CHAPTER 17
Hunter
The closed my apartment door and turned and stared at the kid on my couch. I wasn’t exactly sure how to have a conversation with a little human. I wasn’t lying to Kylie when I said that I liked kids, but only from a distance. They were cute and shit, but I didn’t know what to do with one if I was alone with them. My apartment wasn’t exactly fitted out to entertain a three-year-old.
Carter had dark shaggy hair and dark eyes, but there was so much about him that was like Kylie. He had his mother’s sweet-natured looks and a warm smile that had instantly attracted me to her.
I walked around to him now, while he dangled his tiny legs off the edge of the couch.
“Want some more?” I said and noticed that he still had a sizable portion of pasta remaining in his bowl. Carter looked up at me, smiled and then shook his head.
“I like drawing,” he said out of the blue, which startled me.
“Okay, sure…yeah, I could arrange that,” I said and looked about me manically. Kylie had left me no instructions. What was I supposed to do if he wanted to use the toilet? How was I going to pacify him if he suddenly burst into tears? Kids did that a lot, didn’t they? Burst into tears randomly?
I went over to my bedroom and rummaged in the drawers and found a crumbled-up sheet of paper. With no crayons or markers around, I brought him a blue pen and the paper and Carter hungrily took it from me.
Then he started drawing circles on it, and arrows and some more lines and I could sense that there were going to be pen marks on the couch once he was done. Within minutes, he had completed his masterpiece and stuck the page out towards me.
“These are fruits,” he said with enthusiasm and I took the page from him and stared at it in confusion. These fucking things looked nothing like fruit. They looked like rubbish. What was I supposed to say to him?
I looked at him and smiled.
“I want to eat them, they’re so good,” I said and Carter found it fucking hilarious. He was rolling around on the couch, clutching his belly as he laughed.
“You’re silly. More!” he squealed with joy and I looked around me again.
“Okay,” I said to him and then went over and got him a roll of kitchen paper towels. Carter took them from me and tore off a square sheet.
“Can you draw?” he asked, his dark eyes shining brightly as he looked up at me.
“I can try, but you’re so good!” I found myself saying. I was surprised that I was even being able to carry out a conversation with this kid.
“Mommy says pwatis!” Carter said encouragingly and I guessed he meant practice.
I sat down on the carpet, my face now at level with his on the couch and I tore out a square sheet of paper myself. We took turns in using the pen, drawing absurd shapes for cows and dogs and pots and the TV. Within minutes, Carter and I were both laughing as we drew. I was actually having fun. I was having fun with a fucking three-year-old! I couldn’t even wrap my brain around this.
“We will show mommy!” he exclaimed and I noticed how everything he said was joyous. He didn’t care that his mother had left him alone with a stranger in a strange house and that he didn’t have any of his toys around. Carter was a happy kid and I could see now why Kylie was so protective of him. I already was, even though I had barely spent a few minutes with him alone.
“C’mon, let’s find something to watch,” I said, getting off the floor and sitting down on the couch beside him. I turned the volume up on the cartoons and sat staring at the screen and laughing with Carter.
Within a couple of minutes, he had shimmied over to me, settling himself down on my lap and resting his head on my chest. I could sense the connection. Carter was seeking out the company of a man in his life, and he had quickly chosen me.
This was again a new feeling. I hadn’t realized that I could feel this protective of a kid I had just met. I sat there, frozen to the spot while Carter watched TV, thoughts rushing through my head.
I hadn’t had a chance to give much of a thought to Kylie after she turned up here, but now I was. Where had she gone? I knew instantly that she was lying about the key. What was so urgent that she had taken the risk of leaving her son with me? She had looked nervous, almost afraid…I was beginning to believe that this had something to do with her ex.
Carter’s cackling childish laugh snapped me out of my thoughts. He was snuggling into my arms; his eyes were growing heavy as he watched the cartoons and I realized that I had never pictured this for myself. Even though I had been fantasizing about Kylie all these days, picturing nights with her, imagining her laugh…I hadn’t actually imagined what it would be like to have her son in my apartment. And now that he was here, it seemed normal and weird and nice.
I laughed with him again. The cartoon was silly, but I was laughing at myself. So much had changed in a matter of days. Who would have thought that I would be watching cartoons in my own apartment with a three-year-old kid, belonging to a woman I barely even knew? But I knew Kylie, I knew what she wanted. She wanted to be safe and happy and for her son to be safe and happy. And that was what I wanted for her too.