The Reason Why — Chapter Six
Everyone has one
I woke to an arm stretched over me. I knew it was Hunter just by the musky, stimulating smell that was coming off his clothes and body. Not only was he exceptionally gorgeous, but he wore this cologne that could make any girl weak in the knees.
His happy morning friend pressed into my backside. Somehow we’d gotten tangled around each other as we slept last night. And we ended up in a spooned position. It felt all too good.
I had to get up and get ready to start the busy day but didn’t want to bother him this early in the morning. According to the bedside clock, it was only six-thirty.
I carefully picked up his muscular arm and tried to lay it down gently on the bed so that I wouldn’t wake him.
“Don’t leave yet.” Hunter threw his arm back over me. His lips gently caressed the back of my neck as his hips started to grind against my backside.
I didn’t know whether to scream because he was touching me or moan with pleasure. The latter answer seemed like the correct one to do because this felt more right than wrong at the moment. I saw Hunter’s face out of the corner of my eye, and I could tell that he was still half asleep as he did this.
My body reacted to his caresses and kisses, and the heat that I felt pouring into my sensual parts made me want this experience now more than ever.
“Hunter.” A small moan escaped my lips as his hand climbed further under my shirt. “I have to get up and get a shower before we start the day.” I rolled over on my back and ran my fingers down his chest.
The sound of my voice made Hunter’s eyes instantly open. He quickly removed his hand and scooted backward on the bed until he was practically falling off the other side. He grabbed the sheet that had fallen off and covered the prominent bulge that was obvious in his boxers.
“Sorry.” He motioned to the fact that we’d been lying close together. “I must have rolled over when I was asleep.”
My heart fell when Hunter practically leaped to get away from me when he realized that it was me he was cuddling with.
“I just wanted to get a shower before we got going.” I quickly rolled off the bed and gathered my clothes out of the gym bag I’d brought. “It won’t take me too long.” I couldn’t even look back at him for fear that my feelings would be displayed on my face.
The water from the shower washed away the tears I’d been holding in. The feeling of waking up in Hunter’s arms was the best sensation in the world. But to have him back off as he did, like I was trash he didn’t want to get close to, hurt so bad. I knew I wasn’t anything spectacular or even capable of being wanted, but to have it proven to me had broken my heart.
Hunter was waiting for me after I completed my shower and got ready. He didn’t say anything, but then again, he didn’t have to. He’d proven that I wasn’t even considered worthy enough to be felt up by him.
I rushed around to put all my belongings together and then followed him out to the truck.
After Hunter returned the room key to the front desk, I only spoke to give him directions to the trailer park where I grew up. He seemed more distant than usual when I reentered the room after my shower. There was no sense in talking when actions proved to speak louder than words.
The sight of the run-down trailer made me sink even further down in my seat. It seemed to have shrunk and gotten uglier since I’d last seen it a few months ago.
Hunter pulled his truck into the parking space beside the small, one-step stoop and got out. I followed suit and walked over to the next-door trailer.
“I’ll see if the house key is over here.” I let him know where I was going, so he didn’t think I was just up and abandoning him here in the redneck ghetto.
He nodded once in response.
Hunter was still looking at the trailer with disgust when I returned two minutes later with the house key.
I motioned for him to follow me as I carefully made my way up the rickety, broken-down front step to the front door. A sign on the door read that all belongings had to be taken out by the next day or considered property of the management.
“Mom ran out of money to pay for the last two months. That’s why they’re making us take all our stuff.” Even though Hunter knew all about my mom and why I had to move in with them, I still wanted to explain the reason for the eviction notice.
It wasn’t a good sign that the doorknob was ripped out of the front door. I slowly let it open up the whole way, and a strong odor of staleness floated past my nose.
The trailer looked as bad inside as it did out. The wallpaper was coming off the walls. Where there was paint, it looked faded and chipped. There were holes in the linoleum floor, and the carpeting in the living room was beginning to unravel and shred. It seemed most of the furniture and belongings had already been moved out.
Hunter waited behind me to give him instructions before venturing any further inside.
"Um, well, this is where we used to live.” I waved my arm around the small room. “My room is right over here.” I moved towards the door that was on the other side of the room and opened it. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Hunter peeked in from behind me at an almost empty room with just a bed frame up against the wall. “What happened?” Of course, he wouldn’t know anything was wrong. He didn’t know what was in here before I left.
I walked into my empty room, held out my arms, and spun around once. “They took it all!” I couldn’t believe all that I had, which wasn’t much to begin with, was gone. My bed—except for the metal frame, my dresser that still had clothes, a small desk with a nightlight, and my comfy bean bag chair that I loved to curl up on—was gone.
I ran over to the closet with the door hanging halfway off its hinge and peeked inside at the top shelf. I felt around and found the shoebox that was covered in thin white tissue paper, which held my memorabilia of things from school. I carefully undid the tape and lifted the lid a bit. I peeked inside and let out a sigh of relief. I saw that everything was still in place as it was before I’d left.
“I have to go back next door to find out what happened to the rest of my stuff.”
Hunter followed me over to the next trailer. I knocked three times before our elderly neighbor answered the door. By the smell of the woman’s breath and the slur of her speech, it seemed she’d been hitting the alcohol bottle with her morning breakfast.
“Shirley, where did all of our things go?”
This neighbor always knew what was going on in the community. She might be drunk most days and nights, but she watched who came and who went at all times. If someone took my stuff, she would be the one who would know.
“Some young boys came around and said they were helping you move.” Shirley stumbled backward and caught herself on the railing before she fell over. “They looked to be about your age.” She waved her finger at me. “What’s your mama in jail for? She was bringing a lot of men around here all hours of the day. She get herself hooked on drugs and sex."
I shook my head at the old lady who could barely keep herself standing upright. “Great.” I stormed off the step and walked back over to my own trailer. “I guess this is all that I have to take back.” I waved the shoebox in the air. “I can’t believe they would do that. It’s not like it was worth anything.” I took the house key out of my pocket and threw it to the ground. “Guess I don’t need this anymore. I have nothing else to take, and it becomes property of the management after today.” I got into Hunter’s truck and slammed the door.
Hunter looked irritated that I had just slammed his truck door. I felt terrible for doing so, but I was so fired up over this whole ordeal. Hopefully, this wasn’t another thing he would hold against me. I had already made him mess up two of his days, and now here I was abusing his truck.
“Do you wanna try and locate your things? Do you know who could’ve done this?” Hunter started the truck and slowly backed out.
Here I was acting like a bitch, and he was still willing to help me get my things back. I would love to see the pricks who’d done this take a beating from Hunter, but there was no sense in going after any of them. Right now, it all wasn’t worth it.
“I have no clue who would want to take my stuff.” I watched as the sight of my town passed by. “The people I went to school with were all from the other side of town. They all had money to buy whatever they wanted. Most likely, they did this for fun.”
I missed my mom and knew I would see her in a few months, but I hoped I never had to look at this town again.
I patted the box that was beside me on the seat. “I’m sorry you had to drive all this way just for this.”
“It was fun.” Hunter glanced over at me and smiled. “I needed to get away for a while. I’d been spending so much time trying to get everything for the band that I forgot what it was like to take a road trip.” He turned onto the interstate and prepared for the long drive back home.
“Did you used to take a lot of road trips before?” I’d never been out of my town, let alone to another state, before moving in with Crystal.
Hunter nodded his head. “I used to go off for days at a time when the band went through some complicated matters about a year and a half ago. I also flew out to California two years ago.”
“Really.” Seeing the West Coast was something I’d always wanted to do. “What was that like?”
“It was cool. A lot of palm trees, sand, and people in a hurry to get someplace other than where they were at the moment."
“Why’d you go out there? Was it for vacation or something?” I turned in my seat so that I could see him better.
His caramel-colored eyes seemed to become even darker as he thought about why he’d gone to California. “It was for business.” Hunter kept his focus straight ahead. It appeared he didn’t want to talk about that time of his life.
“For the band?” Interest in knowing all about him made me keep the questioning going. Plus, it took my mind off everything that had happened back at my old house.
“Yes.” Hunter’s eyes flickered over to me. “It was when we had the old band together.”
I still wasn’t sure if he was with the old band and they got back together or what happened that he was no longer with the original members.
“Did you guys break up and then get back together or something?” I heard of the band and knew they were supposed to get signed, but I didn’t know why they didn’t go big with the record deal.
“You could say that.” Hunter puffed his cheeks up and slowly let out a deep breath. “We lost one member, but the rest of us are from the old band.”
“Why did he or she leave?”
“Bama, do we have to talk about this right now? It’s a long drive back home, and I don’t want to be pissed off for the next ten hours of driving.” It was apparent he didn’t want to talk about any of it.
“Sure, no problem.” I turned in my seat and stared out the passenger window. I could understand not wanting to explain shit from the past, but it seemed Hunter was always trying to avoid talking to me about anything personal.
A few moments passed before either one of us spoke. I didn’t want to irritate him more than usual, plus my mind went back to this morning and how he cowered away from me.
“Hey.” Hunter rubbed my thigh. “I’m sure Joshua would be able to tell you of all my downfalls that happened a while back.”
“It’s no big deal.” I tried to act like I really didn’t care what had caused them to break up. Obviously, it had something to do with Hunter personally, as he seemed to be quite defensive about the subject. “Joshua and I don’t talk about you, so you don’t have to worry about him telling me any of your deep, dark secrets. We talk about school, lacrosse..." I thought about what else we discussed, and there wasn’t much more that we did talk about. “Well, that’s about it.”
“Yeah, my brother is known for talking only about himself. He’s been in lacrosse for about forever, so it’s usually his main topic of conversation.”
“That’s okay.” I didn’t mind when Joshua focused the whole conversation on himself. It kept the spotlight off me and the mess my life seemed to be in right now. Not that everything is a mess now, except for these conflicting emotions with Hunter. But more so when I was living with my mom.
Hunter patted the tissue-covered shoebox that I had grabbed from my closet. “So, what’s in the box?”
I shrugged. “Nothing really.” I tore off the tape that held the lid on and then placed it on the seat. A blue ribbon from elementary school was one of the first things I took out.
“What was that for?” Hunter asked.
“This was from elementary school. It was the only time that I ever came in first place for anything.” I gazed at the satin blue ribbon whose ends had started to fray. “I won the spelling bee in fifth grade.”
Looking back now, it really wasn’t a big deal. At that time, I thought if I could just come in first for something, then maybe I would be accepted into the ‘cool’ group at school. Unfortunately, that never happened. In fact, my winning made them pick on me even more for not allowing the queen bee herself to take first place for the fifth year in a row.
“Not that it really matters anymore.” I placed the ribbon back in the box.
“That’s cool.” Hunter picked up the small piece of shiny material and placed it on the dashboard. “I never won anything in my life that was academic-related, that was always a Joshua thing. Well, that and sports.” He watched as I sorted through the things that I had saved.
I showed him each movie stub that I’d saved, a small stuffed carnival animal I’d gotten when my mom took me one time, and various academic achievements my teachers had given throughout my schooling.
“Nothing from a first boyfriend?” He teased.
‘Easy question to answer, but how do I go about doing that without looking like some complete, pathetic moron?’
“I never really had one.” One thing I’ve always been taught is that brutal honesty will get you further than trying to make up stories to cover up lies. I’d seen my mom make up lies to cover up other lies to the men she brought home, the authorities, and mostly to herself, saying that things were going to get better.
Hunter looked shocked by this statement. “So, what you’re saying is that you turned a lot of guys down and left a lot of broken hearts all over town then?”
I had to laugh at his insinuation. “It’s not that I turned a lot of boys down for dates, it’s just that no one ever asked.”
Hunter stared at me like I was joking. “Are you kidding?”
I shook my head. “There were only about four other kids in my school that were from my neighborhood. They were younger and lived further down the road, so I didn’t know them that well.” I packed up my memento box and placed it on the floor. “The others were from the new community that the township had constructed just before I went to first grade. It was mainly made up of the doctors and lawyers that worked in Mobile but didn’t want the city life atmosphere to raise their kids.”
“That’s just unbelievable.” Hunter pulled off at the rest stop, so we could get out and stretch our legs.
There were a few vending machines, so he grabbed some change he had put away in the door compartment and motioned for me to follow him.
“You’re beautiful, intelligent, and not like a lot of girls that I used to know—or well, some of the girls that hang around the band.”
Forget the part about being intelligent and not a bimbo, as he implied that the girls who followed the band were like—I was still stuck on the fact that he had called me beautiful.
“I guess coming from the wrong part of town made me on the blacklist for getting asked out or attending any party.”
Hunter shook his head in disbelief as he put the money in the soda machine and grabbed two sodas. He handed one to me and opened the other for himself. He did a two-gulp drink and tossed the can into the nearby garbage can.
“I’m gonna use the restroom before we get going again.” He walked away.
I watched him, as did most of the other girls, when he went past. He carried himself with such confidence. He was what every girl wanted and what every guy wanted to be like. Then I turned away, vowing not to fall too hard.
The rest of the way home to North Carolina was just casual conversation. Hunter had grabbed some chips and more soda at the rest stop, so we ate, drank, and learned more about each other to pass the time. We both talked about our high school days and how much of a pain they were.
Hunter told me all about his troubled youth times, when he had to spend many days in out-of-school suspension, but turned himself around once he graduated and became more focused on his band.
I told him about some of the times I actually had fun in school, which were far and few between, and then some of the most troubling times when my friends seemed to turn on me and favor hanging out with the other group. Most of my last year was spent by myself, but that was okay since I learned to be independent.
Neither one of us told of our most troubled parts. As it seemed, we both tried to shield ourselves from reliving them again.
We pulled back into the home driveway around ten o’clock that night.
“Alabama,” Joshua called out as soon as I opened up the truck door. I had texted him a while ago to tell him that we were almost home. He’d volunteered to go pick up pizza so we would have something to eat when we got back.
“Hey, Joshua.” I gave him a small hug as he waited for me by the truck door.
“Did you guys get all your things?” He looked in the back of Hunter’s truck, but there wasn’t anything there.
I held up my hand before he could say any more. “Don’t ask, it’s a long story that I really don’t wanna talk about right now.”
“Did you do something?” Joshua automatically turned toward his brother as if he were responsible for my trouble.
“Yeah.” Hunter plowed past his brother as he grabbed both mine and his overnight bags on the way. “I drove over twenty hours the past two days. How about you? How was lacrosse practice?”
I could see out of the corner of my eye that Joshua was following behind us.
“Bama.” Hunter made sure to accent the nickname that he’d given me. “I’ll drop your bag off in your room.” He left us standing on the front porch.
Joshua had a confused and irritated look on his face. “Bama?” He waited until Hunter was out of hearing range before he turned and confronted me about my apparent new nickname.
I shrugged as if that was nothing really new. “It was just something that he called me on the trip, and it sort of stuck.”
Joshua nodded but didn’t look too happy with the answer. “So, he wasn’t a total douchebag?” He opened the front door and motioned for me to go on in.
“Nope.” It wasn’t necessary for me to go into detail about what we’d talked about or how Hunter had acted. “He was a perfect gentleman.” I turned to go into the kitchen the same time Hunter decided to come out.
The smirk that was on his face and the way it was directed towards Joshua made it evident that he had heard what I said.
“Come on in.” Crystal waved for us to come and sit down with her in the dining area of the kitchen.
Hunter moved past us and walked out of the house. He didn’t say anything to anyone. I heard his truck start up and back out of the driveway.
Crystal patting the chair beside her made my attention turn away from the guy who was tugging on my heartstrings.
Before I got any closer to his mom, Joshua put his hand on the small of my back and whispered in my ear, “Just be careful. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
