Twenty

I sat on the floor in the hallway for a few stunned seconds before I got up and banged on the door. Of course, I didn’t have my key, so I banged on it until Renee sheepishly opened it and let me in.

“Thanks for that,” I snapped.

“I… I didn’t know what to do. I just… I’ve never seen him like that. He went in your room and locked the door and he won’t come out.”

 Paul was in the process of banging on our bedroom door. 

“Here, let me,” I said, taking his place at the door. “I’m leaving, you douchebag. I just have one thing to say to you. I. Hate. You. If you don’t believe me, whatever. But I’m not moving out permanently. I was here first before you barged your way in. I don’t care where you go, but when I come back tomorrow, you’d better be gone. Screw you, Hunter Zaccadelli.” 

I grabbed my purse and left, calling Megan to ask if she had a free couch for the night.

“Of course, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

 Sassy roared to life, and I drove as fast as I could away from campus without getting busted by campus security for speeding. 

I still wasn’t crying. Oh no. Tears were the last thing on my mind. I was pissed. Beyond pissed. I was livid.

Megan was waiting with a plate of chocolate cake and a sympathetic shoulder.

“Jake’s still at work, and his crusty friends aren’t coming over tonight, so the couch is all yours. I already made it up with fresh sheets. Do you need some clothes?”

I’d run out without anything, but I had an emergency stash in my car for moments like this.

As I mowed through two pieces of sticky cake and a glass of milk, I told Megan everything. I hadn’t really had a chance to catch up with her in a while, so I filled her in on the ring affair and everything else. 

“He’s got money and he’s hiding it. If it were from his aunt and uncle, he would have admitted it. I just keep coming back to this Joe guy.”

“So he had a meeting with him and he said something about not wanting… something. Maybe it was the money.”

“That’s the first thing I thought of. I mean, his parents are dead, this weird Joe guy has a meeting with him, and then this,” I said, holding up the ring, “and then the check for five grand. It’s got to be connected. I just don’t know why he would lie to me about it.”

“I hate to say it, but you’re lying to him, too.”

“This is different.”

“It isn’t and you know it. You can’t expect him to be open with you if you aren’t open with him. It goes both ways, babe.”

“I know it does.”

“Just, stay the night here and think about it and see how you feel in the morning. This couch is yours as long as you need it. I’d much rather have you here than Jake’s gross friends.”

“Thanks, Meg. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“You’re a resourceful girl. You would have figured something out.”

“Thanks.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

I slept horribly on the sofa, but I told Megan I slept great. Jake tried not to make a lot of noise when he came home at six from his graveyard shift, but he couldn’t help it. I got up as soon as I could in the morning. I didn’t have any early classes and neither did Megan, so we had pancakes and talked some more.

“Any revelations after a night of sleep?” she said.

“Nope. But my voicemail box is full on my phone, and I have about a million texts that I haven’t read.”

“Maybe you should talk to him. Work things out.”

“I just don’t know if we can. There are just too many things in our way.”

“Things you put there.”

“Exactly. Meg, you know I can’t do it. I just can’t. Not even for him.”

“You know everyone has secrets. Some are bigger than others, but it seems like he’s got one equally as big as yours. So why don’t you swap and call it even? Why let that stand in the way of something that could be amazing?”

The thing was that I didn’t have a good answer. Letting Hunter in on my secret didn’t seem so big anymore. 

Seeing the look on his face last night was terrible. It put me in a dark place that I’d thought I’d crawled out of years ago. I just didn’t think I was ready.

There was a knock at the door, and Megan went to answer it. 

“I’m not going to let you in. It’s up to her,” she said, moving the door so I could see who it was.

Hunter. With his guitar.

“Please. Just listen. I… I’m so sorry. I’ve been trying to figure out how I could show you, and this was all I could come up with. You don’t have to do anything but listen. Just listen.”

Megan looked at me, and I nodded.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. Just scream if you need anything and I’ll be there with a knife or two.”

“Thanks.” I turned my attention back to Hunter and his guitar. 

“You can stay on the porch. Like how you left me on the floor outside our room.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. You found the check, and I panicked.”

“That isn’t an excuse.”

“I know. And I’m not saying that this is going to make up for it. I’m going to try, really try, to make you trust me again. I want you to trust me. I just… I couldn’t sleep last night without you. It was the strangest thing, being in the room alone without you. I couldn’t hear you breathing, and your laughter was gone and you were gone, and it was like a part of my life was missing. A big part. I tripped going to the bathroom and banged my head. See?” He pointed to a lovely gash on his forehead. “And then I burned my hand on the toaster oven. And then my car wouldn’t start. Again. I’ve never had such bad luck in my life.”

He brought the guitar around and settled it so he could play.

“I’ve been thinking about this song since I closed the door on you. I was going to come and see you last night, but I wanted to give you space.”

I waited.

“So, here is part one of my apology.”

He strummed the guitar in a familiar melody and started to sing. 

It was Honey, Come Home by The Head and the Heart. The lyrics were about a married couple where the husband was begging the wife to come back. He’d done the dishes and cleaned the house, and all he wanted was to lie next to her, with the one he loved.

He’d done a new arrangement that was both sad and beautiful. I melted into the music and Hunter’s voice and I could see it. I could see us, washing the dishes and waking up tangled up in him in the morning. It was so close I could taste it. I could taste his lips on mine.

When he ended the song he looked at me.

“Can I come in?”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I know, Missy. But I don’t trust you either. You’ve got a secret, too. You’ve been pushing me away to keep it. I pushed you away to keep mine.”

“You were so angry. I was scared of you.”

“I was scared of me, too.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“If that’s what it will take to get you to come home. Yes. You might not like it, but if you want to know that badly, then yes.”

“Okay then. You can come in.”

“Are you okay in there?” Megan said.

“We’re good,” I called back.

“Okay, I’m going to take a shower. The knives are right here if you need them.” Moments later I heard the water clunk to life, and Megan humming.

“No wonder you two are friends. She sings in the shower, too,” he said, slowly coming in. Instead of the couch, he grabbed a crappy falling-apart chair the guys used when they had game night.

“So, Joe,” I said.

“Joe.” Hunter took a breath. “Joe is my lawyer. Well, he’s really my parents’ lawyer. When they died, he was put in charge of managing their money until I came of age. Now that I am, he’s still in charge of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want any of it.”

“How much money?” 

“I don’t even know. Millions.”

 I nearly choked on my tongue. 

“Millions?” 

“Yes. My dad was an oil executive in Texas. So he had a lot of money.”

“Why don’t you want it?” Who wouldn’t want millions of dollars? I couldn’t think of anyone.

“Because it’s blood money.”

“How?” Maybe his father had been involved in organized crime. Maybe that was it. That wouldn’t surprise me too much.

“Because my father killed my mother and then killed himself.”

Time stopped for a second after he said it. I had to have heard him wrong. That couldn’t be it.

And then it all made sense. The nightmares, the reluctance to talk about them, his rich aunt and uncle.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, there isn’t much to say. It is what it is. It happened a long time ago, and I’ve moved on. At least I thought so.”

“What happened?”

“My dad thought my mom was having an affair. She wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Things were getting tight at the company, and he was under a lot of scrutiny. He got drunk one night, and they had a huge fight. He shot her.” He paused for a moment. 

“I was in my room and I was trying to plug my ears so I couldn’t hear them anymore. Then I heard the pop. I knew what it meant. I ran out and saw her on the floor in a puddle of blood. I tried to save her, but it was too late. Dad just stared at me, at her. And then he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“Oh my God,” I said, horrified. It was so much worse than what I’d thought.

“You’d be shocked what happens to a person’s face when it’s blown off by a gun.” He plucked a guitar string. “So there it is. You know everything there is to know. The only other people who know about it are my family, and of course that town in Texas where I lived. I was the kid with the dead parents for a long time until Hope and John moved up here and I got to start over. Joe only comes up a few times a year to give me updates on investments and such. He keeps trying to get me to be more involved, to take some of the money for myself, but I don’t want it.”

 Oh. That was what he didn’t want. The money.

“What does he want you to do with it?”

“Invest it and make more money. Joe’s very into that sort of thing. Playing the stock market and all that. He thinks I’m crazy for not wanting it. If he’d let me, I’d give all of it away. I give as much as he’ll let me.”

“You give it away?”

“Well, yeah. What am I going to do with millions of dollars I don’t want? I feel like…” He paused and thought for a second. “I feel like if the money can do some good in this world, then they wouldn’t have died for nothing. The money destroyed them. It made Dad crazy and angry and stressed, and he just snapped that day. I know I should blame him and be angry, but I can’t. I have too many good memories of him to let that one bad one ruin everything.”

Wow.

“So there you have it. My deep, dark secret. Well, one of them at least. A man has to keep some mystery, doesn’t he?”

“I… I had no idea.”

“No, you didn’t. But it’s okay. I should have told you. You deserved to know.”

No, I really didn’t.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You know, you’re one of the few people I believe when they say that. When your parents die when you’re young, especially if they are well-known, all kinds of people tell you they’re sorry, but it’s mostly bullshit. They have to say that. But I know you feel it.”

“I do. I’m so sorry I pushed you.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. 

“It’s okay, Taylor. I should have known you’d be so curious you were going to use other ways to find out.”

“I spied on you. At your uncle’s house. I told Hope I was going to the bathroom, but I went down the hall and listened at the door.”

“Of course you did. I didn’t expect anything less. What did you hear?” He was completely unfazed. He knew me better than I thought.

“Just you saying that you didn’t want something. I know what that was now.”

“Ah, so you didn’t hear me calling Joe a pushy asshat?”

“You called him an asshat?”

“Yeah, this really cool girl I know uses it, and I decided to steal it.”

“She approves.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

“I want to,” I said, being totally honest. “When you… when you looked at me… like that…” I shook my head, remembering. It made me think of that night. “You can’t touch me like that ever again, or else I will rip your balls off and hand them to you.” 

He nodded.

“It reminded me of something I’ve spent almost eight years trying to forget. I… can tell you about it if you want.” I wanted to swallow the words back once I said them.

“Taylor,” he said, his voice and eyes soft. Nothing compared to last night. I never wanted to remember that night again. I wanted to erase it from my life. 

“You don’t have to. I can see that it hurts you and it weighs on you, but if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. Just listening to me tell you about my parents is enough. I’ll take you no matter what. I’m so sorry for how I acted. I never want to be that guy again.”

“I don’t want you to either.” He moved onto the couch. 

“I just… I don’t know if I can tell you. I don’t know how.” He’d made it look so easy. He’d just sat down and told me. God, he’d watched two deaths. I had nothing on that.

“I want to take you out to dinner. Someplace nice where I can continue to grovel and show you that you can trust me. I want you to trust me. I need it. I need you more than anything. Everything makes sense when you’re around. Everything is better. I couldn’t even cook dinner last night because you weren’t there. I had a nightmare, and there was no one to wake me up from it. It’s not your job to save me, but… I want you around.”

“Me too.” I didn’t tell Megan, but I’d woken up with my face pressed to the pillow and my teeth clenched in a scream. Luckily, or else she might have thought someone was trying to murder me.

“So how about it? Will you let me take you on a date?”

“Will you help me pick out something to wear?”

“Absolutely.” His face turned up into the smile I knew was trouble.

“I’m not wearing lingerie, so you can just get that image out of your head.”

“Damn. It was worth a shot.”

“I have the right to veto any of your choices.”

“I suppose.”

“Okay then. We’re going on a date.”

“Okay then.”

I didn’t tell him that it was technically my first date. I’d been on group things, but never where a guy picked me up and was expected to pay and pull my chair out and give me a chaste kiss at the end.

Hunter got up from the couch as Megan turned off the shower.

“You still alive out there?”

“Yes,” we both called.

“Have you sliced off any limbs?” she asked.

“No. He’s intact.”

“Well, tell him if he ever hurts you again, he won’t be.”

“Got it.” I turned to Hunter. “She says —”

“I got it. Will you come home now? There’s a pot of blacker-than-sin coffee waiting for you.”

“I’ll meet you there, okay? I just want to thank Megan and get my stuff together.”

“Okay, Miss. I’ll see you at home.”

He left and I fell back against the couch. Megan emerged from her bedroom with her hair wrapped in a towel.

“Well?”

“He apologized in the most romantic way possible and he’s taking me out to dinner.”

“You still need to be careful.”

“I know.” I knew what she was saying. “He’s not Travis.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Still.”

“I know, Meg.”

“Okay then.”

 I got up to grab my bag and my clothes from last night. I was still wearing my pjs. 

“Thanks for letting me crash,” I said, giving her a hug.

“Anytime, girl. You know I’m here for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Call me. I want to hear all the details. Make him work for it.”

“Oh, believe me, I will. He’s going to be on dish duty for at least two weeks. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.”