberts. Not anymore,” I insist, as I round the counter and walk into my living room. Setting my beer down on a side table, I plop my own ass down on the couch and kick my feet up on the coffee table, determined to not relive anything in my past. Not tonight.
“Shit,” he laughs, “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how many nights I carried you home freshman year when the burden got too heavy to carry?”
Letting out a heavy sigh, I pick up my beer. “This is different.”
“The fuck it is,” he laughs, making my head snap angrily in his direction. “A broken home. A fucked up childhood. That shit you can walk away from. Push it down, keep it hidden deep inside.” He pushes off the counter and walks towards the door, grabbing his jacket off the couch on the way. “But hell, a broken heart. That shit will eat you alive. It’s relentless on dragging you down with it. Not many people survive that.” I fight the urge to mouth back, because all I want right now is for him to fucking leave. Before he does, he tosses out bitterly, “Be careful, Hunt.”
The echo of the door slamming mixes with his warning. Thoughts I’ve suppressed for years resurface and instantly hold me hostage.
Hunter: 9 years old
“Stand up straight, son!” My father hisses under his breath. I roll my eyes, standing next to him in our estate’s entryway.
“Hell, Robert, this boy needs to fucking learn more than how to just stand. If he was my own, I would have knocked that damn attitude out of him a long time ago,” my father’s best friend, Edward, says as another person comes through the front door. The men at my side, along with their wives, plaster smiles on their faces and shake the hands of another celebrity whose name I can’t place.
I do my best to stand up straight and smile politely at the actress and her “plus one” as they make their way past. She gives me a sincere grin, probably the most genuine thing I have seen in hours, and then pushes her way through the crowd of people who have gathered tonight to celebrate the network’s several wins at the Annual Emmy Awards.
I shift on my feet and turn my head to watch as the beautiful girl disappears into the group of prestigious big wigs. She’s new to the scene, only been around a year or so. So her natural, honest, pure aura will fade over time.
The thought makes me frown as I look back forward and feel my father reach down and hit my lower back, making my spine straighten and my anger grow. “I said fucking stand straight, Hunter!”
“For goodness sake, Robert, he is just a boy,” my mother scolds at my left. Glancing up into her loving eyes, I feel comfort for the first time in hours. She smiles down at me briefly before looking straight ahead and shaking hands with another person who comes to say hello. They exchange a few words as my eyes catch Edward’s daughters across the room. Same age as me, she sits on the steps of the staircase, staring at us, and frowns.
“I think the boy has done enough for one night. After all, he is only ten,” my mother whispers under her breath. “Let him go play. It’ll do him good.”
Hope blooms in my chest. I might be let off the hook. I look up at my father excited for the first time this evening that I might get to stop “pretending.” He rolls his eyes and balls his fists at his side. “This is a big night for the network, Paula. How would it look to Edward and Sylvia if I let the boy run free? His job is to learn how to take over an empire. That kind of training starts the second he is old enough to understand his place. We didn’t live without for so many years, struggling as we climbed to the top, so he could just live it up and not take this life seriously.”
The hope I had falls as I look back at Edward’s daughter on the staircase.
“He won’t, Robert. We won’t let him. But he should be allowed to be a kid once in a while, too. That’s something even you weren’t denied as a child.”
My mother stands her ground between me and my father, and thank God for that. I don’t know how I’d survive this kind of life without her. My gaze floats to Edward, he looks down on me with disappointment. It hurts. Stings. Tears me apart a little knowing he thinks so little of me when all I want is what he has no problem giving his own kid.
Freedom to be whatever she wants to be.
My eyes drift back to my father’s. The same disapproval hangs in his stare. But the defeat in his stance tells me one thing. My mother won. She always does. With a nod of his head, she looks down at me with a smile, and I run off feeling like I’ve just been given the best gift ever.
