I amsafehere. But my body reacts to a raised voice as if I’m back with Derek: I instinctively brace myself for a blow that never comes.
“Is everything okay?” Elias appears in the doorway, frowning as Hunter finishes sweeping up the last of the broken plate and empties it into the trash.
When Hunter doesn’t say a word, I give Elias the same tight smile I gave Hunter, and his forehead furrows.
“Give us a sec, Maisie,” Hunter says to me, shooting me a smile that looks as forced as mine felt.
Hunter drags Knox out of the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him.
Footsteps move away. Another door closes—the living room or the downstairs half-bath, maybe? Whatever it was, I still hear Hunter unload on Elias about scaring the shit out of me by screaming at his stupid fucking computer game.
I don’t know whether I’m embarrassed, grateful Hunter cares so much to yell at Elias like that, or upset my past reared up to ruin a perfectly good day, but I finish washing the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher when I can’t think of anything else to do.
Hunter returns two minutes later, pushing the kitchen door open and pausing when I turn to face him as I wipe my hands on a cloth.
“How much of that did you hear?” he asks, squinting at me.
I consider lying, but what’s the point?
“If I said not much, would you believe me?”
He walks toward me, face twisted in annoyance. “Elias likes to play computer games to unwind after work. He says blowing shit up helps him to decompress, whatever that means,” he mutters.
“It’s like surfing for you,” Elias yells, proving the walls in this house are paper-thin. “It helps me relax.”
Hunter’s raised eyebrow communicates that the two are not the least bit the same. “I forget that he sometimes shouts and occasionally likes to throw his control pad across the room.”
“Why’d you quit surfing again?” Elias calls out, amused.
Hunter rolls his eyes. “Iknewhe would bring that up.”
“Why did you?” I ask, curious.
When we talked at the diner, he would tell me things about himself. They all would. Hunter told me he used to be a semi-pro surfer based in Malibu, with enough wins under his belt and sponsorships to go pro.
“Grab a seat at the table while I finish up the rest,” he says.
As if he needs something to do with his hands, he picks up a cloth and starts wiping the counters. I take a seat at the dining table for an explanation that I have a feeling is longer and more complicated than he could have given me between serving up slices of pie and topping up his coffee in the diner.
“After every win, I spent more and more of my time dodging dickheads while living in a shithole, which led to me throwing things sometimes.” He stops wiping the counter to wince at me. “Sorry for saying dickhead.”
I swallow my smile, wondering how I went from a hellscape of a life to landing in a gorgeous farmhouse with four alphas who never get tired of doing things for me. “You’re allowed to say dickhead around me.”
He flashes me a grin and resumes wiping the counters. “I loved to surf. If it was just surfing, I’d still be doing it. But it became about competition and less about fun. It was about hitting the tricks that would score me the biggest points, and less about doing whatever I wanted just because. Turning pro makes people competitive, and it can turn people into real dicks. Even the people that I used to call my friends.”
“But not you?” I ask, resting my chin on my hand.
Hunter doesn’t strike me as a dick, but I’m curious how he avoided becoming one if everyone around him was changing.
“I didn’t care about the money or the sponsorships. When a hobby becomes a career, youhaveto start caring about those things. You have to meet with your agent and corporate types to get sponsorships and worry about keeping them. Then there are Zoom meetings and dealing with the money side of things, which has always made my eyes glaze over.” He tosses the cloth into the sink and leans against it, rubbing a hand over his face as if just talking about it is enough to send him to sleep. “All that noise takes away from something I only started doing with my big brother to havefun. I never went into surfing thinking I’d be good at it, then it stopped being fun and started feeling too much like work.”
I lift my brow. “So, you became aconstruction worker?”
He flashes me a crooked grin. “I fell into it, actually. Most surfers are not pros. It’s not easy to do it alone. A lot of people have another job that pays the bills. Barista, bartender, stuff like that. It’s why I was living in houses with other surfers. Would not recommend.” He does a full-body shudder as if still haunted by the experience. “I’m not a neat freak or a slob, but some people aredisgusting. Pissing in the shower, having sex in your bed and not cleaning up after kind of disgusting.”
Yikes.
I scrunch my nose. “Gross.”
