The Ground Beneath

by Stephanie Vercier

  “You know, I think I’ll be doing that real soon,” Hunter replies, eyeing me quickly again.

  It’s pretty much impossible to be immune to him, and the idea of Hunter officially asking me to be his girlfriend is in my head the entire time he and I walk around the courtyard, meeting the kids individually and handing out the toys and equipment from the bag and giving autographs.

  After the courtyard, we head up to individual rooms where the children were too sick to go outside or couldn’t leave whatever machines are helping them to live another day. While Hunter puts on a brave face, I can tell that seeing so many kids affected by illness is getting to him. It gets to me too, but I’m probably more used to it. In Coalton, my family used to regularly visit the few nursing homes in the area as well as the local hospital. It was community outreach from our church, though converting people was never the focus. I’d been to plenty of funerals Dad officiated too and for moments of comfort he gave to dying members of our congregation. Death and sickness were as much a part of our life as living was.

  It wasn’t until Wyatt and Abe died that I really lost it, when death came hammering down on me in one fell swoop, taking two of the people I was closest to in my life away from me. I should have been comforted by my belief in God, but I was angry too, angry for so very many reasons.

  “Hey, you’re really pretty. You know that?” It’s a young man who tells me this as we visit him in his room.

  He’s older than most of the other kids we’ve seen, a teenager who should be thinking about who he’s going to ask to the next school dance and what he wants to be when he grows up instead of fighting for his life in this bed.

  I’m not sure what to say, and I’m relieved when Hunter jumps in and says, “You’ve got a good eye, but how about a girl your own age—anyone you like?”

  The boy keeps his eyes on mine, laughing almost dismissively when he finally turns to Hunter. “Look at me. I’m basically a skeleton. You think any girl, especially a girl like that,” he says, nodding his head in my direction, “would waste even a second on me?”

  “Hey, you don’t know what the future will bring,” Hunter tells him assuredly. “I used to be a skinny little kid, and look at—”

  “I’m fucking dying,” he cuts in, allowing his eyes to fall. “I won’t have a future. I won’t get bigger. I won’t find a girl.”

  All the air feels sucked out of the room. Most of the children we’d visited were spirited and full of hope, believing even that death would be followed with a trip straight up to heaven, that life didn’t actually end. But not this young man who has every right to be angry, who would have every right to have angst even if he were healthy and going through the trials and tribulations of growing up.

  “I’m sorry,” Hunter tells him. “It’s shitty… and I’m just really, really sorry.”

  The boy nods, and Hunter pulls up a chair, taking a seat next to him.

  Neither of them gives any indication that I should leave, and yet I sense my absence would allow some needed male bonding to occur, for this young man to really be heard by another guy. So, I say, “I think I’ll go outside and see if anyone needs anything.”

  “You sure?” Hunter asks.

  “I’m sure,” I say, smiling at both of them before I take my leave.

  I spend some time talking to a girl sitting in a wheelchair just outside the nursing station, but when her mother comes and sweeps her away to an appointment, I sit down with my phone and go through my work emails. I’m beginning to get messages from some of the assistants I met over the weekend and even one from Mr. Harvard graduate himself. For purposes of networking, he’s apparently gotten over his disgust for my lack of education.

  Even though I remain busy, I’m still aware of the time, and it’s an hour before Hunter appears before me, his broad shoulders a little slumped.

  Putting my phone away, I stand up and touch him on his upper arm. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be okay,” he says, his voice tired.

  “You ready to go?” It’s been a long day, nearly eight hours since we first arrived at the hospital.

  Dragging a hand through his hair, he nods.

  We’ve given away every last toy and football, so we don’t have to drag any bags back with us as we return to the car. It’s dark out, and I’m just as exhausted by today’s experience as Hunter seems to be. It’s a nice kind of tired, though. It feels like we did something really good, even if it leaves us with a sense of melancholy.

  “You were amazing with them,” I tell him as we sit in the cold car, Hunter looking straight ahead through the windshield.

  “Couldn’t have done it without you,” he says quietly.

  “Hunter, I…” It’s the trembling of his chin and then him covering his face with his big hands that stops me from telling him it was a team effort.

  Behind his hands, he’s crying. I can tell that he’s trying to keep the sound down, like he doesn’t want to appear weak. I stretch my arm out, putting a hand on his shoulder, just wanting to be here for him, even if it’s just to be silent and allow him to get his feelings out. I happen to think it takes a great deal of strength for a man to cry, to allow his emotions and vulnerabilities to show when it’s very likely he’s been lead to believe it’s a weakness.

  “He won’t even make it to his sixteenth birthday,” Hunter says, dropping his hands, angry emotion still in his voice.

  “Oh,” I say. The young man Hunter sat with, the reason for his tears.

  “He hasn’t even kissed a girl yet, and he’s got some kind of horrible fucking cancer. Yeah, shit happened to me when I was little, but I had a chance. I got to actually grow up and try to erase as much of it as I could. But he won’t. He’ll never even leave that hospital.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I move my other hand to his thigh, thinking back to Hunter in the courtyard, talking about being small and unable to defend himself. I thought then that he’d been hurt by more than just the death of his mother and aunt, but now I feel sure of it.

  “Don’t be sorry for me,” he says. “Be sorry for Logan—that’s his name… Logan. Be sorry for all of those kids who are getting screwed by life. Half of them will never leave here, you know?” He’s looking at me, his expression angry, and I know his anger is for the unfairness of kids that will never become adults.

  “I am sorry for them, but I’d be sorrier if they didn’t have today, if you hadn’t given Logan an hour of your time to hear him out. You made a difference today, Hunter, and that’s important. That means something.”

  A dismissive, cutting sound comes out of his mouth, as if I’m wrong, as if he didn’t do a thing to help those kids. “Took me eight seasons to step foot in a hospital. What the hell kind of man does that make me?”

  I turn my entire body toward him, sliding my hand from his thigh until I take his hand. “A human one. And it’s better late than never that you start believing you’re more than just a football player, more than just a guy who does commercials for trucks and credit cards.”

  He sighs. “You bring it out in me. You give me hope.”

  I don’t want to believe him, believe that I could be responsible for a change in his life, but maybe I do. Because meeting Hunter has brought a change in mine as well. I’d walked around for a year wearing rings given to me by a man who is now dead, who is never coming back, and I wore them out of honor and fear and even anger. I’d come to Seattle to escape, imagining myself independently alone, finally removing the rings that felt like tethers tying me to my previous life. And because of Hunter, I can now imagine wanting to be one part of a pair again. It might be with a man with a reputation for dating scores of women—doing more than just dating—a man of celebrity and no history of being able to sweat out a long-term relationship with anyone, but these things make my desire for him no less true.

  “What if I told you that you bring me hope too?” I ask, smiling as I do, needing him to believe that I’m not just saying these words to make
him feel better.

  For the first time since we’d gotten into the car, he smiles back, his eyes still a little red from the tears. “Logan asked me if you were my girlfriend, and I said, ‘What if she is?’ Then he laughed and said, ‘If she is, then I couldn’t tell you what I’d like to do to her if I was a few years older and not laying in this bed.’”

  “He actually said that?”

  Hunter nods, laughter coming along with it. “Yeah, so I tell him that you are my girlfriend, and he shows no shame, just tells me I better ‘put a ring on it’ if I had an ounce of intelligence.”

  I flush with warmth and no small amount of pride.

  “So are you going to… put a ring on it?” I press my lips together, tilt my head and widen my eyes in an expression I mean to be sarcastic.

  The look he returns to me is more serious. “I would. I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “Hunter, I was just… I was just kidding.”

  But was I really?

  His lips tilt up unevenly. “I know you were, and that’s fine, but I was being serious.”

  I shake my head, like I’m trying to shake off a fantasy. “We barely know each other,” I tell him, even if I don’t think that’s true, even if I believe time isn’t always the best measure of how well you can know someone. My relationship with Wyatt proved that to me.

  He nods. “I’m calling it like I see it, Allison… Alli—do you mind if I call you Alli?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He grins. “I’m not saying I’m going to propose to you tomorrow or in a week. I realize you’ve been through a ton of shit and that you’re young. Hell, maybe I’m supposed to think you’re too young. I don’t know. I just know that I feel things when I’m around you I haven’t felt since the world was still this big, wonderful thing to discover—you know, like when I was a kid, before my mom and aunt died.”

  It seems silly to contradict him when I’m feeling so many of the same things, when I’d just told him he makes me as hopeful as I apparently make him. Still loving the way he’d called me Alli instead of Allison, I say, “I understand. I know what you mean.”

  He moves closer to me, his entire body shifting in the seat. He takes his hand from mine, sliding both of his around my waist. “So, you get that I don’t want to lose this feeling then, right?”

  “Uh huh.” I’m caught up in the intensity of the moment, not wanting to lose what I feel with him either.

  He swallows hard, clears his throat and says, “With my history, I don’t have much of a right to ask, but would you be willing to make me your place holder… uh… you know agree to date me and just me?” He looks up at me with wide, puppy dog eyes, unsure but hopeful.

  There was a time I believed that being in a relationship with someone meant you didn’t have to promise to be faithful, that your fidelity went without saying. And I didn’t think that faithfulness had to be akin to godliness in order for it to be the right thing to do. But I learned too well that what I thought was an unsaid promise to a person you loved was not a promise made by everyone.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to sleep with you,” I tell him, though I’ve certainly thought a lot about it. But thinking and wanting aren’t the same as doing, and I’m sure he’ll need sex to be part of a relationship he could be monogamous in.

  “No… I know that. I wouldn’t ask. That’s not what this is about. It’s about more than that. We can take things slow, but I just need you to know my intentions, that I want to date you. I want to be together, like this, like today, like we were at the stadium and on our hike. And I don’t want to hide it from Sheila unless you want me to. I just…” He shakes his head, closing his eyes momentarily. “Am I making any sense?”

  “Yes you are,” I tell him, finally allowing myself to believe what he’s really asking. “And yes, I’d love that, for us to be together.”

  His eyes beam, his sometimes brooding shell melting away. “Come here,” he says, and pulls me into his lap.

  I don’t resist.

  Space is at a premium in his car, but I manage to fit between him and the steering wheel, just barely, but not without blaring his horn a couple of times. The kisses that follow are long and loving, deep yet sweet. My body responds by warming and tingling, quick heartbeats and fast breaths that make me want more, even if I’m not ready for everything to happen at once. With all of the excitement and desire, there is also safety and warmth in his arms, him reminding me of his respect for my boundaries.

  I revel in it, deciding easily to put my full faith in this man, not blindly, but with both eyes open.

  Chapter Eight

  HUNTER

  Even I have common sense sometimes.

  It’s been a little over a week since the visit to the hospital, since Alli agreed to date me, a real wonder considering I was tripping over my words in asking her something that should have been a simple, Hey, would you go out with me? But it wasn’t a simple thing to ask of a woman I cared for as much as I did Alli, where it felt like my entire life’s happiness weighed on her saying yes or no.

  The fact that she’d agreed had put me over the fucking moon. I wanted to tell the entire world, for everyone to know that Alli and I were together. It might not stop women hitting on me, but I wanted to hope it would stop the guys I’d notice staring at her.

  When I’d volunteered at a police benefit, she was there with me, Sheila agreeing that Alli was a good influence, referring to her as my handler. I’d watched men stare at Alli like she was a forbidden fruit, up and down the length of her body before most would settle on her face, on her eyes and lips and beautiful hair. I had to stop myself from asking her to wear clothes that covered more of her skin, not wanting to be that guy who thinks what you wear matters. But even if I’d stuck my foot in my mouth, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Even if she was dressed like a nun, men would still look at her.

  When she agreed to tell Sheila about us over text, agreed that we could hold hands in public and make things official, it was me who backtracked, who told her no after several moments of feeling the thrill of a teenage boy about to have his first real girlfriend. Pulling myself out of the clouds, I realized what a shit-storm us going public would cause. It wasn’t how it would affect me that I was worried about, but how it would affect her. Our local media would report on my new relationship with dignity, but social media would lose their shit, digging up everything they could about who exactly Allison Briggs is, and in that digging they’d easily discover her past, how she’d lost a husband and a brother a little over a year ago. And could she be ready for that? Could she be prepared for the merciless comments that people would make, not just about that, but about her appearance and her age and any possible flaw some envious blogger could find in her to make themselves feel better?

  I couldn’t do that to her, and so common sense prevailed.

  “I hope you aren’t mad at me,” I tell her as we drive east toward the mountains, the leaves of the deciduous trees scattered among all the evergreens beginning to turn color.

  “Why would I be mad?” she asks from the passenger seat of my Land Rover.

  “Because I put the brakes on us going public.” I’d done it last night over text. It’s now Wednesday morning, and Sheila had agreed to let Alli off for the day to visit her family in Coalton while I reluctantly meet my dad and brother in Wenatchee for my dad’s neurology appointment, the one that my older brother Keith had asked me to attend.

  “I’m not mad,” she says with a stiffness that tells me otherwise. “I’m just surprised. You were the one that wanted to tell everyone.”

  “For my own selfish reasons.” Keeping my eyes mostly on the road, I turn to gauge her reaction. The last eight years, everyone around me has told me that I can have whoever I want, that I get to make the decisions and hold the upper hand in whatever relationship I’m in, and yet I know that Alli holds all of the cards when it comes to this very new thing between she and I, a relationship as comforting as it is terrifyi
ng.

  “Yeah, you told me,” she says in monotone. “I’m just tired of everyone thinking I’m so innocent and fragile, like I can’t defend myself or that I’m just a kid—I’m not.”

  “People can be brutal, Alli. They’ll call you all kinds of stuff because they don’t think you should be with me.”

  “I’ve dealt with brutal,” she volleys back. “But I get it, I do. I know you’re just trying to protect me, and I appreciate it.” She relaxes and puts her hand on my thigh. “I know it’s coming from the right place.”

  I allow myself a sigh of relief in her saying that. “Thank god.”

  “I am going to tell my parents though,” she says, her hand still on my thigh. “I want to be honest with them.”

  “Of course. Would you like me to meet them? If we keep good time, I can come in before I have to go to Wenatchee. Or we can do it when I pick you up.” She doesn’t say anything at first, and I reach over and squeeze her shoulder. “Alli?”

  “Sorry,” she says, letting out a breath. “It’s just super complicated with them sometimes. They have this idea I’m meant to be with someone who lives in Coalton, like it’s God’s plan.”

  “Oh? You mean just some random guy to keep you in town?”

  “No, not random,” she says with a sigh. “They think I’m meant to end up with Wyatt’s older brother, so me telling them about you is one thing, but I’m not sure if they’ll be ready to meet you in person. I’ll feel them out, and then text you and let you know?”

  Wyatt’s brother?

  I bring both hands to the wheel, tightening them, but I don’t have the nerve to ask her if she actually has feelings for this guy. I can almost imagine the brief pause she’d give that would tell me she does, and that would hurt. “Yeah, sure,” I answer. “Either way, I’ll do whatever it is that’s best for you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  I try to play it cool the rest of the drive to Coalton, but the thought of this other guy keeps rattling around in my head. I’ve never felt real jealousy before, never cared if a woman I’d slept with or dated briefly found someone else or was just using me for sex or attention or branding on social media. It didn’t matter because I didn’t love any of them, not even Theresa Carmichael who I’d made the mistake of confiding in. But what I’m feeling for Alli feels like love, the words I love you not having been said yet because I don’t want to scare her away.