AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The cashier, Atagracia, placed two cups of black coffee and creamers on the table and we thanked her. I broke the seal off the creamer and put it in my coffee, along with some sugar. I didn’t want to hear to hear that he was in Miami because I lived here. I wasn’t good for him.
“I was getting calls some weeks back. Was that you?”
“Nah, man. The only reason I’d been able to find your ass among the bunch of other Chase Lovells was because you’re on the football roster on your school’s site.”
“Are you clean?”
“Four years as of last week.” His voice roughened and I looked back up at him. “Not even any alcohol.”
“Congrats, Hunter. For real. That’s great.”
He smirked a little. “No slip-ups, either.” He answered my unvoiced question.
“How’d you do it?” I drank some coffee, feeling like I’d need the caffeine to continue this conversation. I didn’t think I’d see the day when he was in recovery, but I believed him. I wanted to, but he wasn’t proving shit to me. He didn’t have to.
He gave a dry laugh. “It wasn’t a choice in the beginning. I was scoring some blow off the street in Holly Ridge, and the next thing I knew, someone puts a mask over my face and I am restrained.”
“What the fuck? How’d you get to Cali? Was it from the money you stole from me?”
He shook his head. “I snorted that with some people that night. One of the guys I hung out with took all of us first class to his parents’ vacation house there.” He gulped some coffee. “I don’t remember how many days I’d been there, but I went to get some after doing it every night I was there. Chase, the men picked me up and threw my then-bony ass in the back of a van. Straight-up militant. They knew my name, DOB, social, everything. For a month, I was pissed, but fast-forward a year and the residential program worked. To this day I don’t know who did it.”
Hunter sounded so amazed and grateful. He was a little bit like the old Hunter with his mannerisms, but he was a different person. I didn’t even know my own brother. He couldn’t quite take pride in his accomplishment because he was drowning in shame. It was like he wasn’t internalizing that he had a major part in staying clean. Certainly, the residential program he’d been in facilitated his recovery, but Hunter was doing the hard work; keeping himself together in an uncontrolled environment. He could drink alcohol and do coke whenever he wanted to, and yet, he was keeping his head above water.
“I am glad it worked out. That shit isn’t for everyone. It’s a very controversial approach.”
“It is,” he agreed. “The last things I said to you. Man, it wasn’t true.”
“‘Try and stop me again and I’ll kill you. You’re dead to me.’” I repeated the words he’d told me and watched the guilt in his hazel gaze, an emotion he couldn’t convey with the rest of his face.
“It’s been eating me up inside how I left things with you. All the horrible shit I’ve done. I called Mom every year to see how she was doing and she told me to stop calling. Mom and Dad changed their numbers, but I don’t talk to Dad, so…” His gaze fell to his empty cup of coffee. Atagracia took it from him and came back a second later with another cup. “They unlisted the house number, but I still found them. I can’t blame them for wanting nothing to do with me after everything.”
“I haven’t spoken to them either since they kicked me out five years ago.”
He shook his head and threw his hands to the right side of my face. “And I am sorry for the damage I did to your face.”
“Chicks dig this shit.” I squared my shoulders “They think I’ve led a crazy life.”
“But the only female you care about liking your scar is Beth?” A frown puckered up his cheekbones.
“Beth? You’ve been calling my girl Beth like you know her? Are you feeling her?”
Frustration clouded his face. “She said I could call her Beth, and I am not feeling her. I like her. As my friend. I’d planned on seeing how you were doing through her.”
“That pisses me off. She shouldn’t be used so that you can see what I am up to. It’s a privilege to be a part of her life.”
He flashed some teeth. “I am aware. She slapped me on the face when I told her that I cut you.”
“For real?” Pierce hadn’t told me this. Maybe he didn’t know or didn’t think
I should know.
He nodded.
“And what did you do?” I asked gruffly.
“I took it. I deserve worse.”
I smirked. “Did it hurt?’
