Chapter Eleven – Gunner

Walking in from my run, I glanced between Jeff and Josh. They both looked pathetic. “What’s wrong with you two?”

After Josh and Jeff exchanged looks with each other, Jeff looked at me.

“Sunshine is what’s wrong.”

“Tell me you’re talking about the sun’s rays and how you’re not getting enough.”

“I wish,” Josh replied.

I shook my head. “What happened?”

Sitting down on a chair opposite the couch, I waited to hear what these two idiots got themselves into.

Jeff spoke first. “It’s an evening and morning I’d rather forget.”

My gaze moved to Josh, who said, “Same here. Let’s just say we should have listened to you. I’m ready to get out of town for a few days.”

“That bad, huh? The ranch?” I asked.

Jeff and Josh both nodded.

“I’m sure Grams and Gramps wouldn’t mind that. How soon can you pack up and meet us back here?” I asked.

Josh looked down at the duffel bag he had sitting there. “I’m ready to go whenever y’all are.”

I stood up and rubbed the back of my neck. “Just tell me one thing. Y’all didn’t do her at the same time, did you?”

“No,” they both replied at once. From the looks on their faces, I knew there was more to the story, but I let it go for now.

Jeff cleared his throat. “By the way, can you cover us on cash until we get new credit cards and debit cards in?”

My stomach dropped. “Jesus H. Christ. You idiots.”

They both looked away from me.

“I’m going to take a shower, and then we can head on out, and yes, I’ll cover your asses.”

After I took a quick shower and packed an overnight bag, we headed to my truck and then to Mason. The drive was silent, but not because Josh and Jeff were sleeping. Each of us seemed to be lost in our own thoughts.

Jeff cleared his throat before speaking. “You guys ever wish there was that one girl? The one to come home to, go to dinner with, talk to about how good or bad your day was?”

I peered up in the rearview mirror at Jeff. He had his eyes closed as he talked.

“I’m so damn sick of this. I just want to meet someone who wants those things too,” Jeff added.

I looked over at Josh. He was staring out the window.

“Yeah, I wish for that too, Jeff,” Josh added in a voice barely above a whisper.

“So do I,” I replied.

Exhaling a deep breath, Jeff asked, “Where is she?”

I said the only thing that came to my mind. “In my dreams.”

Josh let out a gruff laugh. “Every time I crawl out of someone’s bed, I keep telling myself this is it. I’m done with this shit. But I keep doing it, and a part of me thinks this will be my life. I’m not sure I’ll ever meet a woman who makes me feel like I truly want something different.”

“Do you think that maybe you sleep around so much, Josh, because you’re afraid of what will happen when you do find her?” I asked.

He slowly shook his head. “I don’t even know anymore, Gunner. I honestly don’t even know.”

“Gunner?”

I couldn’t see through the darkness, but I felt her. Her presence was strong and made my heart beat ten times faster than normal.

“Hello? I can’t see you!”

“Drew?”

“Where are you?” I cried out.

“Gunner. Please come find me.”

Frantically I searched the dark, empty room only to find nothing. She was here, though . . . I could feel her.

“I’m lost.”

Her voice was soft and sounded like a song on a breeze.

A light pierced the room, and there she was. Her blue eyes met mine, and my knees nearly buckled out from under me.

“Gunner . . . it’s me.”

“Who? I don’t know who you are!” I shouted.

Her eyes drifted away.

“No . . . no, wait! Don’t leave.”

“Come find me. I need you to find me.”

I sat straight up in my bed. My hand clutched over my pounding heart as I tried to catch my breath.

“What in the hell?” I gasped while throwing the sheet off my sweat-soaked body. Leaning over, I rested my head in my hands as I tried to calm my heart rate down.

I heard the sound of the porch screen open and glanced over to the window I had opened before I went to bed.

Who in the hell would be heading outside this late at night?

Grabbing a T-shirt, I pulled it over my head and headed out of my room and downstairs. When I walked outside, I saw Jeff sitting on the porch. “What are you doing out here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he replied as he looked up at me. “You?”

“Dream woke me up.”

“Same one?”

I sat down next to him and rolled my neck around to loosen the tension. “Yep. Same one.”

“What’s it about?”

“A girl calling out for me to help her. The thing that’s confusing me is she keeps calling me Drew. No one but my family calls me Drew.”

“Huh. Someone from your past maybe?”

I shook my head. “Nah, there’s only one other person besides family who knows my real name, but she only ever called me Gunner. Her name was Jessie. We were really good friends before we got the bright idea to sleep together to be each other’s firsts.”

“Oh hell. Did that change the friendship?”

“We dated for a bit afterward, then figured out we were better friends than lovers. Didn’t take long to figure that out.”

“So do you think this is the girl you’re wishing you could find?” Jeff asked.

With a tight chuckle, I shook my head. “Hell if I know. I feel like Josh—lost, just not sleeping around to bury the feeling.”

“Yeah,” he whispered softly.

“So what’s really going on, Jeff? Is there someone you like?”

After staring down at the ground for a bit, he nodded. “Yeah, there is.”

“Why aren’t you going after her then?”

He let out a huff. “Christ, there are so many reasons I wouldn’t know where to start. She’s younger than me; I’ve made her life miserable for the last I don’t know how many years. If we dated and it didn’t work out, I’m afraid she’d hate me forever. Hell, I could keep going on.”

“Does she go to UT?”

“No.”

“Does she know you like her?”

“No, and I can’t tell her so don’t tell me to.”

I laughed. “So you like this girl, but you can’t tell her you like her because you’re afraid she won’t feel the same way.”

“Pretty much.”

“So find someone else.”

He turned to face me and stared at me. “How, when every time I picture a future, she’s in it?”

“Well, at least you know who she is. Mine’s a ghost, with hauntingly beautiful blue eyes.”

“Dude, you ever think it’s your eyes in the dream?”

“Are you saying I have hauntingly beautiful blue eyes, Jeff?”

He smiled. “They are pretty amazing.”

“What in the fuck am I about to walk out on?” Josh asked from the other side of the screen.

Jeff and I both started laughing.

“My blue-eyed ghost I keep dreaming about who insists I’m the only person capable of saving her, yet I have no clue who she is.”

Josh closed the screen door quietly.

“Maybe you should have someone interrupt the dream.”

“What? Interrupt the dream?”

“Yeah, people do that for a living. Like fortune-tellers and shit.”

I frowned. “It’s probably just something in my subconscious.”

Jeff and Josh both stared at me before Jeff said, “Like your mom maybe?”

There was no way in hell the girl in my dreams was my mother. “Yeah, it’s not my mother. Not with the way this girl makes my heart race.”

It was time for a subject change.

“So you ever going to tell me what happened with Sunshine?”

Jeff pointed to me. “That is not to ever be brought up again.”

Josh laughed. “Jeff’s mad because he woke up spooning me.”

My eyes widened.

“Go to hell, Josh,” Jeff said.

Holding up my hands, I said, “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear the story after all.”

“No, you really don’t,” said Jeff.

“What are you two doing out here anyway?” Josh asked, then yawned.

“Can’t sleep. You?”

Josh shrugged. “Same. I may just go change and go for a run.”

I stood and gave Josh a slap on the back. “You have fun with that. I’m going to go try and get some sleep.”

If only I had known the same dream would wake me back up only hours later.