Page 14 of Sunrises & Salvation

ADAM

W hy the fuck did I have to butt in to Danielle’s business?

She’s a grown woman; she can take care of herself.

As soon as she told me she had run a check on her friend, I should have left it alone.

Normally, I would have left it alone. So why did I push so hard this time? And why did this have to be with him?

Hunter follows behind, trying to keep a brisk pace with me on the way to my car. I’m seething with every step, my annoyance growing stronger and stronger with every inch we get closer to my car.

It’s not his fault, logically I know that.

There’s no way he could have predicted that I would strong-arm my way into their plans.

And if I had known it was Hunter that Danielle was spending the weekend with, I would have pushed Danielle into staying with him longer.

Maybe convincing him to drop out of college and go to one closer to his home so I won’t have to see him.

Distance would be good for me and my fucked-up thoughts.

Because the thoughts I have about him right now are not normal.

I’m straight, but sometimes when I dream of the scar on his lip or what his eyes would look like while he is on his knees, I go into crisis mode. I can’t afford to deal with… whatever this is.

“You don’t have to go,” he says so quietly I almost don’t hear it. Whipping my head to the side to look at him over my shoulder, I see he’s fallen behind. Dragging two rolling suitcases now with a duffel precariously positioned on one. It’s going to fall off.

I should help him.

I scratch that thought from my head because he’s a guy; if he can’t carry it, he should have thought about that before he dragged it all the way out here.

His eyes are downcast, and I feel a pitiful thump in my chest; the dejected stance of his body and his soft words make me want to comfort him.

To hold him close and protect him from anything.

To see if he smells as good as he does in my dreams. Coconut and honey, something soothing, but at the same time, tart.

I want to taste his skin for myself and satisfy this hunger inside of me that yearns for him.

“What?” I snap, trying to keep myself away from the road my thoughts are going down. I have a girlfriend. Danielle is my girlfriend. She’s going on this trip with us, and I can’t have anything go awry.

“I said you don’t have to go. My dad was going to pick me up tomorrow.” He’s still not looking at me. Why won’t he raise his eyes and look me in the face?

“Well, that was then and this is now,” I remark, clicking the unlock button for my Mercedes G Wagon. The lights flash, and the back hatch opens. I throw my bag in and extend my hand to reach for the ones in Hunter’s hands.

He stands there, staring at his shoes on the pavement. Not making a sound.

“Give me the bags, Collins,” I bark impatiently. The faster we get on the road, the faster we get this weekend over with, and I can go back to living my normal life.

He rolls Danielle’s over to me, pulling his duffel off the top and holding it securely at his side.

“You and her can go do something else. I’m not sure what she expects to happen this weekend, but it’s usually pretty boring.”

“I figured it would be, but I know how Danielle is.” I hear his sharp intake of breath and realized I’ve fucked up. He’s not boring, nothing about him could be boring. I don’t even know the guy, but he consumes my every thought.

Right down to the scrunch of his nose when he’s thinking hard, especially when he’s in the library hunched over his laptop.

It pulls his top lip up higher, showing off the small scar that I want to know the backstory of.

Was it an accident as a kid running in the park to get to a swing set?

Tripping and falling because he thought it would be fun to wear his dad’s dress shoes when they were too big?

Not that I’ve been watching him or anything, but everyone goes to the library to study. Even if he hasn’t been there much the past week, now I know why.

“I didn’t mean,” I start to apologize, but Danielle chooses that moment to come strutting up like she’s on a catwalk.

“Is the car still not packed? We need to get on the road! We’re burning daylight. Hunter, I have to ride shotgun. I get carsick if I sit in the back.” She doesn't see the sad look on his face, or maybe she does and is choosing to ignore it.

“That’s fine,” he murmurs, and Danielle claps her hands loudly.

“Adam, be a doll and put the last bag in the car, yeah? I have the snacks and the drinks, and I have a playlist already queued up for the drive.” She shoulder-checks Hunter while she walks by, and then wraps her arm around his shoulders, pulling him in close and pressing a kiss on the crown of his head.

The jealousy in my veins is welcome. It’s a reprieve from the miserable feeling bubbling inside of me.

I’m jealous because Hunter is getting attention from my girlfriend.

Not because she’s giving attention I want to give him.

Danielle gets in the front seat, shutting the door loudly. Hunter glances at me out of the corner of his eyes, the brown lighting up gold in the fading sunlight.

He’s… gorgeous. Like the bluest sky on a cloudy day, it’s not the in-your-face beauty that most people come to expect. It’s the subtle beauty in the dainty structure of his face.

Stop. Stop thinking about that.

Getting in the car, I take a deep breath to clear my head, waiting as Danielle hooks her phone up to my car so she can do the playlist and GPS.

It’s just a three-hour car drive, according to the screen. I can make it. Lesser men than I have stayed strong in the face of temptation.

We’re thirty minutes into the drive before Danielle is begging to stop.

She does this all the time, so I find the nearest and nicest gas station to stop at off the highway.

“In and out,” I tell her, parking the car in front of the door.

“We still have two and a half hours to go.” She blows a raspberry and gets out, shutting me and Hunter inside together.

The silence is stifling.

“So,” I say, looking into the rearview mirror, trying to catch Hunter’s eyes. His head is turned, and he’s staring out the window. His arm is propped up, with his head resting securely in the palm of his hand.

I tap my fingers on my steering wheel to an imaginary beat, wishing that my phone was connected so at least there would be something to distract me.

“Why are you going home? Brit said they normally don’t want freshmen going home.”

No response.

“Okayyyy,” I draw out. “I guess I’ll just keep talking to my fucking self.

” I don’t even know why I’m trying to make conversation with him.

After this weekend, I’m not going to see him again.

I’ll let him and Danielle hang out whenever they want.

I’ll avoid the café. I’ll do whatever it takes to put distance between the two of us.

Danielle comes out of the gas station, and I stare at her.

I’m trying to force feelings that aren’t there, and I do love her.

But we have always been friends with an understanding.

Her mom and my parents came to an agreement when we were too young to understand what was going on.

As long as we play the game, she can keep this cushy lifestyle she’s used to.

And that’s the least I can do for her when she has always been here for me.

When I get my inheritance, and she gets out from her mother’s claws, we’ll both be free.

Danielle opens the back door, and I watch as Hunter slumps and starts to fall out of the seat. “Dani—” I’m cut off by Hunter jerking and catching himself on the doorframe.

“What?” he says, his voice drowsy. A red crease across his cheek from where he’s been resting it. His eyes are bleary when they catch on mine, and I feel the panic subside a small amount. My worry for him overshadows the feelings I’m trying to avoid.

“You were asleep?” I demand.

He nods sheepishly, turning his head away from me and looking at Danielle, standing in a parking lot in her cut-off Hello Kitty T-shirt and booty shorts.

His eyes should be on me, not on her.

“Oh! My bad, Hunt! I was going to ask if you wanted to switch seats. I took some Dramamine, so I should be okay to ride in the back.” My mouth gapes widely because, in all the time I’ve been going places with Danielle, she’s never ridden in the back.

She’s never even offered. And all of a sudden, she takes some medicine and she’s fine? I call bullshit.

“No, Danielle. Get in the front seat, I’m not stopping again.” She huffs in annoyance, tucking her red hair behind her ears and glaring at me between the gap in the seats.

“If Hunt wants to ride up front, he can,” she argues, and I can’t hold back my eye roll. She has a nickname for him now, how cute.

“No. Now get in the car. Before I leave you here and you have to walk back to campus.”

“It’s fine, Danielle. I’m used to riding in the back.” Of course that’s not good enough for Danielle.

She steps onto my running board and lies herself across the backseat and Hunter’s lap. “What are you doing?” he asks with a chuckle. The happy sound lights a fire inside of me, which I quickly extinguish.

“I’m taking a nap back here,” she remarks.

I silently beg for any all-mighty being to take pity on me, because being in a confined space together is already bad enough for my fucked-up thoughts.

But having him right beside me, close enough I can see every small detail of his body, will be my damnation.

“Okay, watch out. I’ll get up front,” Hunter says, and I mentally curse everyone out who is secretly rooting for my downfall. This is their doing.

I can’t keep my eyes off him while he readjusts himself to get out from under Danielle and comes to the passenger side. I could lock the door, lock him out and force him to find his own way back. I won’t, because even though I live up to my reputation as an asshole, I can’t do that to him.

Hunter climbs in, his lithe body flexing while he sits.

The shorts he’s wearing are riding up and showing off a sliver of his upper thigh.

In the fading light, I can see a sprinkle of dark hair, and I have to pull my eyes away.

I don’t care about his leg hair, or what it would feel like under my palm.

“Are we ready to go now?”

I get two affirmations, and I place the car in reverse and back out of the spot. Hunter turns his body toward mine, and I can smell the faintest hint of his cologne.

Two and a half hours to go, and I’m already losing my fucking mind. The smell of him now fills my senses. A coconut and honey scent that made my brain fuzzy and my fingers tingle with the need to do… something. Anything.

Danielle’s light snores interrupted the Miley Cyrus song that was streaming through my speakers. I cut my eyes over to Hunter’s to see him biting his lip. His eyes connected with mine, and the mirth inside them is a balm to my wretched soul.

He released the hold on his lip, and my eyes were drawn to the pink skin while he whispers, “Does she always snore?”

“All the time, don’t tell her that, though. She’ll be pissed.” He covers his mouth with his hand, but I can still hear the choked laughter, and I join in, his happiness boosting my own.

Another thirty minutes in, and I’m bored with the playlist.

“Want to play a game?” I ask Hunter, hoping to fuck he will. My last resort is disconnecting Danielle’s phone and hooking mine up. I’m not sure how Hunter feels about rock, but I would rather not scare him away with my taste in music.

“Sure, what game?” he asks hesitantly.

“Anything.”

“When I was younger, and my dad would take us on vacation, my mom always played this game with me. I know it sounds cheesy, but it made the time pass by quickly.”

Exactly what I need.

“Explain the game to me?”

“Okay, so… You say a word. And then I say a word. We’re going to create a story out of the mismatched words. It can be any word, but the goal is to make something that makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, we have to start all over.”

Well, that sounds easy enough. “Let’s do it,” I say, a jittering feeling starting in the tips of my fingers where I have them gripped tightly around the leather steering wheel.

Hunter starts. “There.”

“Once,” I reply, getting the next word in my head ready. No matter what he says, I’ll be ready.

“Was.”

“Fourteen.”

“Ducks.” Fuck, this is going to be harder than I thought. The purpose of the game is to tell a story, but each person can only say one word at a time. And that makes this fucking hard.

“Walking.”

“Away.”

“From.”

“The.”

“Bakery.” Hunter lets out a loud laugh, and I hear Danielle rustle in the background. We both freeze, glancing at each other and waiting to see if she wakes up. The selfish part of me hopes she doesn’t.

Once the coast is clear, we start back on our game.

Pulling into the driveway of a quaint house in a small neighborhood, I’m hit with a sense of home.

The type of home I dreamed about having as a kid.

I look at Hunter with his brown hair, slightly messy on top from where he’s been running his fingers through it on the drive.

His brown eyes are practically black, matching the night sky.

This is where he grew up. Where he had a normal childhood with parents who loved him and played games with him on road trips. A part inside of me cracks, seeing that some people actually got to live this life that I only pictured with my eyes closed.

My cheeks hurt from how hard I was smiling while me and Hunter created the tale of fourteen ducks who walked past a bakery.

Somehow they ended up in outer space with fresh baked croissants and a large lemonade for all of them to share.

Fourteen names with fourteen different backgrounds who all ended up congregating at a random bakery and having an intense journey.

It was the most fun I’ve had in a while.

It makes sense that this is where Hunter grew up, a family in between these four walls. This trip that I was resenting might turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.