“Hey.” I reached for his arm. “What’s going on?”
He turned toward me. His face was pale and his expression tortured.
For the rest of my life, I knew I’d never forget the stark whiteness of his skin against his green eyes, which were filled with the kind of pain that doesn’t go away in a day. Or a year. Or a lifetime.
Hunter’s eyes changed after his mama died when he was young. This time, though, they looked so gut-stricken I didn’t know what to do.
“What’s wrong?” I shook his arm. “What happened?”
“My dad.” He held up his hands.
And that’s when I saw the blood.
“Oh my God! Hunter!” I reached for his blood-stained hands, but he pulled them back. “Are you hurt? Should I take you to the hospital?”
“Already been there.” His tone is a flatline when he says, “My dad was murdered.”
I threw my arms around him, but he inched out of my hug. “Come with me to my house?” he asked me. “We had to talk to the police and give our statements, and my brothers are still at the hospital dealing with shit. I just needed…”
Our eyes caught and held.
I nodded. “Of course. Let’s go.”
He’d taken a cab to my house, and he had it waiting out on the street where it couldn’t be seen. We walked across my lawn together and hopped into the cab.
When we got to his house, the first thing I thought was how eerily quiet it was as we stepped inside the foyer.
“Deadly silent,” Hunter said immediately.
I jerked my head over to him. He shrugged like he was trying the words out to see how horrible they felt.
Then, he leaned over and gagged, barely making it down the hall to the lone bathroom before he threw up in the toilet.
I grabbed a washcloth, wet it with cool water, and put it on the back of Hunter’s neck. His hands gripped the toilet seat so hard his knuckles were white.
“Hunt.” I ran my hand down his back. “Let’s get you into bed.”
But he insisted on cleaning up first.
I followed him into the bathroom and started handing him soap and a clean washcloth from the linen closet.
“What if I can never wash off the blood?” His face was still so pale that all I could see were his green eyes glittering with grief.
I stepped closer and took the soap from him. “We’ll get it all off. I’ll help you.”
It took several scrubbings to fully clean his daddy’s blood off of him, and even then, we found more on his jeans.
“Jump into the shower,” I finally said. “I’ll put a pair of your sweatpants outside the door for when you’re done.”
I left the bathroom and rummaged through his drawer to grab his track pants. I left them outside the bathroom for him, and then I grabbed one of Hunter’s t-shirts and a pair of his shorts for myself to change into.
When he came out, without him inviting me to stay and without me asking if I should, we climbed into his twin-sized bed together.
I kept my back to him and as much distance between us as I could at first, not sure what he wanted from me. But when I felt the bed shake, I rolled over toward him.
“Hunt.”
He shifted to face me. The tears running down his face were visible in the moonlight that shone through his window.
