by Piper Kay
“Mmm, something smells great,” I say, leaning against the door frame.
“Damn, Ell, you scared the shit out me,” he says, making his way over. He snakes his arms around my waist, drawing me in for one of his breathtaking kisses.
“This is something I could get used to,” I tell him as we pull apart.
“Come, dinner’s here.” He takes me by the hand, leading me over to the little dinette table. He has a beer for each of us waiting along with paper plates, napkins, and packets of parmesan and crushed red peppers.
“Pepperoni, my fav,” I announce, blowing him a kiss. We grab two pieces each, loading them up with peppers and cheese. The pizza is the perfect temperature to shovel right into my pie hole. Having worked straight through lunch, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until that first bite hit my palate.
“Hey Ell?” Hunter asks.
“Ya, babe,” I say, mid-bite.
“Wanna spend the night here Friday and maybe I can stay with you Saturday night, so we can get started on Granny’s paint job early Sunday morning?” He shoves a huge, cheesy bite into his mouth, grinning at me.
Fuck, I want to suck the grease off his shiny lips.
“Sounds great to me. Oh ya, here’s the papers you need to fill out. Looks like he wants you to start Monday morning so make sure to bring these in with you.” I pull the folder out of my messenger bag and slide it across the table to him.
“I um, want to take you somewhere Friday night. I owe you my story and taking you to the place where it all happened will help you better understand where I’m coming from.” His brow furrows, the same way it did the night at the laundromat, and it frightens me a little. That’s a side of him I hoped to never see again.
“Oh, okay.” I shove as much pizza in my mouth as it can hold, trying not to voice any opinions and risk hurting his feelings.
Chapter Thirteen
Hunter
It’s nearly dark outside, to the point where the sun’s going down and the moon is starting to rise. By the time we get there, it’ll be completely dark. I sure hope Ell understands. I’m about to spill it all, and pray like fuck he sticks around afterward.
I pull up to his job, waiting outside because I don’t even know how to handle this scene yet. When he walks out, I can’t hide the excitement from my face. He looks at me and smiles, but turns, and walks straight to his car, ignoring me for the most part.
I crank my bike and ride up to him and he rolls down the window. “Follow me.” I give him no time to answer, but rip out of the lot and head for my motel room. I check in the mirror, making sure he’s keeping up with me. Good boy.
As I pull into the parking lot of the shithole I’m staying at, I don’t even look back. I love the fact that he suddenly skids in and hits his breaks, tossing loose gravel up behind him. This man, I swear to heaven, he blows my mind.
Opening the front door, I untie my boots and leave one in the crack of the doorway, so he can get in, then go to the pisser.
“Hunter?” he calls out to me.
“Be out in a second, baby,” I bellow.
Tonight’s the night, and it’s a make it or break it deal, but I’ve got to do it. Come clean with him on the last details of why I went to prison. It’s going to be even harder than the convo about me just getting out of that place, but I owe him that much.
“Hurry, I missed you so much,” he whispers through the seam of the door frame as I’m washing my hands.
Without thinking twice, I open the door, taking him in my arms, curling them around his beautiful, sexy body, then yank his mouth up to mine.
I gloss my tongue across that pouty bottom lip of his, then slink my hands down to his ass, jerking him in closer.
Out of nowhere, he wraps his leg around me, and I pull him up, holding him firmly in place, backing us across the room to the kitchen counter. I slide him up on the edge and loosen his grip on me.
“You drive me totally mad, you know that, Ell?” I bury my tongue in his mouth, sliding my hands up and down his amazing, long, hot legs, then trickle them back up to his button and zipper, ready to shred his clothes off.
“Stop, Hunter.” As the words come from his mouth, I toss hands my up, palms facing him, not pushing it.
“I’m sorry, I just missed you so much, Ell.” I turn and walk away from him, opening the fridge, and pull out a water, twisting the top off.
“Quit acting like I just grounded you or something, Hunter. I’m not mad at all, you told me the other night you were going to show me something that would help me understand you better. So, I’m trying to focus on that.” He jumps down off the counter, snaking his hands around my waist. “You’ve been a mystery since day one, I’m eager to know more is all. What makes you click and how you tick. For you to come clean and show me that you do care. You said you love and trust me, prove it, that you really mean it.” He lowers his eyes and releases his grip on me.
“I do mean it. I’m just terrified right now. I’m scared this is going to go south, and you won’t come back,” I mumble and look away.
“You asked me to have faith in you, now I’m asking for the same, Hunter.”
“I’m trying, baby, I’m trying.”
I take his hand in mine, and we walk out the door. I grab the extra helmet sitting in the window sill for him.
“Put this on.” I hand it to him.
“Can we take the car, please?” he asks, almost begging.
“Noooo. We can’t.” I’m adamant about it. If I let him bring a car there, they’ll think he wants to street race, and we’re not going there. I won’t endanger him like that, not ever. I crank my Ducati, and he tucks in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and off we go.
“This makes me nervous, Hunter,” he whispers in my ear.
I reach around him, dropping my hand off the bar, and cup his ass. “It’s okay, baby. I’m not going to crash. Just hang on tight. Everything will make sense in a minute.” I sure hope it fucking does and it doesn’t send him running. I can’t blame him if he does run though.
As I hit 610 East, we loop around to Interstate 45 and head North toward FM 1960, to Spring and Conroe. Two exits before FM 1960, I veer off the main Interstate at Rankin Road, and take a sharp right. As we pass several shopping centers, I make a quick left, and take us down a side street, then pull off to the side.
“Ell, this is where my life went to shit. Don’t speak to anyone, and don’t leave my side, do you understand?” I turn to him, hopping off the bike, kicking the stand down. “I’m completely trusting you with something that I’ve never shared with anyone in my life, okay?” I caress his face, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s thumping in my eardrums.
I’m terrified this is going to break us, but I can’t keep it in anymore.
“Why don’t you have faith in me, believe in me enough to trust me, Hunter?” He reaches out to touch my side and I cringe and push his hand away.
“Because no one does, Ell. I fail, it’s what I’m good at…failing. Being a letdown or disappointment.” Fuckenshit.
“I’m not no one, I’m me and I thought you got that.” Elliott grabs me again.
I grab a bandana out of my back pocket, then rip my shirt off over my head, before slicking my hair back and turning into the other me. There are two me’s, the one I want to present, the other one I want to hide.
Elliott watches me, not knowing what the hell is going on. As much as I want to apologize ahead of time, I can’t find the right words.
I lean into him, pressing my lips to his, then kiss him like there’s no tomorrow, because there might not be for us. Why I thought this was a good idea is beyond me, but a promise is a promise, and I don’t lie. Never have, never will. Sometimes I don’t share all the details of a situation, especially if I know it’s going to hurt someone else, but I never lie.
Taking Elliott’s hand, I run it down my side, along the scar that should have caused my death, but somehow didn’t. He looks at me, so inten
sely deep, gently caressing it up and down with his thumb, not shying away.
“What happened to you, baby?” he asks.
“I’m about to show you.”
Chills erupt all over my body, and he continues to caress up and down the scar, yet does it with his head held high. This man baffles the shit out of me because he never stops touching me, when he should see the signs.
“Can I show you?” I ask, giving him one last out, but instead of running, he nods and climbs back on my bike waiting for me.
I hop on and take a deep breath, looking up to the sky. This is my comfort, for some reason. I love the night skies, how the clouds skim and scoot over the stars, but then shine again.
I crank the bike back up, and turn for one last kiss. His lips melt against mine and he hugs me. I’ll never forget this feeling.
We ride down to the end of the road, hanging a sharp right, and tail lights line up, back to back, against each other, as everyone waits their turn.
The smell of burning rubber engulfs me, and I love it. I used to run this race, then it all ended that night. It’s the first time I’ve been back here since I got locked up.
Trees and woods align both sides, and nothing is visible, except a flashlight at the starting line, and a red light at the finish of that quarter mile, and brake lights. I pull to the side of the road and kill the bike again.
“Don’t leave my side, Elliott.” I make sure to curl our hands together behind me, as we walk down the line of pumped up race cars.
Several people call out my name, but I never acknowledge them and keep walking. Most of them think I died that night, I probably should have, but that would’ve been too easy, and like I mentioned to Ell, I fuck up. It’s my special gift, screwing up everything. I can’t even die properly.
Loving the smell of gasoline and diesel, the burning rubber from the take offs, and skids, draws me back to the days that made me. And then broke me.
“I’m not going anywhere, Hunter.” Elliott leans in close, damn near reading the panic going on in my head, and whispers just loud enough for me to hear, and I tighten my fingers between his.
We watch as cars rev up, power breaking at the start, ready to run it down that stretch.
Elliott leans in close. “Show me what I need to see, baby. Explain it to me.”
Fuck.
“I loved this life, it was all I had back then. There was no family for me, no friends. It was all about me trying to survive. I got that total fuck you card, but had to make it and came here to do it, until that night. Everything went tits up from there.” We approach the set of trees where it happened, just past the starting line.
Seeing that big ole’ oak tree sets me off right now. The skid marks still engrained on the concrete. I must be tense everywhere, because Elliott, my Ell, tightens his grip on my hand, and kisses my shoulder, like he already knows.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m not going to leave you, I just need to understand.”
The man has no idea what he’s asking for.
“See that tree?” I point to the dent that’s still in it, the bark never grew back. God, this is overwhelming.
“Yes, I see it,” Elliott mumbles tightening his grip even more.
“That’s where I should have died.” There, I spit that part out, and hope he’ll listen to what happened next.
I can’t expect him to accept what’s coming next. No one would.
“Hunter, you weren’t supposed to die, for whatever reason you feel.”
My God, I want to kiss him, yet shove him so far away that he doesn’t even remember me coming into his life.
“It was my fault,” I admit to him, I’ve never admitted that to anyone.
“What, baby, what was your fault?” he asks, never releasing me.
“I killed them.” I can’t even face him now. I’m so fucking ashamed it’s ripping my heart out. “It was an accident, I didn’t mean to, but it still happened.”
“Killed who?” Elliott still isn’t letting go of me.
“The guys in the car.”
“Tell me, Hunter, talk to me, like right now.”
“That tree. We were racing…” Tears fill my eyes and I can barely speak. “It was a money thing. I needed to eat, and a place to live. We tossed down papers, pink slips that could round me over six-grand at the time, plus a new car. I jumped on it and ran with it, I was young and made a stupid mistake.” Oh my God.
“Keep going, Hunter.”
“See the remnants of chalk over there on the concrete…that’s where it began, the start line. It was the race everyone had been waiting for. I floored it. Pedal to the metal in my piece of shit hot rod. Knowing I could take them, but he decided to go nuts and slid his ass into me, damn near pushing me off the road. I bumped back and sent him spinning out of control. Elliott, I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I swear to God, I wasn’t. I was scared and pissed off that he dented my ride. And bumped back was all.”
“And…?”
“And when I did, tapped my ass end into him, he lost control. He slid across in front of me, and I hit him again, and sent him straight into that tree, the one I just showed you, and the car exploded. Caught fire. I screeched my breaks trying to get to them, but I was too late. It should have been me, not them.”
“What happened next?”
“I skidded to a halt, car sideways blocking the whole street, and jumped out and ran to them, trying to pull them from the car, Ell, the flames we so hot, but I couldn’t get them out. I tried so hard.” I jerked loose from him and crumpled to the ground, one knee down, burying my head in my hands. “My God, it was my fault.”
“Keep talking, baby, finish the story.” The concern in his voice blows me away, he’s not running, instead, he’s listening and to be honest, it feels good to finally get this out.
“I killed two people that night. There were witnesses everywhere to back up the story, it was totally on me. I did that shit.”
“Tell me about your scar now.” Tears form in his eyes, damn near matching mine and I go down again.
Just like I did that day, I scream at the top of my lungs, “I’m so sorry.” And then I break.
Elliott pulls me in close, hugging me tight, not releasing me for a minute. “Finish it, baby, tell me the rest,” he begs me.
I wipe the moisture off my face, and turn to look at him. He’s not budging a bit.
“Several of their friends jumped me. The scar down my right side, that’s how I got it. I was knifed and left for dead, but someone, somewhere along the line called 9-1-1. I still don’t know who it was. Cops came and took witness statements, and cleared the scene while paramedics tended to me. They all left me as the result of two deaths. I was lucky to only get two years in jail. I wish I could have died that night. I damn near beg for it every day, but it never happens, Elliott.”
“It’s because you were meant to be here for me. To live for me.”
“I was meant to die,” I rumble and stand up again.
“You were meant to live, Hunter. Get that thru your thick skull.”
I want to take him in my arms and never let him fucking go, but I’ve crossed the line. How will I ever be worthy of his love, especially now? Knowing I killed two people. Whether on purpose or not, now he knows about it. I didn’t want to hurt him like this.
I never wanted to hurt a person in my life, until the night those memories of the past popped in. In the parking lot, they knew full well who I was, and still they tried to hurt Ell. That night, I wanted to hurt them… They knew me and I knew them.
Chapter Fourteen
Elliott
What can I do to make Hunter see he’s not a fuck up? He’s the man for me. Shit happens, ya this is some pretty fucked up shit – but it was an accident. Had the authorities seen it as more, he would still be in prison. I can feel him trying to push me away, but I refuse to let that happen. Our connection runs deep and I know he feels it too.
“Hunter?” I ask, slowing rubbing circles on his
back.
“Huh?” he responds, his eyes still fiercely locked on the ground beneath him.
“I’m not going to lie, this is a lot to take in, but I know in my heart this was an accident. You’d never purposely hurt anyone,” I try to reassure him.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.” He clinches his fists at his sides, his jaw set in anger.
“Yes, I do. Had it been on purpose, you would’ve spent life in jail, not two years. Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.” I extend my hand to help him up.
Frustrated, he brushes his hands over his head, pausing for a couple of seconds before finally accepting my hand.
“Why are you doing this? Why haven’t you left yet? That’s what everyone has always done. Left me.”
I’m not going to deny that I’m not conflicted, but to hear those words come out of his mouth and see the sorrow on his face. Well, it breaks my heart. “For one, you’re my ride home. Two,” I lift his chin so he can see the sincerity in my eyes behind my next declaration, “I fucking love you and love means you work through things. You don’t bail when the going gets tough. I can’t speak for the idiots in your past, only for myself and I’ve told you before– I’m here for the long haul. We belong together and it seems like you can’t see that, so I’ve made it my personal goal to prove it to you. Now, you need to feed me and I want tacos.”
“How’s this going to work, Ell?” Hunter asks.
“First, you get your hot ass on this motorcycle. Which, by the way, the fact that I’m even on the damn thing should prove my love for you because these death cycles scare the shit out of me.” Finally, that got him to laugh. “And second, you take me to the taco stand in town that I love and buy me some damn tacos.” I stomp my foot, adding a theatrical element to my rant.
“Okay, okay I give.” He throws his hands in the air in mock surrender before securing himself on the bike in front of me.
I drape my arms around him tightly, kissing between his shoulder blades telling him, “I love you, Hunter.” I feel him stiffen before he rubs his hands across mine. He doesn’t need to say a word, I know how he feels. And it’s far more important for the words to come from my mouth as opposed to his right now.