HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1)

by Lexie Ray

  "Are they going to be a problem?" she asked me, the tone of her voice suggesting that they better not be. “My last roommate didn’t like them.”

  "Of course not," I said, though I'd never owned a pet in my life. They all seemed civil enough. No less than three curled around my legs simultaneously. “I like animals.”

  "When do you want to bring your stuff in?" Anne asked, sounding relieved.

  I grinned as nonchalantly as I could. "This is it," I said, holding out my arms and indicating my purse. I’d stuffed a few essentials into it before fleeing Nate’s condo. "I'm very low maintenance."

  Anne frowned, crossing her beefy arms. I could see part of a tattoo protruding from below the sleeve of her T-shirt. "You have the cash for rent, don't you?" she asked.

  "I have checks," I said, tearing one out of the book. I’d already made it out to her in the exact amount of the rent for one month. "It won't bounce, I promise. I just opened the account today. Cash it. You'll see."

  Anne took the check and examined it before looking up at me slowly. "Are you in some kind of trouble?" She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

  Trouble? Only for my entire life. Sister, could I tell you some stories, I thought, but wisely decided to go with another route.

  I smiled apologetically. "I'm going through a big breakup."

  Anne held up her hands. "Men are pigs," she proclaimed. "Say no more. Unless you want to. I can empathize. You're welcome to stay here as long as you like--as long as the checks clear and you are who you say you are."

  "Thank you," I breathed. "You're a lifesaver."

  My room was furnished, which was a blessing. I wondered if it was Anne’s furniture or whether it belonged to the roommate who hadn’t been able to handle all the cats. The bed, chest of drawers, and tiny closet were more than enough for me, the girl who didn’t have anything but rent money and a broken heart.

  The rest of the apartment was small and a little outdated. The kitchen had a stove and range but no microwave. The ancient refrigerator contained equal parts people food and cat food. I learned to walk carefully when I moved around the apartment—there were always felines underfoot.

  Overall, Anne tried to keep her home clean, but it was nearly impossible to do so with all the cats around. If they weren’t shedding their fur over every surface, they were kicking litter all over the linoleum floor in the kitchen. They knocked over their water and food bowls constantly, shredded any sheet of paper lying around, and occupied my lap the moment I sat still.

  As soon as I got settled in and saw the state of Anne’s apartment, I fell into cleaning mode immediately, sweeping two times a day and keeping the litter box pristine after I watched Anne do it once. I wiped down every surface of the kitchen with hot, soapy water after I noticed the tuxedo cat prancing along the countertop. None of the cats were disciplined, but I realized they were probably some substitution for something missing in Anne’s life. She’d called men pigs and collected cats instead. It sort of made sense—trading animals for animals.

  “You’re really good at this,” Anne said one evening, stunned to sit down on the couch and not come away furry. I’d refused to believe it was past saving, running a tiny vacuum over the upholstery and having to change the bag twice before I’d gotten all the cat hair.

  “I’ve been a cleaning lady in several of my past lives,” I said, trying not to think of the most recent one. Thinking about Nate cut me to the bone.

  I walked a lot over the next few weeks, crossing and re-crossing streets while trying to exorcise the demons that were threatening to consume me over Nate. I thought his betrayal would get easier to stomach with time, but it only got worse and worse.

  A full month passed and I nervously wrote another check for rent and gave it to Anne. I’d been calling businesses that had listed their help wanted ads in the same circular I found my new roommate in, but none of them seemed willing to hire someone with no experience besides a nightclub waitress. I was extremely eager to avoid doing that again, but I felt as if my options were running out. What was going to happen next month when I could write a check but it would bounce when Anne tried to deposit it?

  Glumly, I began calling bars, offering my services as a cocktail waitress. I got several offers, but resisted committing to anything. Weren’t there any other options?

  One night, while petting one of Anne’s cats and feeling more than a little down about my situation, she cleared her throat. “Have you found a job yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I said, “but I’m looking.” I hoped she would leave it at that, but I was disappointed.

  “Are you doing okay with money?”

  “The check cleared for this month, didn’t it?” I retorted. Why was Anne so concerned? I wasn’t in the mood to get needled about my financial situation.

  “It did clear, but I was just worried,” she said. “You seem to be eating only peanut butter.”

  I sighed, feeling a rush of gratitude toward my roommate. She was only concerned about me—and rightfully so. “I’m so tired of peanut butter,” I admitted.

  Anne laughed. “Well, I have good news for you,” she said. “The bookstore I work at needs to fill an open position immediately, and I told them my roommate would be willing to come in and work.”

  I perked up immediately. “You did? I love books! I organized a whole office full of them once!”

  I felt the pang of loss immediately when I thought back on accomplishing that task for Nate. Had that really been only four weeks ago? It seemed like yesterday when I was so excited about finishing it, hugging him, sharing my body with him. It hurt so bad to think about being with him. Love had converted almost entirely to pain.

  “Come in with me tomorrow,” Anne was saying. “We’ll let my manager meet you, but I know you’ll be hired right away. They’re super desperate for help and can’t really go through a long hiring process.”

  “Thanks for this, Anne,” I said sincerely. “You won’t regret it.”

  The bookstore was an independently owned business, a welcome alternative to the big box chain stores that usually dominated the market. It had a fiercely loyal clientele and did well in serving its niche market. In one corner of the cozy store, there was a small coffee shop, brewing free trade beans from around the world. Overstuffed chairs dotted the floor, encouraging customers to sit with their purchases and read. The walls were covered with quotes from books both famous and not famous. I could bet that they were favorite quotes of the people who worked at the bookstore.

  The counter at the front of the store where people purchased their books contained one old-timey register. It was mostly for show, Anne explained, but it did still function for cash and check transactions. For credit cards, there was a scanner. I liked the atmosphere immediately. It felt warm and inviting, like a place for curious minds to gather and expand. The manager adored me, especially when I showed him how he could better organize a display table to make the books easier to find and more visually pleasing than before.

  “You have a real gem here, Anne,” he said.

  She nodded and I shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I just really love books,” I said.

  I learned the cash register fairly quickly, but it was the stocking that I truly loved. I loved to run my fingers over the new books, freshly shipped from publishers, and find them homes on the shelves. I liked to take stock of the very same shelves, seeing which books had sold, thus finding new homes on other people’s bookshelves, and needing me to fill the newly emptied slots. I knew where every volume was in that bookstore and could help customers find anything as long as we were selling it.

  I pulled cash register duty one day as a new shipment of books came in. Anne was opening the box in the tiny storeroom behind me as I rang up sales.

  “Hey, Jasmine,” she called. “Got your book in here.”

  “Which book is that?” I asked. I’d also started reading all of the books I could get my hands on. The bookstore gave me a discount, but I’d also di
scovered the public library, too. There were lots of books that I considered “my book.” I couldn’t pick a favorite.

  “Check it out,” Anne said. She tossed me a copy of the book in question, titled “A Message to Jasmine.”

  “Very funny,” I called back, then choked on my words when I saw the name of the author.

  Nate King. Nate. King. Maybe it was just some screwed up coincidence, I told myself, my hands trembling as I held the book. It couldn’t be my Nate King. Well, certainly not the Nate King that had been mine. Could it? I opened the book to the first page and gasped.

  “To the real Jasmine,” the dedication page read, under which was the photo of me holding my arm up below the Statue of Liberty, and grinning. I remembered that day well. Lady Liberty had been closed to visitors, but we still strolled around her island home. I had always meant to go back to see if she was open.

  My God. It really was Nate’s book. I was holding the culmination of all of his sleepless nights in my grasp. The book he was rushing to finish before he died of cancer. This was it.

  Compulsively, I turned to where the narrative began. The book was classified under fiction even though it was called “A Message to Jasmine” and was dedicated to me. What did it contain? I started reading.

  This is a story about a girl who was cursed. From the beginning of her life, she was doomed to die. She had to accept her fate, just like her parents, her parents' parents, and her parents' parents' parents.

  Or so she thought.

  As soon as she was old enough to understand her grim destiny, Jasmine began to prepare for death. She started by giving everything she owned away. Jasmine wouldn't need material things where she was going.

  When all she had left were the clothes on her back, she went to the sea to wait for the curse to exact itself on her. If she was going to die anyway, what was the point of doing anything at all? She was the last living member of her family. Everything would end with her.

  While she was sitting there, waiting for death, a stranger happened by. He took one look at her glazed stare and plopped down beside her.

  "You're a girl who's waiting for something, I can tell," the stranger said. "Is it a parade?"

  "No," Jasmine said. "I'm waiting for death to find me."

  "Death!" the man exclaimed. "Why, death will find us all, soon enough. No need to sit around and wait for it."

  "I am going to die because I am cursed," she said calmly. "There is nothing I can do about it."

  "Well, of course there is!" the stranger said. "You can live your life. That's the best anyone can do, really."

  I looked up, blinking rapidly. This was like the first time Nate and I met, the time I was ready to throw myself off the cliff. Only it was strange—I had found him sitting, not the other way around. Who was the one waiting to die in this story?

  I thought back to that time, remembering how I laughed with Nate about strange ways to die. I remembered him being particularly interested when I suggested death by curse. He took notes on that ever-present pad of paper.

  In fact, I remembered him taking lots and lots of notes on that pad of paper. Had he been constructing this story even as we built our life together? What was the end he saw for us? I had to know before reading anything else. Had we ended the way Nate King thought we would?

  I flipped to the end of the book, gobbling up the words with my eyes. There was a line of customers waiting for me to ring them up, but I couldn’t stop.

  Jasmine looked down at the swirl of marks on her body. They had covered her since she was born, evidence that she was to die. They were physical evidence of the curse.

  "I always thought they were from the curse," she said, voicing her thoughts.

  "Wrong," the stranger said. "They were the answer to lifting the curse this whole time."

  "I don't understand," she said. "How are they the answer?"

  "Only you can read their message," the stranger said. He began to walk away.

  "Wait!" she called after him. "Who are you? How do you know all this?"

  "I am the Messenger," he said over his shoulder, continuing to walk away. "My purpose was to help you realize that you didn't have to remain cursed. Now that you know, my task is over."

  "But I don't know how to read the marks!" Jasmine cried, but he was too far away to hear her.

  She looked down at the marks covering her body and found that, suddenly, their shapes and language made sense to her. All she had to know was that she could read them, and they made their message clear to her.

  "Let go," they said simply. "Let go."

  Jasmine understood. "I am not cursed," she said, closing her eyes.

  When she opened them, the marks were gone.

  I wept, my tears dotting the open pages. All I had to do was let go. Maybe I’d bear the scars of my past forever. Maybe the physical reminders would fade. But all I had to do to move forward was let go. Let go. I knew what I needed to do.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked up, tears coursing down my face. The customer at the counter looked at me in concern.

  “Is the book that moving?” he asked. “If it is, I’ll take it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. A sob burst out from between my lips.

  “Jasmine?”

  Anne came out of the storeroom and stared at me. Maybe I had been an emotional wreck this entire time away from Nate, but she’d never witnessed me crying. I’d been very careful about that.

  “Do you need to leave?” she asked. “I can cover for you.”

  “It really is my book,” I blurted out, lifting the volume. “My boyfriend—my ex-boyfriend—Nate King—I’m the Jasmine in this book.”

  I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked my body.

  “He wrote this for me,” I said finally. “And I have to go to him.”

  “Then you should go,” the customer said, pumping his fist in the air.

  “Now I really want to read that book,” another remarked from farther back in the line.

  “Good luck,” Anne added. “Better keep that book.”

  “Take it out of my paycheck,” I said, already turning to leave.

  Clutching it to my chest, I grabbed my purse and ran out the door. I flagged down the first taxi I saw and directed the driver to take me to Nate’s condo in East Village.

  While I was riding along, I reread some of the most moving passages of the book. I knew that I could let go of the bad things that had happened. The markings on the Jasmine in the book were my own scars. Nate must have rewritten that ending after we’d made love.

  I knew my scars would likely be a part of me forever. But not everything else had to. I could let those things go, forget about them. Move on with my life in a positive direction. I didn’t have to be damaged for the rest of my days.

  There was one thing, however, that I wasn’t willing to let go of, and that was my love for Nate. I didn’t care how long he had to live. I only wanted to make sure I was there for every single moment.

  I paid the driver and hopped out as soon as he pulled up to the building. The doorman waved at me as I jogged by and hopped in the elevator. I bet he wondered what I had been doing away for so long. At least I had found my way back.

  I approached Nate’s door and hesitated. What if he wasn’t even home? What if—what if I’d hurt him too badly? I gulped, trying to get my heart to return to its place in my chest from its current residence in my throat. What if he was already dead? This last thought was unbearable. I beat on the door with one fist, then with both.

  “Please open the door, please open the door,” I chanted beneath my breath.

  I felt equal parts terror and relief when the chain rattled and the door opened.

  “Jasmine?”

  Nate looked disheveled, like perhaps he hadn’t shaved in about a week or so. His hair was messed up, and by the fuzzy look on his face, I guessed that I’d woken him from a nap.

  I didn’t care. He was the most beautiful thin
g I’d ever laid eyes on. I threw my arms around his neck and he stumbled backwards into the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, my words tumbling out. “I saw the book, I have it. I’m so sorry. I know how to let go now, I do. I just can’t--I can’t let go of you. I love you too much. I’m so sorry.”

  My words were jumbled and confusing in my rush to get them out. They weren’t quite making sense in my mind, but I hoped Nate could understand them. I needed to make him understand.

  Nate held me close. “I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said. “I never wanted you to feel like I was using you. I was never using you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. You were desperate but utterly beautiful. When we talked that day on the cliff, something inside me clicked. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with someone—no matter how long the rest of it was going to be.”

  I was weeping with relief, love, and sadness. How could I waste a single moment without being with this beautiful man?

  “You need to have a full disclosure,” Nate said, pulling away a little bit to look me in the eyes. “I want there to be complete understanding between us. The cancer that I have—the survival rate is dismal. I was diagnosed just before I met you. I’d quit my real estate job that day we met each other on the cliff. I was there on that cliff trying to figure my life out at the exact same time you were trying to figure yours out. I thought it…maybe it meant something that we were brought together at that very moment.”

  Of course, I thought, the story. The Jasmine in Nate’s book represented both Nate and me at the same time. She had been melded with elements from both of our situations, and the stranger—or the Messenger, as he turned out to be in the end—was both of us, as well. We had both been presented with desperate situations, but with both offered solutions for each other. Solutions and solace. And love. We truly belonged together. If I had only suspected before, I was sure of it now.