Six

“How the hell did you do that?” I said, looking at the dining room table. It was spread with mounds of my favorite French toast that was stuffed with oozing Nutella, sweet potato hash that he'd made exactly how I did, despite my vague and confusing-on-purpose instructions, and strawberries that he'd somehow cut and stuffed with the hand-whipped cream. He'd even found champagne and made mimosas.

“I'm a man of many talents. Some of them are hidden, some are not. Maybe sometime you'll let me show you some of the hidden ones.” I was too dazzled by the meal to make a snappy comment.

“Holy crap, dude. I didn't know you could cook,” Renee said, coming out of her room.

Darah had already picked up her job as a desk attendant at the Union and wouldn't be back until late.

“We should probably eat it before it gets cold. Dig in, ladies,” he said, handing me a plate. There was definitely enough food for about twelve people. “I hope you don't mind, but I invited Mase over. Dev and Sean might come, too.”

So that was why he made so much. I couldn't really stop him from having his friends over, but I didn't want our apartment turning into a frat house with beer cans everywhere and strange girls sneaking out in the morning from one-night-stands on our couch. Yuck and ew.

“Fine with me,” Renee said, piling her plate with strawberries and cream and only one piece of French toast.

What was it with girls being afraid to eat in front of guys? I'd never had that fear, so I loaded my plate up. Just as I was about to plunge my fork into the French toast and unleash the Nutella-y goodness, there was a knock at the door. I had to hand it to them, at least they hadn't just barged in. 

Hunter opened the door, and Mase and Dev came in. 

“What are you making? It smells fantastic,” Mase said, going right for the table full of food. 

“I made this on Taylor's request. She doubted my cooking skills, so I had to show her what I've got.”

“You should never doubt Hunter when he brags about something. Most of the time if he's bad at something, he just won't talk about it. If he's bragging, it means he's telling the truth,” Mase said, grabbing a fork and shoveling French toast onto a napkin. 

“Do you want a plate?” I said.

“Naw, I'm good like this. Then you don't have to wash an extra.”

How considerate. Dev was more cautious, asking me where the plates were and waiting until everyone else had gotten their fill before taking what was left, which wasn't much. Sean followed suit. There weren't enough chairs, so we crashed on the couch and the living room floor like we had the night before with the pizza.

Choruses of “oh my God,” “mmm,” and “dear sweet Jesus” were interspersed with loud chewing and swallowing. Other than that, the conversation was nonexistent.

Okay, okay, I had to admit it. Hunter hit it out of the park. French toast was one of those foods that seemed easy to make, but was crazy easy to screw up. He'd overstuffed the middle with so much Nutella that it oozed out when I cut it with my fork and dripped down my chin when I bit it. I wiped it off and licked my finger. Hunter was watching me, as if waiting for my reaction.

“It's okay, I guess,” I said, cutting up another piece and shoving it in my mouth. He raised his eyebrows and took a bite of his own, chewing slowly. 

Sweet Christ it was like I'd died and gone to breakfast heaven. I really hoped he wouldn't use his cooking skills as leverage for sexual favors. For this, I might have to give in.

“I think we need to have a toast,” Renee said, raising her glass. Well, it was really a plastic cup. None of us had brought champagne glasses with us when we moved in. 

“To hidden talents,” she said.

We all clinked our glasses. Hunter winked when ours met. I wrinkled my nose at him.

“If you guys are going to eat like this every night, I might have to move in,” Mase said. “All we have is microwave popcorn, beer and week-old fried chicken that no one remembers buying.”

I shuddered, as did Renee.

“My ex-boyfriend never stocked his fridge. I always had to bring my own groceries when I stayed over,” Renee said, emphasizing the word, “ex.” As if everyone hadn't caught it.

“I think it's a guy thing,” I said.

“Not every guy,” Hunter said.

“Apparently not,” I responded.

My phone vibrated with a text from my mother, and I excused myself to chat with her. Hunter gave me a questioning look, but I hit call, put the phone to my ear and ignored him. 

“Hey, Kid, long time no talk! I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere,” she said as I settled onto my bed to chat.

“Nope, sorry to disappoint. I'm alive and well. Sorry I haven't called you. Things have been a little nuts.”

“How did moving in go?”

I gave her a quick rundown. I felt like I needed to record myself telling the story so I could just hit play when someone asked. I left out a lot when I gave her the mom-version. I didn't want to worry her. She always worried about me more than Tawny. I wasn't sure if it was because I was the baby or because of my issues. Perhaps both.

“Oh, no.” She proceeded to urge me to go right down to housing and give them hell. I told her that was what I had done, but hadn't gotten anywhere. 

“Well, I'm going to call and give them a piece of my mind. That's ridiculous that they won't do anything. They're just being lazy. Hang on,” she said, and I could tell she was putting me on speaker so she could look up the number.

“Mom, it's okay. I'll deal. You don't have to fight the bullies for me.”

“But I'm your mother. I'll always want to beat the crap out of people who are mean to you.”

“No one was mean to me. It's fine.” I was beginning to regret telling her. Mom was always trying to make up for not protecting me that one time. She'd been making up for it since I was twelve, and I didn't know when it was going to end, or at least lower in intensity. I loved her more than I could say, but I didn’t need her to fight my battles for me.

“Are you sure? You know I can make things happen.”

It was true. That woman could talk her way in or out of anything. She had this way of making people believe what she wanted them to. In another life I thought she would have been a lawyer.

“I know you can and I love you for it. I've just gotta deal with it, okay? How about we talk about something else. How's work?”

 She was reluctant to leave the topic, but switched for my sake. We chatted for a few more minutes while she told me funny stories about her coworkers at the bank and silly customers who couldn't understand how to use a debit card. She’d worked her way up at a local bank from teller to manager. I chatted a bit about my classes and told her about my job search. Nothing heavy, nothing serious.

“Your father called today,” Mom said, casting a dark cloud over our chat.

“What did he have to say?”

“Not much, he said he wanted to see you soon.”

He said that every time he called. My parents had gotten divorced when I was thirteen, and he lived in Connecticut now, which wasn’t far enough, in my opinion. He called me every now and then, but I always deleted his voicemails.

“I'm sure he does.”

“You should go and see him. I know he misses you.”

“If he missed me, he'd come to see me.”

“I know, Kid. I know.” She sighed, and I twisted my hair around one finger.

“Listen, I'll call you this weekend and we can talk more, okay?”

“Okay, Kid. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hung up and sat back on my pillows, closing my eyes. A soft knock made me sit up. “What do you want?” I knew it would be Hunter. The door cracked open, and he poked his head in.

“Just wanted to let you know the guys are gone, and Renee went to the library to get some reading, done, so if you wanted some privacy you didn't have to hide in here.”

Renee already had massive amounts of reading since she was a nursing major. She also had a sick obsession with gory descriptions of diseases. 

“Where are you going to be?” I said.

“Where do you want me to be?” His smirk was back.

“Wherever I'm not,” I said, getting off my bed and pushing past him into the living room. I really didn't have any homework that had to get done tonight, so I decided to finish the book he'd so rudely distracted me from reading that morning.

I got out my e-reader and folded myself on the couch. I had to use my left hand to hold it because my right was still recovering from the encounter with Hunter’s face. I should probably have put some more ice on it, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

 The kitchen was spotless, the dishes already in the drainer and all other evidence of the breakfast buffet was gone. Guess cleaning was a hidden talent as well. Darah hadn’t had a chance to make our chore chart yet, but I was sure she was on it.

“Do you mind if I play?”

“No, go ahead,” I said, not looking up from my book.

He went to our room and came back with his guitar. I hadn't really looked at it the day before, but it had definitely been through the ringer. It was black, but dinged and scratched all over. He sat in the chair across from the couch and settled the strap around his neck. I kept reading, but waited for him to start.

“Requests?”

“I thought I had to pay for them,” I said.

“I'm feeling generous. I'll give you a few freebees.”

“How generous.” He strummed a chord. I thought about it for a second. “Smooth Criminal. Either version.”

He looked surprised for a second, and then started to play. I couldn't help but groove to the familiar tune. Against my will, my head bopped and my feet twitched. He didn't sing, but played the song and that was enough. He was very talented. When the song ended, he continued to strum a transitional tune.

“Next?”

“On my Own.” There was no way he'd know that one. I'd had a brief obsession with musicals in high school and had a minor part in the community theater production of Les Miserables. I'd wanted more than anything to play Eponine, but there were too many other girls who tried out and had been in theater since they were born, so I didn't get the part. I’d been mildly crushed for at least a month.

“You think you're going to stump me, but I assure you, I can play pretty much anything,” he said before he launched into a guitar version of the song.

Honestly, I thought even if he knew it, he wouldn't be able to play it on a guitar. I had been proved wrong again. I was still holding my e-reader, but the book wasn't captivating me as much as Hunter.

He got lost in the music, throwing his whole body into the song. It was like he wasn't even aware of what he was doing; he was just getting lost in the music. It was beautiful to watch. Hunter played with everything he had and he was good. No, he wasn't good. He was amazing. Hypnotic. Could this be the same boy who'd said I was fuckable last night?

He abruptly ended the song, placing his hand on the strings so they'd stop vibrating.

“Free request time over. If you want to pay, I'll continue.”

I could only imagine what he'd take in payment, so I just picked up my book again. 

After a few minutes, he started again, just picking out random notes and tunes. He'd play a few lines of a song, enough for me to recognize it, and then it would melt into something else.

“Can I ask you something?” I said a half-hour later.

“You can ask whatever you want, doesn't mean I'm going to answer.” He quickly plucked one string.

“Why are you a business major? I'd rather eat glass than admit it, but you have talent.”

“This?” he said, pointing to the guitar. I nodded. “So I can be a starving artist? There are ten thousand guys with guitars who can play.”

“But if you love doing it, then why wouldn't you?”

“I am doing it. Right now.”

I just wanted a real answer from him. If I was going to be stuck with him for the rest of the week, we might as well get to know each other. He may have been a jerk, but he was an intriguing one. I wanted to know how he'd become the guy he was. You know, before I tossed him out on his ass.

“You know what I mean.” He shrugged and went back to strumming. “Oh, so you shut down when you don't want to talk. I see how it is,” I said.

“You don't want to know about me, Taylor. You really don't. Trust me when I say those things are not worth knowing.”

“I could be the judge of that, I think.”

He gave me a smile, but it was twisted. 

“That's what they all say. Everyone says they want to know you, but they don't. They want to know the nice things, the pretty things. No one wants to know the ugly parts, the parts that keep you up at night. They say they're okay with it, but then they drift away and you never see them again. I've seen it happen way too many times. Girls don't want to know that shit.”

“Maybe this one does.”

His smile appeared again. 

“That's what they all say,” he repeated.

I decided to give up and went back to my book. He went back to strumming, and we stayed like that until Darah got back at 10:30. She seemed shocked to find us in our current positions, but recovered quickly.

Renee got back a little while later when the library closed, her eyes glazed over from all the medical terminology she'd tried to cram into her brain in just a few hours. I was exhausted from the previous night, so I wanted to turn in early. I made sure to take my damn pill so I wouldn't wake everyone up with my night terrors. I was already in bed and had my eyes closed when Hunter came in after his shower.

The smell of his clean skin overwhelmed the room, and I tried to pinpoint what it was. It was something similar to wood or cinnamon. Something warm. 

I heard him get into bed and slip his boxers off.

“I don't know if you're awake or not, but good-night, Taylor.”

I decided to pretend I was asleep. He waited for a response, but when I didn't give one he rolled over and sighed.

“Damn you,” I heard him say under his breath.   

Right back atcha.