Being friends with Hunter certainly had its perks, but I knew I needed to be careful that we stayed just friends. He’d teased me about being jealous of other girls and I’d emphatically told him I wasn’t jealous. But when I thought about it further, I realized I might’ve been lying.
Chapter Eight
THE FLYMAN
I’d gotten in trouble. I was eight years old and it was Christmas morning. Dad had just started at Anderson & Partners PLC, though I didn’t know its name at the time. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but I was a kid and I didn’t care. All I knew was that I was loved. Mom and Dad got along great those days. We were happy. We were a family.
I opened Mom’s present first. It was a baby blue dress with sequins on it and it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. She had to help me put it on and afterwards I gave her a big hug and danced around the living room pretending that I was Cinderella. Then I opened Dad’s gift.
If I thought Mom’s present was amazing, Dad’s was better. It was a giant box of art supplies. Maybe it was too much, but I didn’t think it at the time. There were over a hundred crayons, a set of colored pencils, a packet of pastels, acrylic paints in small containers, and even watercolors. I was so excited that I forgot to even thank Dad for the present.
“Lorrie, you have to be careful not to get any of those paints on your dress or the carpet okay?” Mom said.
I nodded, only half listening to her. Dad handed me a sheet of paper and I set to work right away with the crayons. I drew us as a family. Mom, Dad, and me in my little blue dress.
The next morning, I thought it would be a good idea to redecorate the walls. I mean, they were so bland and white, I figured that my art would only improve them.
Mom was furious and Dad supervised me as I scrubbed the pastels and paint off the wall. For some reason though, they never took that art set away from me. But I was a good daughter, I learned my lesson and never painted on the walls again.
It’d been a few days since the hockey game, and Hunter and I had maintained regular contact via frequent text messages. It was basically a continuation of the back and forth teasing and joking we did in person. I was glad for the banter, but it was sometimes distracting while trying to concentrate during class.
It was the third Thursday since the semester started, and I sat at a table in the back corner of the Wheatley Library cafe aptly called Husk Cafe. There were a handful of people sitting around, reading the campus paper, or fooling around on their laptops. It was still too early for people to be studying for midterms and if they really wanted to study, they’d be up in the stacks anyway. The cafe was for socializing and having coffee.
The girl I was sketching kept playing with her hair and I had to redo my sketch a few times. My pad was smudged with charcoal and eraser shavings. After she changed her position for the hundredth time, I decided to move on to a more cooperative subject.
Just as I was looking around the cafe, I spotted a familiar face waiting in line. Gary turned and waved at me. I gave him a small wave back. He looked younger in the afternoon light of the cafe but still looked just as ripped in a maroon v-neck sweater and jeans. After getting his drink, he headed over to my spot. I put my sketchpad and materials back into my bag.
“Hey Lorrie, good to see you!”
“Hi Gary.”
“Whatcha up to?”
I shrugged and pointed to the coffee in front of me. “Not much, just hanging out.”
“Mind if I join you? I gotta run to a class in a few minutes, but I still got some time.”
“Sure, of course.”
“How’s life?”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Studying, drawing—the usual. Not too much else going on.”
“Hey I never asked you the other night, what year are you?”
“Sophomore.”
“Ah, right before the shit really starts to hit the fan. Let me tell you. Sophomore year is all rainbows and unicorns, but once junior year hits, all of a sudden you need to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. And don’t even get me started on senior year.”
I laughed, “Wow, you’re really making me look forward to the year.”
“Hey, no problem, that’s what I’m good for, that extra boost of motivation.” He took a sip of his drink before continuing, “I heard you and Hunter went to the hockey game a few nights ago.”
I narrowed my eyes. What had Hunter told him?
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible, “he told you?”
“Yeah, I had to bail on him last minute because something came up at my frat house. Glad you were able to make it though. Hunter really loves those hockey games. If he hadn’t found somebody else to go with him he would’ve really been pissed at me.” Gary laughed. I could tell why Hunter was friends with him.
“What happened at your frat? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I’m the social chair of the house which sounds pretty cool, but really it means I have to take care of whatever bullshit that comes up.”
“Isn’t that the president’s job?”
“Yeah, but our president was outta town, and a lot of the other guys on the board were already out partying. I swear, sometimes I think I’m the only responsible person there. Anyway, a toilet was clogged up and the idiot sophomores didn’t know how to fix a toilet or call a plumber, that was the emergency that ruined my night.” He looked at me. “I mean, no offense to sophomores. You’re much smarter than those clowns anyway.”
I smiled. “None taken.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Phi Kappa Delta and the brothers are all good guys, even the younger ones, but some of them just need more life experience.”
I chuckled shaking my head in disbelief. “Nobody there had any idea how to fix a toilet?”
Gary shrugged, “Who knows, hopefully the older brothers can set a good example for them. Anyway, enough about my shitty night. How was your date with Hunter?”
I froze, did Hunter tell him that it was a date? “It wasn’t a date,” I said icily.
He held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it that way, sorry. I just meant to ask if you had fun at the game.”
Unclenching my fists, I relaxed a bit. I guess I was getting a little too sensitive about that topic.
“It was fun, I guess. It was my first hockey game so there was a lot to take in. I think I’ll have to watch a few more to really get the rules.” I didn’t want to keep talking about my time with Hunter, so I changed the subject. “How do you know Hunter?”
“We met freshman year, but we only became friends during our sophomore year. Hunter started coming around the gym more often and we’d train and spar together. I don’t know anybody that works as hard as he does in the gym.”
“Do you guys ever have to fight each other?”
“Naw, the league wouldn’t make us do that, and we wouldn’t take those fights anyway. Not to brag, but I’m a pretty good fighter myself. If they put the two of us into a ring together, one of us is bound to get hurt. Besides, if there’s one person I don’t want to ever face in the ring it’d be Hunter.”
Gary nodded and started getting up. “Hey, I gotta head to my class soon. I guess it was a good thing I had a crappy night then, if that meant you had a good one. Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to call it a date. I know you and Hunter are just friends.”
“It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little sensitive about that. It must’ve looked like a date to a lot of people huh?”
Gary looked pensive for a second and then filled his cheeks with air. After he exhaled, he said, “Look Lorrie, you’re a cool girl and I like you. I know it’s none of my business to tell you what to do, but I wanted you to know that you should be careful around Hunter. If you guys are just friends, then it’s all good, but don’t let his charm get to you.”
“What are you talking about? Why are you saying that?”
“It’s no secret that Hunter’
s a hit with the ladies, and I just don’t want you to get hurt that’s all.”
“Are you saying I’m not good enough for him?”
“No, Lorrie, not at all. I just know that by the way he treats you, he would never want to hurt you.”
“If he would never hurt me why are you telling me this?”
“Hunter . . . Hunter doesn’t always do things that make sense. There was another girl and . . . well . . . Look it’s really not my place to tell you the details. Whatever you do with him, just know that he’s got a lot of baggage okay? He’s all swagger and tattoos on the outside, but the real Hunter is more . . . complicated.”
“Whose team are you on anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be helping him get laid?”
That got a laugh out of him. “I guess you can call me the referee. Trust me, I know Hunter and I know that you’re not just some other girl to him. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
I nodded cautiously. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks Gary.”
“Yeah, no problem. Take care Lorrie, I’m late for class. I’ll see you around.”
After Gary left, I just sat there looking outside for a while. What had that been about? Whatever it was, he didn’t tell me that offhand. With the things he did for his frat house, it was unlikely that Gary was the irresponsible gossiping type. If he told me to be careful about Hunter, he must’ve really thought it through. What had he meant that Hunter was complicated?
I mean, it didn’t really surprise me. Hunter was cocky and flirty, which was to be expected given the attention he got, but some of the things that Hunter said made it clear he wasn’t just some dumb musclehead cage fighter. Hunter had told me his parents were druggies . . . was that why he was complicated? And who was the girl Hunter had a history with? Thinking about it made my heart ache with jealousy, but I quickly talked myself back to my senses. Hunter and I were friends. I had to stop getting jealous every time I heard him linked with a girl.
I supposed that Hunter didn’t have a lot of female friends without benefits, but that didn’t suddenly mean that he was in love with me. Even if he was, so what? I could admit that I was attracted to Hunter without acting on it. Like Gary said, Hunter already had some baggage, add my baggage on top of that and it’d be a recipe for pissing off airport security.
Gary may have been trying to be helpful but he just raised more questions than he answered. I took my sketchpad out again to distract myself and spent the better part of an hour sketching the campus view just outside the cafe windows. A light layer of snow covered the bare trees that stood in a row by the walkway.
When the sun was starting to set, I decided to head back to my room. It would get too dark to sketch anything outside soon and I had to do some reading anyway. The campus was shades of orange and purple as the sun hung over the west side of campus.
I was halfway back to the dorms when I passed by the campus health center. I almost didn’t notice him at first, but then when I looked again I recognized Hunter, wearing a leather jacket and black jeans. He was walking out of the doors of the health center, he stopped to hold the door for another student leaving behind him.
“Hey,” I said, waving to him.
Hunter’s eyes brightened when he saw me.“Lorrie!” He flashed me a smile and raised an eyebrow “You stalking me?”
“You wish. Just heading home. Everything okay? Why were you in the health center?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Had some injuries from a fight last night, they patched me right up.”
He didn’t look injured, but maybe the injuries were under his clothes or they were internal or something. His eyes did look a bit sunken and his gorgeous face didn’t have its usual brightness.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
Hunter waved away my concerns. “Come on, don’t fuss over me or I’ll stop telling you about my fights. It’s no big deal. What are you doing right now?”
“Uh . . . heading home?”
“Want to watch a movie with me?”
“What?”
“C’mon, we’ll go to the movie theater by the mall.”
I looked down, my face getting heated. I was getting too excited about watching a movie with Hunter.
“I don’t know . . . I wanted to catch up on my Psych 102 readings.”
“Professor Muller? I aced that class.”
I laughed, a puff of steam rose in the air between us. “Wow, how humble of you. Some of us have to study you know.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll help you with it.” He tilted his head toward the direction of the theater. “It’ll be fun.”
“Wait, how do you manage to do so well in your classes if you’re busy training all the time?”
“Well, I took Muller’s class freshman year and I didn’t start fighting until sophomore year so I devoted a lot more time to studying back then. My grades still aren’t that bad now. I don’t spend as much time studying but I’m passing all my classes at least. So what do ya say?”
I sighed, but seeing a movie did sound like fun. Even though I had planned on going back to my room and cracking open the psych textbook, I knew that I’d probably end up vegging out in front of the TV anyway.
“Okay, but if I fail the class I’m blaming it on you.”
Hunter pumped his fist in victory. “You got it. It’s all my fault. Alright, now let’s go!”
We walked to the bus stop but didn’t have to wait long before we caught one. The mall was only a ten minute bus ride away and we were let off right in front. We made our way through the mall, chatting about what movie we wanted to watch, until we were in front of the movie theater.
There was no one in the box office and the lights were all off. “What the . . .” Hunter said, putting his hands on his head like he had just received some terrible news.
When we got closer to box office window, we saw the notice taped onto it.
Closed for Renovation. Reopening Next Week.
Hunter walked to the doors, peering into the dark theater. “This is crazy! When did this happen? They don’t need to be renovated!”
I tried to hide my laughter as Hunter dropped to his knees, pulling at his hair in mock despair. It was becoming more clear to me why Hunter had referred to himself as a ‘weirdo’.
“Hunter, you’re going to draw attention, and then mall security will kick us out. We’ll just come back next week.” A few shoppers were already looking over at us.
He quickly got up, and brushed the dirt off his knees, shrugging as if it had never happened. “They can kick us out, this mall sucks anyway. Without a movie theater this place is lame.”
“Sorry, I know you really wanted to see a movie. Guess it’s back to studying tonight.”
Hunter nodded grumpily, until his eyes suddenly widened. I leveled my gaze at him, it looked like he had an idea, hopefully it wasn’t crazy. “I know, let’s drop by the video rental place in town. We’ll rent something and watch it on my TV. We can even make popcorn.”
He tugged my sleeve like he was a kid asking if he could have ice cream. I tried to imagine Hunter as a goofy adolescent boy but had trouble ignoring the fact that he was a towering badass alpha male.
“You’re really determined to prevent me from doing any work tonight aren’t you?” I asked him.
“Don’t try to deny it Lorrie, it’s a great idea. Even better than watching something in the theaters. Let’s get some scary movies. You’re not scared are you?” He wiggled his fingers in front of my face like he was a conjurer or magician. God, who knew that Tattoos and Muscles would be such a goofball.
“Psh, I eat horror movies for breakfast. Nothing’s gonna freak me out.” Hunter didn’t know that I had a phase in high school after my parents had divorced when I watched a ton of scary movies and wore only black. It wasn’t a phase I was really proud of, but I did have the advantage of no longer being easily scared by ghosts and gore.
“Wanna bet?” He looked at me in challenge.
“You’re on.” I play
fully poked his stomach with my finger. It was like poking a brick wall. He grabbed my hand in his and shook it like we were solidifying a business deal. His hand felt warm and soft against my palm making my heart skip a beat.
“Come on, let’s go, no time to waste. I don’t want everyone to rent out all the good movies,” he said as we walked over to the bus stop by the front of the mall.
“Um. Are you serious? There’s only one video rental place in town and no one ever goes there anymore.”
“Who knows, maybe everyone else who came to the theater got the same idea and all the really scary movies are already checked out.”
I was skeptical of that unlikely scenario ever happening but followed him quickly to the bus stop.
We took the bus to “Mad Mike’s Movies” and Hunter picked out a stack of DVDs of old classic horror films. A lot of them looked really cheesy, but Hunter kept trying to psych me out and tease me about how scary they were going to be. I just rolled my eyes and went along with it. It felt good to just tease and have fun with someone. Although Daniela and I had that kind of relationship, I hadn’t had that with a guy in a long time.
By the time we got to Hunter’s place it was already a bit past eight. I paid for the popcorn we picked up from the supermarket, since Hunter had paid for the movies. His place looked the same as when I was last here. Once we had made the popcorn and settled in on the couch, Hunter presented the movies to me.
“Alright, what’ll it be first? ‘The Girl with No Eyes’, ‘Flyman’, or ‘The Vampire Bride’?” he said, holding out the DVDs in front of me so I could see the covers.
“How about ‘Flyman’? That sounds pretty interesting.”
Hunter nodded. “Good choice, I would’ve picked that too.”
He got up, turned off the lights and put the disc into the DVD player before joining me on the couch again. The popcorn bowl nestled between us, providing just enough distance so as not to be inappropriate. Hunter patted me on the arm during the opening credits.
“Don’t worry Lorrie, if you’re scared, I’ll protect you with my muscles.”