AFTER AN EXHAUSTING RED-EYE home from Belize, we landed in Chicago and I slept for an entire day to recover from the weekend. I left Hunter’s apartment early the following morning after returning home to finally get back to life and take care of things I’d left unsettled at home. Bills, apartment shopping, divorce papers.
I still had them. They were sitting on the table in my office, wide out in the open. I’d already signed them, just hadn’t sealed and stamped the envelope yet. And now apparently I couldn’t; I was expected to remain at a standstill if I was going to let Hunter take down my husband.
I sped in the door after meeting my mom for a quick lunch, one where she’d pressed me for further details on Brant and my future, when he would be home, how often we talked, if we thought therapy could help. She’d commented that perhaps I wasn’t fulfilling the duties of a good wife, or perhaps I no longer satisfied him, suggesting I could take better care of my appearance and that more spa days might help get his attention and make me feel “sexy”. I’d finally gotten so angry I’d stomped away, rage clogging my throat and feeling utterly drained. She’d never understood me, she never even bothered trying, but making a break with my own mother felt unbearable when she was the only parent I’d ever had to love.
I ran a hand through my long hair and dropping my purse on the floor. Hunter required I be back to his house by dinner tonight. I was only ever allowed a few hours on my own at a time, supposedly for my safety, and he’d even bought me pepper spray. I’d relented to carrying it only after he’d mentioned I should get a concealed weapons permit too. I’d told him I didn’t believe in fighting violence with violence. He’d simply given my naivete an eye roll and shoved a second can of pepper spray in my bag.
I grabbed a banana on my way through the kitchen and ate it in a few bites as I headed up to the master bedroom to jump in the shower. I was out ten minutes later and dressed in comfy lounge clothes with a towel on my head and walking to my office, intent on booking travel arrangements for a trip Hunter and I were set to make this weekend, when I heard my phone blurting loudly through the hallway.
I hurried, recognizing Hunter’s ring, and dug through the gallon-sized bag that was my purse to find my phone with six missed calls, all from Hunter.
“Jesus.” I pressed the call back button just as another call came through. “Hello?” I murmured, knowing he’d be upset. The ten fucking minutes it’d taken me to get a shower and he had needs.
“Cancel this weekend until further notice. I’m sending a car to get you earlier. Bring a bag with shit.”
His voice was gone. He’d already hung up. Again.
Damn hm.
I wanted to call him back and demand an answer, but I knew it was useless. Hunter was as stubborn as the day was long and arguing with him never did anything to my benefit except frustrate me and then turn me on.
My phone vibrated in my hand a moment later with a text.
“Sorry, Princess.”
I rolled my eyes as a smile pulled the corners of my mouth. Of course I would forgive him for being curt. He didn’t need forgiveness. I loved that and all the other demanding things about him. He had passion. I loved a man with passion.
I waited on Hunter until after dinner. I sat quietly at first in my room, and then in the kitchen over tea, until I’d turned to red wine. I was now sloppy and stumbling barefoot across the dark house, ready to curl into my bed not giving two fucks where Hunter was or why he hadn’t sent the car like he’d said.
After spending the whole day waiting on him, mulling over all the possibilities of why our photo shoot this weekend in New York had been canceled, I was just snuggling into the cool sheets of my bed later that night, surfing Hunter’s website yet again that showcased dozens of his photos and various medals of prestige, and I felt quiet tears fall down my cheeks. Maybe I was drunk, maybe I was being emotional, maybe I was burned by a dishonest husband and a mother that criticized too much, or maybe deep down I knew something was wrong.
Maybe it was all those things. The emotions swirled in my stomach until my bones chattered and the cool night nipped at my toes.
“Hunter, where are you?” I mused out loud, talking to myself through the cloud of red wine and heartache.
“I’m sorry.” His voice filtered to the edges of my hearing and I sighed, letting my eyes fall closed, succumbing to his wonderful image, his intoxicating scent.
“I missed you.” I stretched, entertaining the haunting vision of him in front of me. “I wish you were real.” I brushed a fingertip to his jawline and whispered it along the stubble I could nearly feel beneath my fingers.
“Erin.” His hand caught my wrist. “I am real.” He placed a kiss on the underside of my wrist before hauling me into his arms. “Are you drunk?” He groaned into my neck, and it wasn’t until I inhaled the soft smoky scent that curled around my nostrils and fogged my brain that I knew he was really there.
But there was something else about his scent. Something familiar, like fireworks, but so out of place. My eyes widened in the darkness as realization dawned. Hunter smelled like gun powder.
“What happened to you?” I tried to focus my eyes in the dark night, my hands tracing his chest and biceps feeling for anywhere he could be harmed. “Did someone shoot a gun?” My eyes widened as the slow reality seeped into my brain.
“I’m fine. I met JW at the shooting range.” His eyes darted away and left my insides feeling hollow. “I’ll tell you more later, but we have to go.” He hauled me from the bed and pushed me into my walk-in closet. “Pack what you can’t live without.” He opened a drawer and shoved a handful of panties into the nearest bag he could find. I swallowed the anxiety that vibrated through my muscles and pushed a few shirts and jeans in the bag.
Within a few minutes, Hunter was wrapping me in a warm sweater, kissing his way up my clavicle and along the curve of my neck, and once bundled against the chill of the dark night, I was spirited off by Hunter. Again.
I lived in the four-story walkup that was Hunter’s mansion for the next three days, wrapped in his cotton-white sheets, where I discovered the map of his scars, and hummed against his lips that I loved being shut-in with him. The world could fall to pieces around us and I wouldn’t care.
One afternoon, Hunter and I worked opposite each other at his kitchen island. He was lost in his pictures while I worked on his website, beefing up my meager design skills to give his business a fresh look. His head popped up and he asked, “Erin, can you run down to my office and grab the black folder in the top right drawer?”
“Sure.” I stood and placed a quick kiss on his upturned lips before striding down the long hall to his office. Rifling through the pile of paperwork in his drawer, I found a stack of photos of Hunter in fatigues in the desert. Hunter’s vibrant smile drew me to his face in all of them. He stood out in the groups of soldiers carrying weapons or messing around in the barracks. Curious, I lifted the stack and flipped through a few more until one of a teenage Hunter and someone else caught my eye. Hunter’s smile was unusually tortured. Gone were the flashing bright white teeth as if he was mid-laugh, and instead stood a disgruntled young man, hiding.
He’d already begun to fill out, no sign of the scrawny underdeveloped teen he’d spoken of that day at the diner. He was tall and lean with faintly etched muscles dusted with golden hair. And his body was clean of tattoos, other than the Roman numerals etched at his knuckles. The first ones he’d gotten to cover the scars given to him by his mom’s boyfriend. Before her boyfriend had killed her.
My heart twisted for the boy he’d been, the one that looked haunted as he stood in this picture next to a man that equal parts saved his life and then ruined it so callously. Anger boiled as I searched for the familiar Hunter I knew somewhere in the lost green eyes of the boy in the photo.
The door opened then and Hunter peeked in, a worried frown on his face. “What’d you find?”
“A picture.” I flipped it for him to see. An odd mix of emotions crossed his face.
“JW was there for me a lot through high school. He made sure I graduated. I didn’t get it; my mom didn’t give two fucks about school. But thank God he did.” He pulled the picture from my hands and flipped it over. “After my mom died, I thought I would die with her. I had no one until JW brought me into his home, gave me a warm meal—even when my mom was alive she didn’t give me that.” He laughed ironically then shoved a nervous hand through his blonde locks. “JW paid for the funeral. He claimed the body of my mom because I was too young. JW stepped forward. Gave her a pretty grave over a hill.” Hunter’s eyes drifted and glazed with something down deep. “I never forgot that.” Hunter’s eyes cut back to me. “JW gave my mom the burial she deserved. She may have been a junkie but she was lost in herself, I couldn’t blame her for that. She’d hold me at night after one of her strung-out boyfriends started crashing the house and taking what little money we had. It was fucked up, but she was all I had.’
I knew him; I felt his pain; I was him. “You don’t have to explain,” I said, my gaze flashing between Hunter’s soulful eyes and JW’s calculating ones in the photo. “It almost seems like he was grooming you to take over as boss someday.” The thought ran errant through my mind.
“He was.”
My heart raged in my ears at his admission as I looked up to the man standing over my shoulder.
“He knows now it will never happen,” Hunter said, the frown deepening on his otherwise beautiful face. ‘He’s been different the last few years. He’s on edge. You can see the gears turning behind his eyes. The guys told me he’s making rash decisions. Quick to pull the trigger.” Hunter pushed a hand through his blonde hair with worry. “I have no idea what’s changed.”
“Maybe business is getting the best of him. He’s in his sixties now, right?”
“Retirement?” Hunter huffed.
“Or maybe law enforcement? Aren’t they cutting down on crime in the city? I’ve seen those neighborhood watch flyers everywhere lately.’ I scrunched my nose thinking how the last few months they’d begun to dot the city blocks.
‘The FBI always has a handle on JW. There’s a mutual understanding, JW keeps crime low on the streets and the Feds look the other way as long as he stays inside the bounds.’
I nodded, letting his words digest, sad to find that I wasn’t at all surprised by the corruption that laced the city streets. ‘You think he’s close to going out of bounds?’ I asked as Hunter followed the memories in his mind that the photo brought back.
‘Maybe,’ he mumbled and rubbed a hand at his neck working at a knot.
‘Here.’ I moved behind him and worked my small palms at the bulging muscles of his deltoids. Low grunts fell from his lips and blazed a searing hot path of arousal between my legs.
‘Are you afraid?’ I asked finally, focusing on the bumps and ridges of his muscles.
Hunter shook his head. ‘Fear is failure. Faith and preparedness lead to results.’ Hunter sounded more like the military man than I’d ever heard him.
‘Do you ever take these off?’ I asked, fingering the dog tags that hung loose around his neck and thinking of him laced up in combat boots and defending a nation. It fit him perfectly, ever the protector.
His own fingers twisted and latched with mine so our hands held the chain of his military identification together. ‘I’ve never taken them off.’
‘Why?’
Long silent moments stretched between us.
‘I don’t want to forget where I’ve been,’ came the simple answer.
‘Do you need the reminder? Aren’t the tattoos enough?’ My hand dropped from his and traced down his rippled biceps and forearms, reading the scar tissue that razed his skin.
‘Maybe someday. Not right now,’ he said, looking off in the distance.
‘Why not now?’ I whispered as my fingers danced across his damaged flesh. ‘The war is over. You’re safe.’
‘It doesn’t feel like that most days,’ he said quickly and stilled my hands on his own before hauling me around his waist to sit in his lap. ‘I’ll take them off if they bother you,’ he murmured against my lips.
‘It they’re important to you, don’t take them off until you’re ready.’ I hoped my answer would suffice. I wasn’t sure anything could. This man felt deeply—to the depths of his core—and he put himself through the memory of the horrors of war every day. He was a masochist, emotionally abusing himself with memories. I hoped someday I could ease the clouds obscuring his own reflection.
Hunter hummed against my lips then pulled away, tossing the photo of himself and JW on the desk and grabbing the folder he’d been in search of. ‘You grew up in Clearview, right?’ Hunter asked as I followed him out the door of his office. We entered the kitchen and his fingers immediately went to the keyboard.
‘Yeah.’ I returned to my spot across from him behind my own screen. ‘My mom bought the house when I was two. We were in East Town before that. I don’t really remember living there though.’
‘East Town? That would be early eighties, right?’ Hunters forehead crushed with frown lines as he thought.
‘Yeah. Why?’ I looked up from my screen.
‘Well, wouldn’t it be something if…’ Hunter trailed off before his eyes cast down to his computer screen again as he tapped a few more keys.
“Could you help me find my dad?” My eyes lit with the possibility. “I don’t even know if I’d want to meet him, but just to know if he’s alive or not. He may even be in Chicago—’
“Slow down.” Hunter halted my ramble and I finally noticed his eyes were intent on the screen in front of him.
‘Why?’
‘That’s probably not something you want to get into, Erin. Heed your mom’s warnings. If she says he was—”
“You don’t understand, growing up with one emotionally unstable parent left me constantly reeling. I never knew if I could trust her or not, she was so manipulative, and prone to these horrific breakdowns that she somehow always blamed on me,” I rambled, letting the broken little girl inside me spill all her fears. “I remember Christmas night one year—I was twelve maybe—and after all the gifts were opened, our small dinner made…that was one thing, despite everything my mom always made holiday dinners for just the two of us. She wanted to give me the family feeling, and I’m glad she did, but so many of those night were so lonely.
“Anyway, I’d just crawled in bed after our Christmas festivities, but I snuck down the stairs that night when I heard her break a glass. I went to help her clean up the kitchen, and I found her slumped in the chair sobbing on the table. A glass of whiskey was clutched in her hand and the bottle already half empty. She’d really poured half of it down her throat in the hour it had taken me to bathe and get ready for bed. She was trashed and had broken a glass on the floor.
“I rushed to her and started picking up the glass before I put hands on her. She was trembling, still crying, when she finally looked up, and her eyes were so glazed over I don’t even think she knew it was me. I shook her, asked what I could do to help, and all she could do was shake her head before she finally stood up and threw an entire handful of pills in my face. Pills.’ I swiped a tear that was at my eyelid.
‘They were Vicodin. Eight of them. I counted. She was going to kill herself.’ I shook my head living the memory again for the first time in many years. ‘Her look was so haunted. Cold. Like she blamed me. I hated holidays after that. She takes anything you hold sacred and batters it with blame and criticism until I can’t trust her with anything anymore, especially not my heart.’ Hunter wrapped a palm around my neck as I finished and pulled me to him fiercely. “I just always had this hope that my dad would love me, be more stable, if I could only find him. How could I possibly end up with two shit parents?” I chuckled ruefully.
“You didn’t deserve that.’ Hunter’s head shook back and forth adamantly. ‘But I still don’t think finding your dad is a good idea. Give your mom more credit—she was wrapped up in her shit, but she kept you safe and healthy. You may not know what you’re up against.’ He clasped my hand in his own, stroking my palm with his thumb as his green eyes settled into my memory.
This was how I would remember him. Not in paradise, or behind the lens of a camera, but here, holding my hand with his alive green eyes dancing back at me. These are the moments that would stay with me. It didn’t matter that he was hesitant to help me find my dad, what mattered is that he wanted what was in my best interest first, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how unfamiliar that feeling was to me.
