Hunter sighs and follows me out of the water. Instead of drying himself off with a towel, he just wipes the water off his body with his hands and lets the sun do the rest of the work. The sun is already starting to set, but its light rays reflect off of the water droplets on Hunter's skin. His perfect, flawless skin.
"Sorry, doll," he says simply, putting an arm around me and pulling me in as I stand huddled beneath the towel. "There was no right way to tell you this."
I shake my head, as if I were in disbelief, but I'm not. If there's one word that describes Hunter Thorne, it's "decisive." When he makes up his mind, there's no changing it. And as much as I want to plead and beg with him to regain his sanity, I know deep down that he's perfectly sane. High school romances rarely last. Everyone says it. Everyone told me that, and I didn't listen. Now I'm paying the price.
I break away from him again and sit on a rock. He's like a Greek statue standing there, or a romance cover model. "When are you leaving?" I ask.
He looks me straight in the eye. "Tomorrow."
It should be another cyclone that tilts my reality, but I let it sink in, like the truth it is. "Wow," I say. "Twenty-four hours notice." I can't help but notice the doubts creeping into my mind. Maybe he just doesn't feel the same way about me. After all, if he did, he wouldn't be able to leave so easily.
But it doesn't matter anymore. Last time I lost someone important to me, when my mom died when I was a kid, I stayed angry about it for a long time. It accomplished nothing. The least I can do is not repeat the same mistake twice.
"Alright," I say, willing myself to accept the situation like I'm some kind of Buddhist monk. "Your mind is clearly made up, and I'm not going to be able to change it. Then let's enjoy the rest of the time we have together."
He swoops down to the rock I'm sitting on, catches my cheek in his hand, and kisses me deeply. His tongue swirls on mine, brushing against my lips, and I try as hard as I can to memorize his taste. To remember it for as long as I can, before time sweeps it away forever. That's one of the things about life. What's most important to you one day, can sometimes be nothing more than a forgotten memory in the future.
"Help me up," I say, and I lock fingers with him. He pulls me up and my towel falls onto the ground, exposing my braless, wet t-shirt silhouette to Hunter. His eyes sweep up and down my body.
"I'm yours tonight," I say, resigned to embrace reality. "All of me."
A deep rumble escapes his chest, an animalistic sound of desire. "I'm taking you," he says. "There's nowhere I'd rather be tonight than inside you."
Hot arousal threads through my muscles, and I ache. For him, and for the future that we won't get to spend together. "There's nothing that I want more," I say.
We leave our stuff where it lays next to the pool, and we hike up toward the peak of Maple Ridge. The sun is setting, the air cooling. Twigs and dried leaves crackle under my shoes as we follow the footpath up the hill, and the dry air blows easily through my t-shirt and shorts, passing through the fabric like it's nothing, like I'm naked.
For Hunter Thorne, I'll always be naked. My body and my mind.
When we reach the ridge's peak, there's a clearing with a rusty old swing set, a slide practically guaranteed to give a kid tetanus, and a few flat-cut tree stumps cut as seats. Below, our sleepy little town of Maple Ridge patiently awaits the moonrise.
Hunter sits on one of the tree stumps, and I straddle him, swinging my leg over his. I face him, and feel his lips tickling mine. His hard cock strains against me, and I palm it through his pants, stroking it softly. He groans softly and bites my lip.
"Your body is mine tonight," he growls. "For the last time."
1
Tess
6 Months Ago
The thick, decadent aroma of chocolate cake wafts from the oven, filling the kitchen. My tummy growls. A Days of Our Lives rerun plays on the TV set in the den, and I half-listen to it as I beat the bowl of buttercream frosting sitting on the counter.
Lazy afternoons always feel the best to me. From my kitchen, the command post of our modest ranch-style house, I can do everything while I wait for my husband Roger to come home from his accounting job in Springville. I can prepare dinner, listen to the TV, watch the sun fall in the sky, and keep an eye on the neighborhood kids playing on the corner.
For the first couple years of our marriage, Roger worked here in Maple Ridge. Then they built the new highway to Springville, 50 miles west, and all the jobs here started disappearing. His included.
I always thought I'd have a high-powered career as a famous chef and restauranteur, but life got in the way after Hunter left during the summer after senior year. Mom was already long gone, and then Dad got sick with cancer too and needed me to take care of him. I knew how much he wanted me to have a secure future, so somewhere along the line I met Roger and completely gave up my foolish fantasy of Hunter ever coming back for me.
"You're being irrational," Dad said to me before he died. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. He told you not to wait, and you shouldn't."
When I was 18, Hunter seemed like my soulmate. But as time passed, that idea faded. I missed him for a long time, but I slowly came to accept that most high school romances really aren't meant to last forever, and that I would meet someone else who made me feel the way he did.
Being a housewife to Roger isn't bad, I guess. He's an accountant. We have a stable home life, even if his salary isn't what it used to be, and even though he isn't able to give me a baby. I can't blame him for that. It's not like it's his fault.
I finish beating the frosting, put a strip of saran wrap over the bowl, and wipe my sticky fingers on the apron that covers my curvy figure. I guess I'm just big-boned, because once I passed 25, I just seemed to develop new curves every day. Men like them, though, I know Roger does. They're healthy curves. I go for a two-mile jog each morning, weights twice a week, and the occasional spin class with my best girlfriend Meg. But a girl can't just eat leafy greens every day. Food is life, food is pleasure.
I suck a stray blob of frosting off my thumb. It's heaven.
All in all, my life here in Maple Ridge could be a lot worse, so I try not to worry too much about dreams that have fallen by the wayside. Instead I try to look at the glass half-full.
Plus, I keep myself occupied. In addition to working out with Meg, I read at least one romance novel a day and I have a nice little side business on Etsy, selling homemade soap and candles. I'd prefer to bake cakes and try to sell them here in town, but Roger says we can really use the side money I make, and he's not much for taking risks. So I keep doing what I'm doing.
I check the timer and peek in the oven, when the computer dings a new notification in the den, the sound of a new Facebook message. Roger doesn't usually leave his Facebook open, but I shrug it off. Besides, I'm not supposed to touch that computer. Roger likes his privacy, and last year he gave me my own laptop.
But as I'm pouring myself a tall glass of sweet tea, there's another message, and then another. And for some reason, curiosity gets the best of me.
Carrying my iced tea, the glass already slippery with condensation in this Tennessee summer heat, I saunter into the den. It's big but modest. It reminds me of Roger's parents' place. After all, the furniture is mostly theirs. The green shag-style carpeting is tacky and I hate it, but we don't have the money to replace it. Besides, I'd rather do the kitchen first.
I sit down on the barbershop-style chair in front of our antique wooden desk, and shake the computer mouse to wake the computer. I pull up Google Chrome, and click to the tab flashing with a new Facebook message on Roger's account.
When I read the name in the message box, I frown. It's from a "Sandra Lawrence." But we don't have any friends by that name, and she's definitely not a resident of Maple Ridge. I'm pretty sure I've heard the names of every one of our town's 3000 or so residents, even if I don't know them personally.
I click into the message.
Roger u leaving
soon?
You there?
I frown, and I feel a knot starting to tie itself in my stomach. Roger's never given me any reason to believe he's anything other than honest, but I don't like the look of this. I scroll up to older messages.
Thank u for last nite, can't wait for the weekend x
The knot in my stomach explodes into a fireball. I scroll up further, and as I read through Roger and Sandra's messages, I find everything that I hoped I would never find between my husband and another woman.
Naked pictures. Made-up business trips. Weeknight dates when he told me he was working late at the office.
The soap opera playing on the television fades to a blur in the back of my mind, and my whole body starts to shake. I push the iced tea away from me on the desk, no longer thirsty.
My entire world has gone up in flames in the span of five minutes. This life with Roger, this life that I've given up all my hopes and dreams to pursue—it's a lie.
It's all a lie. And my honest, forthright, moral husband, is really none of those things at all. He's a lying cheater.
Wiping a tear off my cheek with my sleeve, I stumble back into the kitchen and realize the egg timer is beeping. The cake is done.
Roger's birthday cake.
Since I don't know what else to do, I take the cake out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack on the kitchen counter. Then I take a seat, fold my arms on the table, and bury my face in my arms.
Four, maybe five minutes later, the front door opens. I hear Roger set down his briefcase and keys.
"Tess, honey, I'm home," he calls from the den, and his footsteps get louder as he approaches the kitchen.
I lift my head up as he enters. There he is, in his pressed blue suit, smiling a fake smile. We were supposed to spend the evening together for his birthday, before his 10:30pm business flight. But now, thanks to his Facebook chat history, I know exactly what was going to happen.
He was going to catch a flight to Honolulu with Sandra.
He was going to come home and kiss me, eat the birthday cake I baked for him with a straight face, and then fly to Hawaii with his side piece. All while continuing to tell me that our money is tight.
All while I continue working my ass off selling scented soap and candles on Etsy, just so he can work a little less overtime in the office.
"Overtime." What a joke.
I grab the cake off the counter as he approaches, and his big fake smile fades as he reads the expression on my face.
"What's wrong, buttercup?" he asks. His hands settle on my shoulders, and I freeze up like a corpse in winter soil. I feel physically sick to my stomach.
"Did you make this for me?" he asks in a baby-talk voice. "Did you bake a cake for me before I go on my trip?"
I hold the cake rack in my hands, frozen. The chocolate smells delicious, but I couldn't eat a crumb of it right now. I'd planned to have the cake frosted and candles lit when he walked in the room. Instead, the candles lay unopened next to a box of matches on the table.
"H-happy," I say, my voice shaking. And then everything hits me for real. Roger's smile fades as I burst into tears, my salty teardrops falling onto the cake with soft thuds.
"Happy birthday, you asshole," I manage to sputter. Then I shove the cake in his face, and he stumbles backward, shocked. He wipes the cake out of his eyes, his fingers leaving shiny, greasy trails on his cheeks.
"Tess, what… in the hell?" he says, taken aback.
"Stay away from me," I say, my face streaked with salty tears. "I know everything. How could you?"
He stares at me like an ox, a dumbfounded look on his face.
Right then, another Facebook notification goes off in the den. The timing couldn't be any more perfect. And then Roger has his "oh-shit" moment, his eyes bulging.
"I'm leaving," I say. "I'm leaving tonight, and we're finished." I storm toward the exit, but he blocks my trajectory, his eyes pleading.
"Wait," he begs, "This isn't what it looks like." I try to swoop around him, but he catches me by the shoulders.
I recoil, shrugging away from him. "Keep your hands off me," I say, slapping them away. "You made a promise. A vow. There's no coming back from that."
"I can explain," he says.
"No," I say. "You can't. And you'll never get the chance."
And in one horrible afternoon, my marriage comes to its conclusion. I file divorce papers the very next day.
A couple weeks later, I sit in an unfurnished apartment. I'm on the parquet wood flooring, cardboard boxes surrounding me. All my stuff from Roger's place. The apartment feels cookie-cutter, cold, and nothing like home. The single ceiling light isn't enough to really light the place after the sun goes down, and it casts a sickly yellow glow against the apartment walls.
Fortunately, I had enough money in my savings account to move out on my own. If there's one thing I can feel good about, it's that I didn't let Roger weasel his way out of this. Didn't listen to his fake explanations, his excuses. For days after I moved out of the house, he didn't stop blowing up my phones with texts and calls. It was sickening how he tried to explain everything away, how he tried to lie to me and tell me that nothing was really happening. And after he gave up on the excuses and lies, it was pathetic how he begged me to stay.
I don't feel like I can ever trust a man again.
Right now, I have to focus on unpacking and keeping my Etsy customers happy. As much as I'm tempted to sit around feeling sorry for myself and eating Chef Boyardee out of a can in my underwear, I won't do it. I've grieved enough for my marriage in the last couple weeks, and now I'm going to be strong and make the best I can out of the future.
Exhausted, I rise off the floor and navigate my way through the maze of boxes toward my new apartment's small kitchenette. I've only got a few things in the fridge. Tonight is going to be a PB&J sandwich and maybe a glass of milk. Cooking is normally my pleasure and my escape, but I'm not even interested in it right now.
For the first time in my adult life, I'm completely responsible for myself, and there's no one to take care of me.
I have a hard choice to make, now that my life as I knew it is over.
I can upend everything. Take out student loans and go into debt, and finally go to culinary school, the first step toward opening my own restaurant.
Or, I can play it safe and keep paying the bills with my Etsy business.
The choice nags at me as I spread chunky peanut butter and cherry jelly on two slabs of white bread.
I'm 26 years old. I'm ready for a change. But is it too late to start over?
2
Hunter
I twist my bike's throttle, thundering into the open road ahead, savoring the feeling of the warm night air rushing past me. I'm wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeve flannel shirt that covers my tattooed arms, and a pair of goggles. My one duffel bag, which contains all of my worldly possessions, sits strapped to the bike behind me.
No riding jacket, no Kevlar pants, no armor, no helmet. After eight years of service in the Navy, including six long, dangerous years deployed as a SEAL, I'm not fucking scared of a little bike ride.
Shit, even if I wreck, who'd miss me? My mom ran away when I was just a kid. The only person who ever gave a damn about me was my old man, and him getting killed in a raid in Somalia was the reason I joined the SEALs in the first place.
When I left Maple Ridge, I was just a stupid kid who thought he was tough shit. The operative word being "stupid." I thought joining the Navy was my patriotic duty, my way to avenge my old man's death and find glory. I didn't know what tough was.
What I got was a hard-knock education in the world and in war. I don't regret a fucking minute of it, because it made me the man I am today. But there's nothing glorious about war. War is war. It never changes. And it taught me you better hang on to what you got here and now, because tomorrow it could all be gone in an instant.
So, I maybe got one regret. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Tess Cassidy, th
e girl I skipped town on so long ago. That firecracker personality, those curves that went on for days, those gorgeous, round tits that I could hardly keep my eyes and hands off of. Shit, that whole last year of high school, I think I fucked her more than I've fucked every other woman in the last 8 years combined. And I'd do it all over again a thousand times.
And back then, she was more than just a hot-as-fuck plaything. She was the only girl who ever made me want more.
Of course, that's a long time in the past now.
And word got to me that she married some white-collar asshole. Last I heard of her and tightey-whitey, they were shacked up together in the suburbs.
She's out of sight, out of mind, and won't cause me any fucking sweat while I'm here. I won't even have to think about her. I'm going in, handling my shit, and then getting the hell out. Easy enough, right?
I'd probably fucking tear tightey-whitey's organs out of his body if I saw him with Tess, but hey. I hope they're real happy together. Really.
Now, it's just me on my own. And that's the way I fucking want it. No one to bother me. My plan is to get to Maple Ridge, take care of old business, then ride this bike up to Alaska where no one can find me for the next few years. A long-needed break after my military service.
I squeeze my legs against the beast beneath me. It responds well to each adjustment of the throttle, brimming with power. It's the kind of bike that gives a man an extra edge of confidence out here on the open road. The highway is empty of other vehicles right now. It's just me, the road lights, and the walls of green on either side of the road, rushing past me as my bike hums faithfully between my legs.
As I round the big bend on US-456, the Maple Ridge exit comes into view, and memories flood into my mind like water surging past a dam. I push on my bike's handlebars, cross-steering to take the gentle, sloping turn into the exit.
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