Emotion coiled around his chest again, clouding his mind with memories he didn’t want right now, memories that had him turning to face Michael, to respect authority, before realizing that nothing was stopping him from just getting in the jeep and leaving.
But he’d already turned, and he met Michael’s eyes. He didn’t move back toward the porch, however.
Michael’s voice was hard. “Quit running from confrontation and sit down.”
“I’m not running from you.”
“No, you wouldn’t run if I tried to take a swing at you. But every time I try to have a conversation, you bolt. Sit down.”
Was that true? Hunter considered.
It was.
He didn’t like that.
He sat down on the stoop, leaning against the post opposite Michael. “Fine. Talk.”
“If you’re going to stay here, you can’t just disappear after school. You understand me?”
Hunter kept his voice even. “I said I was sorry about the job.”
“I don’t give a shit about the job! I care about the fact that you’re a sixteen-year-old kid who might have a target on his back.”
Hunter stared back at him until Michael looked like he wanted to reconsider taking a swing.
Then Michael sighed, a long breath that he blew out through his teeth. “Jesus, kid, I wish I could get inside your head and figure you out.”
Hunter wished the same thing because maybe then Michael could explain it to him.
Michael was still studying him. “What happened the other night? After we went to get your stuff—I thought you’d loosen up a bit. But it’s like the opposite happened.”
The other night. Michael’s promise to repay his grandfather.
The carnival. So much Kate that he almost blushed now, remembering.
The fire. Calla. The gunshot.
For an instant he wanted to tell Michael everything, just so he wouldn’t have to carry it all on his own. He just wanted to crumple on these wooden boards and let all this anxiety and worry and anger and rage pour down the steps.
But the memory of his father was still too fresh, and he could only imagine how his dad would react to him breaking down. Especially with someone he was supposed to hate.
Buck up, Hunter. It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to solve your problems.
Besides, how would that go? “Well, Michael, I’m glad you’re leaving town, because I’m about ready to screw you all over. Mind if I cry on your shoulder for a sec?”
Yeah. Sure.
He’d already lost it once, and he wouldn’t do it again.
“Nothing happened,” he said.
“Well, then, there’s a whole lot of that nothing rattling around inside your skull.”
“Was there a point to this conversation?”
Michael’s eyes flashed, and Hunter braced for more lecturing, but the oldest Merrick simply picked up his coffee. “Can you help with a job on Sunday?”
Hunter blinked, suddenly off balance. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved the grilling was over—or disappointed.
Like it mattered. “Sure.”
“Don’t forget this time, all right? Nick and Chris said they’d help, too, but it’s a big job, and I don’t want to lose the income.”
He didn’t want to lose the income. Probably stocking up for the big move. But what could he say? Hunter forced words past his lips. “I won’t forget.”
Chris’s and Gabriel’s doors were closed when Hunter climbed the stairs, only darkness visible under the doors, but light flooded the hallway from Nick’s room. Hunter half knocked before entering.
Nick was reading a paperback, something with an old-fashioned painting on the cover. Had to be a school assignment. He looked up when Hunter came in. “Hey.”
Hunter dropped his backpack next to the air mattress, beside the two plastic crates. “Hey.” He paused, trying to get a read on the feeling in the room. The air told him nothing, but Nick’s voice had carried the slightest edge. “Reading for school?”
“Yeah.” He held up the book.
“Heart of Darkness?” Hunter bent to unlace his shoes. “I think I’d use Wikipedia for that one.”
“Sounds about right.” Nick turned back to his book.
Hunter almost wished he’d left his shoes on. “What’s with the attitude?”
“I had to help Mike dig an irrigation trench because you didn’t show up.”
“Sounds like your problem.” Hunter felt his voice gain an edge.
Now Nick looked up. “You’re going to pick a fight because you screwed up?”
Hunter hesitated. “I’m sorry. I got caught up in something. I didn’t know you’d get stuck with it.”
“I have three papers due Monday. I really could have used the time.”
“I said I’m sorry, all right?”
“All right.”
But Hunter didn’t feel like he’d been forgiven.
At least Nick shut up after that, and Hunter left him to his super exciting novel in favor of getting ready for bed in the bathroom.
Gabriel was waiting for him when he came out. He blocked the doorway.
Hunter sighed. He probably should have driven to the Target parking lot. “Can’t you all just confront me at the same time?”
“Meaning?”
“Nothing. What? I’m tired.” And he was. As he said the words, exhaustion climbed on his back, grabbed the coils of tension holding him together, and gripped tight.
“I want to know what’s going on with you.”
Hunter snorted and pushed past him. “Join the club.”
Gabriel grabbed him and shoved him into the wall. His voice was low. “I heard someone from the high school went after that Noah Dean kid when school let out.”
Hunter shoved back, breaking his hold. “So what?”
Gabriel wouldn’t let him pass. “What are you doing, Hunter?”
Hunter glared back at him, wondering if he should tell them what Noah had said. About Calla being alive.
Then Nick appeared in his bedroom doorway. “Hey. Leave him alone.”
Hunter didn’t even know which one of them he was talking to.
Gabriel got closer. “What are you doing?” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “It was you, wasn’t it? You went after Noah. After agreeing that we should stay away from them.”
“Back off.”
“Are you fucking with us again?” Gabriel shoved him harder.
The corridor was narrow, with drywall on one side and a bannister on the other, and Hunter got leverage to shove him back. “I said, back off.”
But Gabriel would never back off, and really, Hunter didn’t want to be left alone. This was someone who’d fight. When Gabriel swung at him, Hunter blocked, throwing real force into it, unleashing the anger he’d been holding on to all day. That coil of tension slipped free, and Hunter threw power into his strikes until the air was ice cold and biting the inside of his chest.
But the narrow hallway worked to Gabriel’s advantage, too, and he knocked Hunter’s feet out from under him. Gabriel might have been stronger, but Hunter was faster and knew how to work an enemy’s weight to his advantage. Hunter got leverage to roll him, throwing extra force into it.
He just hadn’t considered how close to the stairs they were.
Or that Gabriel’s momentum in the roll would throw Hunter ahead of him.
They both went down. Every step hurt like a bitch. The slate flooring of the foyer hurt worse, first on his shoulder, then on his head.
Especially since Gabriel landed on top of him.
Then the weight was dragged away. A relief, since Hunter needed to figure out which way was up. By the time he had it straight, Michael was glaring down at him.
Then Gabriel kicked him in the stomach. Pain exploded through the base of his rib cage, and Hunter curled in on himself, forgetting how to breathe.
God, he hadn’t been hit in the stomach in . . . forever. He couldn’t decide if that h
urt more than his head.
Both. Both hurt.
Voices were yelling overhead, but he couldn’t make sense of them through the overwhelming need to breathe. It felt like he’d been choking for half an hour. There was a good chance he was drooling on the floor.
And Gabriel was leaning over him, and his voice was fierce. “Guess you picked enemy over friend, huh, jackass?”
Hunter saw Gabriel’s leg move, and just when he thought he might have to draw his weapon to avoid getting kicked again, Michael’s girlfriend appeared in front of Gabriel and put a hand on his chest. “Go on,” she was saying. “Take a walk. Cool off.”
Hannah got Hunter into the kitchen before he was fully aware that he was off the ground and walking down the hallway. None of the Merricks followed him, so he was alone with her, following directions like sit there and don’t move.
The chair came up faster than he was ready for, and he wondered how hard he’d whacked his head. He touched a hand to his temple and was surprised when it came away wet.
Blood.
Hannah was in front of him again, a folded paper towel in her hands. “Press this against your forehead. I need to get my bag from the car.”
“I’m bleeding,” he said, like an idiot.
“I know.” Her eyes weren’t too concerned, though. “Can you hold that and remain upright?”
Either he answered and didn’t remember, or she left without bothering to wait for one. Whatever, she was gone, and he was sitting there, dazed and trying to make both eyes focus.
Then she was back, pulling a chair close to him and pressing gauze to his forehead instead of the paper towel. She had purple latex gloves on now, the kind doctors wore. “Hold that again,” she said, grabbing his wrist to put it in place.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. For a second, his addled brain wondered if she’d been on the porch with Michael during their argument, but he couldn’t make that line up.
She was digging in her bag. “I just got off work. Mike sent me a text ten minutes ago saying everyone was going to bed and we could have a quiet cup of coffee.” She laughed a little, but not like it was funny.
“Sorry,” he said.
She had a tiny flashlight in her hands, and she shined a light in his eyes. “It’s not every day I walk in the front door of a house to see two guys fall down the stairs on top of each other.”
Put that way, it sounded insanely childish. He looked away.
She tapped his chin. “No, look at me. What were you fighting about?”
“It’s not important.”
The light flicked to his other eye. “It rarely is.” She paused. “No concussion. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck. I saw him kick you. How are your ribs?”
They felt like they’d be cussing him out tomorrow. He pushed her hand away. The haze was already starting to wear off, letting the ache settle in. “I’m fine.”
“I want to put some butterflies on that cut on your forehead.”
Now that his thoughts were clear, he didn’t want this. Gabriel was probably out in the hallway snickering, planning his next attack. Hunter pulled the gauze away from his head. “I’m fine.”
She grabbed his hand and put the gauze back. “Shut up and take some mothering for five minutes.”
It shut him up, but not because she said so.
Because a memory hit him right between the eyes.
Not his father this time, but his mother. He couldn’t remember how old he was, probably ten or eleven because everything in the memory looked bigger. He’d come home from school with his first split lip and a cut over his eye, and he’d been more scared of how his father would react than of all the bullies in the county.
His mother had dressed his wounds and given him a Popsicle and promised that she’d make sure his father wouldn’t be hard on him.
He couldn’t remember how that had turned out.
But he could remember trusting her.
Hannah was removing the backing from a butterfly bandage. “Doing all right?”
Her fingers were gentle when she pressed the adhesive strip against his forehead, and it was harder than it should’ve been to shake off the memory. “Yeah. Long day.”
“Tell me about it.” She pulled another bandage out of the box.
He’d assumed she was older than Michael, what with the kid and the job and the don’t-take-any-crap attitude, but now, sitting this close to her in the dim kitchen lighting, he realized she wasn’t very old at all.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty-two.”
“But you have a son,” he said, before realizing that made him sound like a moron.
She must have thought the same thing because she gave him a look and said, “Oh, so they’re not teaching sex ed anymore?”
He felt heat color his cheeks. “No. Sorry—I shouldn’t—”
“It’s fine. People ask all the time. I got pregnant my junior year of high school.” She shrugged. “It happens a lot. I’m lucky.”
“Lucky?”
She put a third bandage across his forehead. “Yeah. My parents are great. I can work and go to school part-time, and they help with James.”
“You go to school? But you have a job.”
“I’d like to be a full paramedic. I’m just an EMT now.” Her hands went still on his forehead, and she met his eyes. “You and Gabriel weren’t fighting over a girl, were you?”
Michael came through the doorway. “Jesus, I wish it were that easy.”
Hunter glared at him around Hannah’s hands. “I told you I’d end up punching him in the face.”
“Yeah, thanks. You left out the part about destroying the foyer in the process.” Michael stroked a hand down the back of Hannah’s head, then squeezed her shoulder. His expression gentled when he looked down at her. “You still want some coffee?”
She turned her head to smile up at him. Her voice softened. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
Hunter watched this exchange and instantly felt like a third wheel.
But he also felt envious, similar to the way he’d felt watching Noah Dean with his mother.
He’d seen his parents like this before, this gentle consideration for each other. Hunter had always believed it, until his father had destroyed everything, dropping a bomb about using women, and every personal relationship being a means to an end.
It meant that there’d never been anything honest about his father’s relationship with his mother.
But worse, Hunter didn’t know what it meant about his father’s relationship with him.
Even now, watching this casual touch between Michael and Hannah, he wanted to examine it and see what each was after.
And of course the minute he tried to decipher it, he erased the magic. Just like Kate jumping into his lap in the Ferris wheel car, it was all a carefully maneuvered ploy. Michael’s hand on Hannah’s hair was a mechanical touch to coerce her to stay, just like her soft voice had been a way to get a cup of—
“Hey,” said Michael. “Are you listening to me?”
Hunter pressed his hands to his eyes. God, he was going to make himself crazy. “No. Sorry.”
“I said I told Gabriel to knock this crap off. He said you were hassling Nick . . .”
That didn’t match what Gabriel had said in the hallway, but Hunter didn’t have the mental energy to figure it out now. “I wasn’t hassling Nick.”
Michael put up a hand. “Nick said the same thing, and then they started arguing, and I just wanted to blow my brains out because I didn’t realize I was living in a juvenile detention center.”
“Nice,” said Hannah.
Michael looked down at him. “Do you think you can make it through the night without breaking any bones?”
“Yeah,” said Hunter.
Michael glanced at her. “Is he fine?”
She looked at him. “Are you fine?”
He shoved out of the chair. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Gabriel was
nowhere to be found. Nick was in bed again, reading the same book. Hunter felt like he’d already done this hours ago, though it had only been about twenty minutes.
He probably should have taken a Motrin before coming up here.
“Welcome back,” said Nick.
The funny thing was, his voice had lost its earlier edge. Hunter glanced at him. “Thanks.”
“When Chris was ten, we pushed him down the stairs. This was twice as entertaining.”
Hunter couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not, and it was hurting his head to try to figure it out. “Glad to amuse you.”
“It sure as hell made up for having to work tonight.”
Hunter still wasn’t sure how to take that. He climbed under the quilt on the air mattress and wished sleep would just take him away for a short while. After a bit, Nick clicked off the light, and Hunter’s thoughts started to fade.
Unfortunately, they kept solidifying on Kate, on the feel of her breath against his skin. He kept comparing that to the image of Michael’s hand on Hannah’s hair in the kitchen.
“You still like that Kate girl?” said Nick out of the blue.
Hunter almost choked on his own breath. “She’s all right.”
“She texted me to see if anything was going on this weekend, so I invited her over. Becca will be here, and Layne and her little brother—”
Hunter looked over at him in the darkness. “You—invited Kate over?”
“Yeah.” Nick’s voice was a little challenging. “That okay?”
Hunter told his heart to quit knocking around his rib cage.
Nick had asked her over.
She was probably coming for some sort of reconnaissance or something.
But Nick had asked her. And she’d accepted.
When had this happened? Why hadn’t she mentioned it?
Kate hadn’t texted Hunter all evening. He checked his phone just to be sure.
No messages from her.
He didn’t care.
He didn’t.
He didn’t.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding?
A pillow hit him in the head, and Hunter jumped a frigging mile.
He was so keyed up it was probably a miracle he didn’t draw his gun.
“Easy there, Zen Master Ninja,” said Nick, a wry note in his voice. “I invited her over for you.”
Hunter didn’t move for a moment. He studied Nick’s silhouette in the near dark. “For me?”