Looking down at me, Hunter frowns. “Five years.”
Huh, not as long as I thought, given how close they seem. Still, I push forward with my real question. “Is he happy?Actuallyhappy doing what he does?” Hunter is one of the few people Derek trusts to see his imperfections, which means he might be one of the few people with an answer.
Hunter grunts, staring down the Hopper trail again as worry starts pulling at his features. “Most of the time,” he mutters, but then he seems to realize that he said it out loud and looks at me again, his expression hard. “He loves making movies. Always has.”
“He was…what? Sixteen when he started?” That’s so young, but at least he didn’t have to spend his whole childhood on a set. “How long do you think he’ll keep going?” Derek never did answer the question.
The bodyguard drops his gaze, which is a good sign that I’ve hit on a touchy subject, though I can’t figure out if it’s touchy for Derek or for Hunter.
“How long willyoustick around?” I ask when he doesn’t answer. “I can’t imagine your job is easy, being dragged to places like this.”
Hunter follows my hand as I wave it around camp, his eyebrows low and tension in his shoulders. “This isn’t so bad.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I won’t take offense if you hate the river, even if you’re wrong.”
That brings out a small smile, but it barely cuts through the worry in his eyes. And dang it, I shouldn’t keep talking to him—Derek will head back any minute—but there’s clearly something bothering him. I need to fix it.
Pops, look what you’ve done to me.
Forcing a smile, I look around the beach to make sure no one is close enough to hear our conversation, and then I shoot for a casual tone, ignoring the irony of putting my rusty acting chops to use right now. “Do you ever get time off, Hunter?”
He scoffs. “That would require Derek taking time off.” But then his eyes go wide, and he looks back up the trail as if worried he’ll lose his job if Derek heard him say something like that. “I don’t mind going places with him,” he adds quickly.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“And I don’t care that he works as much as he does.” Something changes in his expression as he grits his teeth, like he’s trying so hard to hold things back, but the dam is starting to weaken.
I shouldn’t push, especially because Hunter works for Derek and I should keep my distance from both of them, but my heart goes out to the big guy. His job can’t be easy, and now that I know so much more about Derek, it’s a lot easier to see the cracks in his life that he tries so hard to hide.
What if he expects perfection from more than just himself?
“He needs you, doesn’t he?” I ask. “He relies on you more than he realizes.”
Hunter’s eyebrows pull together as he looks at me, and he doesn’t have to say anything for me to know the answer. He exhales slowly, and all of the weight he was carrying seems to slide off his shoulders as he does. The poor man suddenly looks worn thin. “I worry about him,” he admits. “All the time. And I care about him too much to not be there for him with whatever he needs.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“To tell him what? That he trusts me too much?” He scoffs, taking a step back, away from my touch. “The second that man learns of a problem, he does everything he can to fix it and won’t stop until he finds an answer. Telling him the truth would only make things worse.”
“But he should know—”
“His friends give him enough to worry about. I don’t need to add to it.” He turns to head down the beach but stops, probably realizing there aren’t many places for him to go. Or maybe he’s realizing that he shouldn’t have said any of this to me.
I’m glad he did. Hunter deserves to be healed by the river as much as anyone does.
“Aren’t you his friend too?” I ask quietly.
Though he glances back at me, Hunter’s worn expression doesn’t change. At the sound of a twig snapping, he looks over to find Derek coming down the path, and all of the tension returns to Hunter’s shoulders as the two men stare at each other for a long few seconds. Then Hunter sighs and heads for an empty camp chair near Maverick and Morgan, settling next to them without a word and pulling out his phone.
“Donovan?” Derek leans the paddle against a tree and steps closer.
“No,” I say wearily. “I’m not going to talk about it, Derek.”
“About what? Your first job or the fact that you and my bodyguard are conspiring against me?”
“Ha!” I roll my eyes. “Not everything revolves around you, you know.”
As his eyes shift from me to Hunter, he frowns and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Unfortunately, in my world it kind of does. Did he tell you what’s bothering him? He’s been acting strange since we got to Utah.”
