Page 30 of 2204 Hunter Lane
I’d never seen Payton so… so – pained? Was that even the right word? Her entire demeanour changed at the mention of him, but I didn’t want to pry. I hadn’t pried since I’d met her and she hadn’t as much spoken about him in my presence but now… I wasn’t about to stop her.
“His mama passed a few years ago,” she began, bobbing her leg up and down. “That boy never been the same since, as far as Dex told me. I always met him on the wrong side of the bed; bags under his eyes, reeked of whisky and fumes.
“I don’t know that he’ll ever recover at the rate he’s goin’. I mean, I put up with his shit cause I’d never understand the pain of losing my own mama right beside me. But Hunter’s got a mouth, and sometimes I just wan’ clock him in the jaw.”
I stared at her in disbelief, processing my thoughts while absorbing a tidal wave of emotions all at once. I wanted to ask how she’d passed, but Payton gave me so much information already I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Holy crap. Hunter’s mother died… right beside him. Oh my God, that would traumatize even the strongest of people. That would probably traumatize… God? Fuck, I don’t know? Holy shit. Poor Hunter. Wow. I didn’t think I’d ever feel sorry for that asshole but that is all I felt. Pity. For a man who made it his conquest to hate me. I didn’t have to like him, but I couldn’t hate him, not with a loss like that.
“I didn’t…” I swallowed, scratching my scalp nervously. “I didn’t know.”
She scoffed, standing erect and sliding the work stool underneath the counter.
“How could ya? That boy don’t speak. He just drinks and sleeps and works on his damn boats, cussin’ at anyone who gets in his way.”
Boats.I remember seeing boats the first night I’d slept in their basement. Those cute, tiny little ship figurines that were displayed loud and proud on the bookshelf.Those were his?
“Look Marley, I don’t want nobody – no boy, no Hunter,no one, tryna run you outta this town, makin’ you feel upset about bein’ here, you got that?”
I chewed on my bottom lip, staring into her blue eyes that hurt. And that’s when it hit me. The reason I thought they were related was because of their eyes.
The first time I’d met them both, I compared the blueness, the shape. Only now I was seeing why they looked so similar.
It wasn’t because they were family, it was because they shared the same sadness. The same pain. Their eyes looked haunted in ways I couldn’t describe, only Payton masked hers most of the time while Hunter’s was on full display.
“Come,” she urged. “I’m not gon’ ask you again.”
I nodded a yes, forcing my most genuine of smiles while she retreated back to the storage room, rummaging through bins.
The crowd of empty boxes in front of me was all I could fixate on. Emptiness, hardship, sorrow. Pity for Hunter, his mom, whatever else happened to him that made him so numb and reckless.
His actions, his rudeness, everything I’d come to learn about him was distorted in a way I couldn’t put into words and I’d realized that all this time I spent hating him, I should’ve been trying to understand him.
“When are we leaving?” I called out to Payton who was transferring supplies off the shelves.
“Friday, so two days time, deary.”
Friday.
The first Friday I will attempt to see Hunter in a different light since grounding my roots in this Nebraska soil.
Chapter Fourteen
Hunter
The Friday before thanksgiving, I drove up to Rivertown Bay by my own damn self.
I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Bambi was coming to our FAMILY fucking cottage. Really had high hopes for my dad backing me on this one, but as per usual, he succumbed to his bitch boy behaviour and sided with Payton. Something about “owing Marley for the success of their business.”
Like? Okay? Give her a box of chocolates or some goddamn peach rings, not this.
Once again, Bambi had single handily weeded her way into my family’s good graces but I was having none of that. No one saw through her fake smile and innocent demeanour, but I did. She had a plan brewing and I needed to figure out what it was.
After a three hour drive, I pulled up to the two-story wooden cabin that sat near the lake, taking in the fresh smell of fucking nothing cause Bambi was marching up the driveway right behind my truck.
My dad and Payton were still unloading the van when the scent of lavender and honey strangled me as I turned around to meet her for the first time in weeks.
Those big brown eyes peered up at me, only they wore a different expression this time. They were downturned, softer, like a real life deer in the headlights.A Bambi.
