Melting Into You

by Laura Trentham

  Nothing. It was ten in the morning. Maybe it was too early for teenagers. Unease prickled Alec’s neck. An unfamiliar car drove by too fast on a side street, out of sight in seconds.

  He rapped again. This time the clang of a chain lock sounded on the other side. The door opened. The smell of fried food wafted out, but the interior was too dim to make out more than Hunter’s outline.

  “’Sup.” Hunter chucked his chin in greeting but kept his face in profile.

  “Checking on you. Wondering if you need a ride to Lilliana’s.”

  “Nah. Thought I’d skip today if it’s all the same to you.” With his shoulders hunched, Hunter picked at an eyebrow and tried to push the door closed.

  Alec stiff-armed the door with enough force to propel Hunter backward. He opened the defunct screen door and stepped inside without being invited. Closer and with his eyes becoming accustomed to the shadows, he caught a glimpse of Hunter’s face. His left eye was nearly swollen shut. Alec never should have let Hunter go last night.

  “What the fuck happened?” The anger in the question was directed solely at himself, but Hunter’s one good eye narrowed and his mouth tightened.

  “Nothing.”

  “Where’s your mom? She okay?”

  He nodded. “Asleep.”

  “She know about this?”

  Hunter’s silence answered the question. The need to go on a tear through the house to confront his mother made his hands tremble. He stuffed them into his front pockets. If he wasn’t careful, he’d alienate Hunter. “Lilliana is counting on you. You can’t skip out. Grab your stuff and let’s hit it.”

  Alec retreated to the porch, slamming the screen door shut with his heel. Probably not how Lilliana would have handled the situation. She probably would have doled out hugs and cookies and “there, theres.” Hunter slouched out with a stained red backpack thrown over one shoulder.

  “I’m only coming because I owe you money for my car,” he said on the way to the truck.

  Hunter had no one to protect him. No matter how big he was, he was still a kid, and his mother couldn’t handle the job. Alec had been alone long enough to recognize the defensiveness, the insistence he could handle everything on his own, the resistance to trust.

  Once behind the wheel, Alec started the truck, but didn’t shift into drive. He stared through the windshield. “I’m not pissed at you, dude. I’m pissed because I let you go last night. I should have protected you.”

  “You’re not my dad,” Hunter said with typical teenage angst.

  “Damn, I’m not that old.” Alec’s attempt at a joke fell flat. “I’m not your dad or your brother, but I am your coach.”

  “You care about winning state. Don’t worry, the swelling will go down and I’ll be able to see come Friday’s game.” Hunter slumped on the seat, his arms folded over his chest, the skin taut and shiny around his eye.

  Alec clutched the steering wheel tighter. “Sure, I want to win state. So do you. I wouldn’t have made it to the NFL, and you wouldn’t be SEC quarterback material if we didn’t have that drive to win, but winning isn’t everything. I care about what happens to you. I care about … you.”

  Alec side-eyed Hunter, but the boy had turned to look out the passenger window toward his house. He sighed and got them moving. Tension filtered through the silence as he made the turn down the oak-lined street leading up to Hancock House. He threw the car in park. Hunter hopped out of the truck and was up the porch stairs before Alec made it to the bottom.

  Lilliana opened the front door before Hunter had a chance to ring the bell. Alec took the steps two at a time, ready to explain.

  Lilliana gasped and took Hunter by the arm, petting him like a child. “You poor thing. Get your booty into the kitchen and let me see to that eye.”

  None of the questions he could see flashing over her face popped out. Instead, she tutted, pushed him into a chair, and gave him a quick hug around the shoulders. Alec shifted on his feet in the kitchen doorway and checked his watch. “I’ve got a noon meeting at one of my job sites. I’ll cancel.”

  Lilliana looked over from where she was riffling through her medicine cabinet. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll be fine.”

  Alec backed away. A cowardly urge to let Lilliana deal with the mess sent him back to his truck. He didn’t know what to say or do for Hunter, and a feeling he was failing the boy nipped at his conscience.

  Chapter 14

  Lilliana studied Hunter from under her lashes. Teenage defensiveness and angst surrounded the boy like a force field. First Jessica last fall, then Ghost and her kittens, and now Alec and Hunter. Maybe she should rename Hancock House Lilliana’s Home for Wayward Souls.

  She plopped a bottle of ibuprofen, peroxide, cotton balls, and SpongeBob Band-Aids on the table. “Let me get you fixed up.”

  She wet a cotton ball with peroxide and dabbed at the dried blood. “I don’t suppose you want to talk about what happened.”

  “You’ll tell Coach Grayson.”

  She pulled back to look straight into his good eye. “Probably. He’s your coach and sort of my boyfriend. He wants to help you.”

  Consternation flashed over his face before he covered it with teenage indifference. “I kind of ran into a door.”

  “O-kay.” She infused the word with as much sarcasm as possible and went back to work on his swollen eye. She pulled a first-aid cold pack out of her freezer and pressed it against his face. “Hold that over your eye for a bit.”

  She fixed two iced teas, grabbed a bag of store-bought cookies, and joined him at the table. Half his tea was gone in one huge swig, and he stuffed two cookies in his mouth.

  “How can Coach ‘sort of’ be your boyfriend?” His voice had lost a bit of its edge, and he went in for another handful of cookies. It was hard to maintain a tough-guy front when you were spewing crumbs like the Cookie Monster.

  “How can you ‘kind of’ run into a door?” She shot back, raising her eyebrows.

  He chuffed something resembling a laugh. Encouraged, Lilliana continued. “I’m going to have to guess what really happened. Let’s see … a roving gang of Girl Scouts came selling Thin Mints, and when you refused, they beat you up.”

  He tried to keep his lips together, but a laughter-accompanied smile lit his face. “Naw. I totally would have bought the Thin Mints. They’re my favorite.”

  “So, no Girl Scouts.” She tapped her lips. “Maybe elves snuck in—but not the cookie-bearing variety—and punched you while you were sleeping?”

  More laughter snuck out of him. She took the ice pack away and dried the area with a towel. He tilted his head back and shut his good eye while she worked as gently as possible. “All I’ve got are SpongeBob Band-Aids. Do you mind?”

  “’S all right,” he murmured. “I like the starfish dude.”

  “Did you and Will get in a tussle?”

  He didn’t open his eyes but turned as static and hard as concrete. She took her time smoothing the Band-Aid over the cut at the edge of his eyebrow. His Adam’s apple worked in his throat, and his voice came out creaky and boyish. “It was an accident.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “He was messed up.”

  “Drunk?”

  Hunter shrugged, opening his eyes, the sheen of tears obvious in his good one. The white of his hurt eye was pink with blood. “Bone-man came sniffing around throwing down apologies and presents for Mama. Will welcomed him with open arms. I don’t even know how it happened but all of a sudden we were fighting, Mama was yelling, Bone-man tried to pull us apart.”

  Equal amounts of anger and frustration and hurt feelings wove Hunter’s tale together. She handed him another cookie. “What happened afterward?”

  “Bone-man got Will out of there. If he hadn’t been so messed up, he never would’ve touched me.”

  “What’d your mama do?”

  “Cried. Locked herself in her room. She’d never seen Will like that. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid they’d
come back. Dozed on the couch until Coach woke me up.”

  “You can always come here if you’re in trouble. I hope you know that.”

  He took a bite, crumbs falling on his shirt, and kept his eyes down. “Why would you help me? Because you and Coach are ‘sort of’ dating?”

  Suspicion, less jaded than Alec’s, but too similar, masked Hunter’s young face. When was the last time someone worried about him? Not Hunter the Falcon star quarterback, but Hunter the kid trying to hold his family together.

  “No matter what happens with Alec, you can come here if you need help. Sometimes you have to trust people want to help you because you need help and for no other reason.”

  He popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth, ran his hands down his pants and nodded. She had the feeling he was humoring her with his half-hearted agreement. Lilliana pushed off the table with her palms. “Do you have homework to do for Monday?”

  “Integrals worksheet for Coach Dalton. He’s a tough teacher.”

  She grimaced. “I’d like to say I’ll help you, but you’re on your own. I’m going to head up to my studio to work. Come on up when you’re done.”

  Bright morning light had diffused into soft afternoon rays by the time Lilliana put the final touches on the commissioned portrait. She checked the clock—two in the afternoon. Lost in the concentration needed for the detailed work, she’d blocked out everything. Stretching, she listened. The tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway, the music of the wind chimes outside, the squawk of a blue jay. No teenage boy noises.

  Leaving her brushes to soak, she jogged down the steps and poked her head into the kitchen. Hunter’s head was on the table, his arms curled around his calculus book, each breath a soft snuffle. She crept closer, and her heart constricted. He looked young, his mouth parted, a little drool in the crease of the textbook.

  He should be worrying about girls and games and homework. Not where to sleep, how to avoid getting pulled into his brother’s life, how to protect his mother. His jeans had ridden up to reveal dingy, saggy white socks. His athletic shoes had seen better days too, the tread shallow ridges or gone entirely.

  She put together a ham sandwich, grabbed a bag of chips, and poured some tea. She set it all down close to his head. Grabbing a granola bar and a yogurt, she retreated to her studio.

  A half hour later, smelling faintly of sour cream and onion chips, Hunter knocked on the doorjamb and shifted on his feet. “Thanks for the food, Miss Lilliana.”

  She smiled while trying to position the wooden corner braces on her portrait to prepare it for shipping. “You’re welcome. Instead of a bed and breakfast, Hancock House has turned into a table and lunch.”

  He shuffled farther into the room, looking around with obvious curiosity. “Need some help?”

  “I would love some help. I’m not tall enough to get these on.”

  Hunter took the triangle-shaped brace from her and worked it over the top right corner with ease. He chucked his chin toward the portrait. “Who’s the dude?”

  Lilliana affected a fake upper-crust accent with Bostonian overtones. “Edwin Perryville Culpepper the third. He’s a big-shot banker in New York.”

  “Have you met him before?” Hunter’s lips twitched as he worked the top-left corner piece on.

  “We didn’t exactly run in the same social circles. Maybe I served him a drink at the restaurant I bartended at. Who knows?” Lilliana checked the security of all four pieces.

  “I thought you were a painter?”

  “You’ve heard of ‘starving artists’?” Hunter nodded. “Well, I like to eat. Portrait work is like hitting a very small lottery once or twice a year. What kept me in Ramen noodles was drawing caricatures in the park.”

  “Central Park? I’ve seen it on TV. The horse and carriages and stuff.”

  “It’s amazing actually. Right in the middle of this huge city, surrounded by skyscrapers, are acres of green. Whenever I got homesick I would find myself there.”

  “Did you live close by?”

  “I lived in a walkup tenement with two other girls many, many blocks away.”

  “Could you see the Empire State Building?”

  “I could see the grungy brick building across the street and the homeless man who slept next to our stoop. But you can walk about anywhere in New York City with the right shoes. You want me to draw you?”

  “Me?” Hunter took a step back and picked at the eyebrow over his swollen eye.

  “Sit over here.” She positioned him on the loveseat against a wall and pulled up a small easel and stool. She flipped her box of pencils open.

  “You don’t use that kind of paint?” Hunter pointed toward the portrait.

  “Caricatures are fast and dirty. Paint takes too long to dry and detail work is long and tedious. These are artist pencils, not the number two variety you get at the Walmart. How about a football theme? What’s your number?”

  “Seven.”

  “Lucky number seven. Like Alec.” Lilliana got down to work. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed the immediacy of pencil sketches. She drew Hunter with one arm pulled back, the ball ready to rocket down the field, his other hand in another player’s face, giving him a stiff-arm. His head was huge as was his grin, his legs like spindles. She didn’t include the swollen eye.

  Not fifteen minutes later, she pulled the sheet off and flipped it around. Hunter’s good eye grew round, and he pulled his full bottom lip between his teeth. His voice full of surprised amazement, he said, “That’s me.”

  She laughed so hard tears stung her eyes. “Did you want me to make you look like The Rock or something?”

  “It’s so cool.” He moved closer, bending lower but not touching the paper.

  “Go on and take it. It’s yours.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Not a thing. It was good practice.” She waved the paper toward him.

  He pinched the edges like he was holding a precious ancient parchment from biblical times. “You should do one of Coach Grayson.”

  A flash of a nude Alec laid out for her sketching pleasure made heat burn up her cheeks. Before she could stumble out an answer, the doorbell pealed, echoing down the hallway. Her heart jumped. Maybe Alec was back from his meeting.

  Without checking out the curtain, she swung the door open. Will Galloway stood on her porch, leaning against a pillar. She had a passing acquaintance with Ms. Galloway and remembered Will as a skinny preteen. He was the same height as Hunter, but broader, denser. She couldn’t tell how much was muscle and how much was pure mass.

  The smile she’d intended for Alec was stuck on her face. “Will Galloway. It’s been a month of Sundays since I’ve seen you or your mother.”

  “I remember you. You came to our church sometimes.”

  As a teenager, Lilliana had often gone to the traditionally black churches in a one-woman campaign to integrate Falcon’s religious divide. Seeing her aunt’s lemony expression had fed her need to rebel. Her father hadn’t seemed to care whether she went to church at all.

  “You were a kid last time I was there.”

  “I’m all grown-up now, and you’ve turned into a dime piece.” His gaze was invasive as it slowly drifted down her body, his half smile flirty.

  Hunter came up beside her. “She’s off-limits, Will.”

  Remnants of the previous night’s animosity pulsed between the brothers. “Ma wants you home, pronto. Let’s go.”

  She didn’t exist. Each brother vied for power even though no one moved. No matter how grown and mature they imagined themselves, they were both kids. Not even eighteen. And, somewhere along the way, she had become as protective of Hunter as Alec was.

  She stepped in front of Hunter, her chin up and her jaw tight, forcing Will to notice her. “Hunter has work to finish. I’ll drive him home later. Anyway, I want to have a little talk with your mother. Why are you fighting with family, Will?”

  “He knows why.” Will chucked his chin toward Hunter
but kept his gaze on her. A threat of further demonstration of brotherly love was in his voice.

  “Miss Lilliana,” Hunter whispered and tried to step from behind her. Will pushed off the column, his casual stance replaced by a bull-like readiness.

  She threw up her arm like a bar, stopping Hunter. Anger grew the lump in her stomach. Words that she’d probably regret clawed up her throat. “You understand that Hunter has a way out of Mill Town? You understand that he wants something better than gangbanging and dealing drugs? His way out is football and you’d best not screw that up.”

  She stepped closer and shoved Will’s shoulder. It was like a side of beef. She and Will stared into each other’s eyes.

  “You can’t take him away from me, he’s my twin brother.” A hint of deeper, primal feelings colored his voice.

  “But you’re not the same person. You can’t pull him down with you because you’re lonely and need him.”

  “I’m not trash.” Will bit out the words so vehemently, Lilliana wondered how often the denial rolled through his head.

  “Not trash. Trash is disposable, harmless. You’re dangerous, Will. To yourself, to your mom, to Hunter.”

  “Maybe to you too, lady.” Will’s face was hard, his bloodshot eyes menacing.

  Real fear tumbled through her stomach, and her breathing turned shallow. This time when Hunter stepped forward, she didn’t stop him.

  “Shut up, Will. You touch her and—”

  A white truck turned down the street, shooting relief through her body.

  Alec parked behind Will’s jacked-up sedan. She wanted to run down the front steps and throw herself in his arms like some Southern belle greeting her man returning from war. He didn’t seem in a hurry, but a coiled energy emanated from him, his gaze fixed on Will. “What’s going on?”

  “Will was just leaving. Weren’t you?” Now that Alec was here, her fear diminished and she seriously considered kicking Will in the shin.

  Will stamped down the steps. “Come on, Hunter.”

  Hunter shuffled forward as if following his brother’s commands was automatic, but he stopped at the top of the porch. His voice was rough and an octave lower than usual. “I’ve got work to finish.”