Drawn To You (Paloma's Edge) (28 page)

“Hunter
and I are friends.”

“No, you guys aren’t friends.”

“We’re not gonna see eye to eye on this.” I sighed. “You know Cindy showed up at your parents’ house last night,” I said, changing the subject.

He nodded. “She’ll stay at
the Paloma.”

“Is that where she was last night?”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t seen her at the hotel. Maybe she’s lying low. It would do her some good.
She was crying last night because the guy went back to his family. I know that her feelings were involved, but she’s dickmatized.”

“I swear it’s a fucking affliction.
Doesn’t discriminate against age, race, religion, country of origin, or level of intelligence.”

I shoved him playfully. “S
peaking of afflictions, you and Mona are friends with benefits again?”

“Nah, we
’ve been hooking up with different people,” he answered, and from closely looking at his eyes much like my own, I knew that he was telling me the truth.

“
Did you come close to leaving with her, though?”

“
I know that we’d thought about it. But we’ve been there, done that for over a decade.”

I grabbed his arm. “Can I take you for a bite to eat?”

“Yeah, but I am paying.”

“We’ll flip a quarter when we get there and see
about that. I am driving us in my new car.”

Chase

For the past two days, I had thought about Beth and Hunter constantly. I knew when I’d seen her face that she hadn’t cheated on me with my brother. She’d thought that I was never going to tell her about him, but I was going to. I didn’t want the love that I’d seen in her eyes for me to be a part of my past too. After we’d made love on Friday, she was going to say that she loved me. Before she was about to verbalize it, I could sense it. While she’d been ambivalent from the very beginning about giving in to her pull towards me, once she gave me a chance, she didn’t give me bits and pieces of who she was, she gave me everything. And I hadn’t been doing that. Which was why I hadn’t wanted her to say that she loved me, because it wouldn’t have been true. How could she love me when she didn’t know what had made me want to live my life differently?

So I was sitting in my car, a block down from La
sting Impressions Tattoo Studio. After I’d received the final stamp of approval from my Mr. Dobbs and began working on the graphic animation, my horrible argument with Beth replayed in my head repeatedly. I’d been such a dirt bag.

Hunter came out of the studio
, uninterested in the group of girls that’d passed by him and checked him out. I’d grown oblivious to that sort of attention myself. Shutting my door and locking the car, Hunter instantly spotted me. I’d been aware of him my whole life and he’d been aware of me too. I didn’t think it was a twin thing. I think it was a “there’s another brolic ass dude in my vicinity” kind of thing. Disbelief flashed in his eyes and he gestured me to head a block up from where we were.

W
e paused in front of a small mom-and-pop café.

“Did Beth tell you where to find me
, or was it Jake and Mariska?” Hunter asked as he held the door for me.

“Beth,” I replied
, almost growling.

He gave me a stiff smile. “Chase, I wanted her to give you my card.” He pushed the door and went inside. The smell of coffee was out of this world. The cashier’s face brightened and he put two fingers up. I sat down by the last table on the left so I could see the people who c
ame in.

“I wouldn’t have come down to see you otherwise,” I admitted. He nodded and took his place across from me. His face didn’t look sunken in
, and his arms were almost bigger than mine for the first time in our lives. He’d been a big guy before, but he hadn’t had my fitness regimen when we were teenagers. The weight he had on now fit his frame much better than the weight he’d lost the last time I’d seen him. “You’re healthy now.”

“That I am,” he sighed
, and glanced around the shop, connecting and separating the tips of his fingers together restlessly.

“Why’
re you in Miami? Are you in treatment here?” I whispered.

He met my gaze dead on. “I
am here because you’re here.”

The cashier, Atagracia
, placed two cups of black coffee and creamers on the table and we thanked her. I broke the seal off the creamer and put it in my coffee, along with some sugar. I didn’t want to hear to hear that he was in Miami because I lived here. I wasn’t good for him.

“I was getting calls some weeks back. Was that you?”

“Nah, man. The only reason I’d been able to find your ass among the bunch of other Chase Lovells was because you’re on the football roster on your school’s site.”

“Are you clean?”

“Four years as of last week.” His voice roughened and I looked back up at him. “Not even any alcohol.”

“Congrats, Hunter. For real. That’s great.”

He smirked a little. “No slip-ups, either.” He answered my unvoiced question.

“How’d you do it?” I drank some coffee, feeling like I’d need the caffeine to continue this conversation. I didn’t think I’d see the day when he was in recovery, but I believed him. I wanted to, but he wasn’t proving shit to me. He didn’t have to.

He gave a dry laugh. “It wasn’t a choice in the beginning. I was scoring some blow off the street in Holly Ridge, and the next thing I knew, someone puts a mask over my face and I am restrained.”

“What the fuck? How’d you get to Cali? Was it
from the money you stole from me?”

He shook his head
. “I snorted that with some people that night. One of the guys I hung out with took all of us first class to his parents’ vacation house there.” He gulped some coffee. “I don’t remember how many days I’d been there, but I went to get some after doing it every night I was there. Chase, the men picked me up and threw my then-bony ass in the back of a van. Straight-up militant. They knew my name, DOB, social, everything. For a month, I was pissed, but fast-forward a year and the residential program worked. To this day I don’t know who did it.”

Hunter sounded so amazed and grateful. He was a little bit like the old Hunter with his mannerisms, but he was a different person. I didn’t even know my own brother. He couldn’t quite take
pride in his accomplishment because he was drowning in shame. It was like he wasn’t internalizing that he had a major part in staying clean. Certainly, the residential program he’d been in facilitated his recovery, but Hunter was doing the hard work; keeping himself together in an uncontrolled environment. He could drink alcohol and do coke whenever he wanted to, and yet, he was keeping his head above water.

“I am glad it worked out. That shit isn’t for every
one. It’s a very controversial approach.”

“It is,” he agreed. “The last things I said to you. Man, it wasn’t true.”

“‘Try and stop me again and I’ll kill you. You’re dead to me.’” I repeated the words he’d told me and watched the guilt in his hazel gaze, an emotion he couldn’t convey with the rest of his face.

“It’s been eating me up inside how I left things with you. All the hor
rible shit I’ve done. I called Mom every year to see how she was doing and she told me to stop calling. Mom and Dad changed their numbers, but I don’t talk to Dad, so…” His gaze fell to his empty cup of coffee. Atagracia took it from him and came back a second later with another cup. “They unlisted the house number, but I still found them. I can’t blame them for wanting nothing to do with me after everything.”

“I haven’t spoken to them
either since they kicked me out five years ago.”

He shook his head and threw his hands to the right side of my face. “And I am sorry for
the damage I did to your face.”

“Chicks dig this shit.” I
squared my shoulders “They think I’ve led a crazy life.”

“But the only female you care about liking your scar is Beth?” A frown puckered up his cheekbones.

“Beth? You’ve been calling my girl Beth like you know her? Are you feeling her?”

Frustration clouded his face. “She said I could call her Beth
, and I am not feeling her. I like her. As my friend. I’d planned on seeing how you were doing through her.”

“That pisses me off. She shouldn’t be used so that you can see what I am up to. It’s a privilege to be a
part of her life.”

He flashed some teeth. “I am aware
. She slapped me on the face when I told her that I cut you.”

“For real?” Pierce hadn’t told me this. Maybe he didn’t know or didn’t think I should know.

He nodded.

“And what did you do?” I asked gruffly.

“I took it. I deserve worse.”

I smirked. “Did it hurt?’

He rubbed his cheekbone. “For about three minutes.” He sounded impressed.

“That’s my girl,” I said with a smile.

Hunter cleared his throat. “Beth is.” He swigged his coffee. “I am happy you’ve got yourself someone special.”

“Thanks. I am too. And I am
really happy that you’re clean and doing what you’ve wanted to do for the longest.” I looked at his tattoo-free arms and the piercings he didn’t have. “Where’s your ink?”

***

I felt like an asshole when I exited this cutesy flower shop in downtown Paloma’s Edge with white and red roses the next morning, but I remembered that other than wearing black, Beth wore white and red a lot. The colors looked great on her. I wanted her to forgive me for how I’d talked to her. I’d spoken with Hunter because I knew that was what Beth wanted me to do, but in the middle of our conversation, I was talking to my brother for me. To fill a void I hadn’t known I had until the shop was going to close. We’d tried most of the locally and international coffee beans they had at the shop. One pastime that we’d learned that we both loved. And I couldn’t fucking help it. I’d had a good time with him.

“Chase!” Brody greeted me with an infectious smile.
When it had been hectic and we’d encountered some of the rudest guests here, he kept his chipper tone and upbeat attitude. He looked at the flowers that I placed on top of the counter.

“Hey, Brody. How’ve you been?”

“I am great.” He quirked the side of his face. “Are these for Beth?”

I
gesticulated my hands towards the roses. “Yes.”

Brody took the vase of flowers from me. “I’ll give them to her myself.”

“What a wonderful arrangement,” a female voice behind me said.

When I
pivoted around, Brody said, “Good morning, Cindy.”

“Hello
, Brody.” Her laser-sharp blue gaze pierced through me. She was Beth’s mom. Pierce had informed me of Cindy staying at the Paloma. She didn’t look a day over thirty and Beth had taken after her mom’s curvy figure. They did share the same pair of eyes and brown hair. Unlike Beth, Cindy was very aware of her beauty and appeal. I loved that Beth knew she looked good, but she didn’t know that she how good she looked. Maybe she’d act differently if she knew.

“Ms. Pruitt. I am Chase.”

Whistling, she inched towards me. “Beth doesn’t like flowers.”

“Are those for me?” Pierce said as he walked
out of an elevator. “Man, I like lilies and daffodils.”

“Too bad,” I said.

He regarded Cindy. Brody had put the white and red roses in a porcelain vase. “She’ll like it ’cause they’re from you, even though flowers die.” Pierce eyed his aunt pointedly. “Beauty fades in many forms. ” He strode towards his dad’s office.

“Beth’s finally taken my advice and gotten herself a real man.”

I walked past her a little and I cocked a brow at her comment. I raised my chin to Brody and strolled out of the Paloma.

***

Bethany

Hunter
: We didn’t argue or brawl.

Me:

Are you guys gonna see each other again?

Hunter:
Slim Chance. But we had a civilized convo. That’s somethin’. I’ll be seeing you in the fall. Got into UM.

Me:
Congrats! What class are you?

Hunter
: Gonna be a sophomore like you.

Me:
And you and Chase may cross paths.

Setting my cell phone on the table, I leaned forward on my desk table to finally smell the roses Chase had gotten for me earlier today while I was at work. Most of the ladies, even Mrs. Clark, had come by my cubicle to see it, and they’d all known that they’d come from him.

After two taps on the door, I said, “Come in.”

Uncle Anton and Aunt Deborah came into the room. I moved from the desk to the bottom of the bed. Aunt Deborah sat down by the chair and he stood by her with his hand on her shoulder. They looked like they were more in harmony than they’d been in weeks.

“
We didn’t think you’d want to see Cindy. We were going to ask you first,” Aunt Deborah said with a sad smile. “But when she came out of the cab minutes before you came into the kitchen, I couldn’t ignore the state she was in.”

Uncle Anton huffed. “Your Aunt Debbie thought Cindy had had a change of heart and realized that now’s a better time to be a mother than never. But she came back because th
e man had dumped her and she has nowhere else to go.” He sounded embarrassed. “I just don’t understand. Mom and Dad didn’t raise us like this. They must be turning over in their graves.” Aunt Deborah settled her hand over the one Uncle Anton had on her shoulder. “I thought you needed a night to process her arrival after the mess she’d made. If you don’t want her to stay at the Paloma, I’ll have her leave.”

“Please,” I said, clearing my throat, “don’t do that.”

Aunt Deborah came over to me. “We support whatever you want to do with regards to your mother, and we’ll do our best to stay out of it.”

***

“Hunter designed my tattoo!” Millie said after we just informed her that Chase had a twin brother who worked at Lasting Impressions Tattoo Studio. “I wanted him to do my tat, but he wasn’t there and I didn’t wanna wait more months to get it done. This took five sessions. And a lot of hand-holding from Jared.” She ran her hand over her head.