The Hunter

by Shen, L. J.

  That shut Junsu up fast. I got up and snatched my bag before the two of them decided to exchange more than just words. “Stop, both of you. Junsu, you’re right. I can’t afford taking time off. But Hunter is also right. My shoulder is useless right now, and things can get much worse if I don’t let it rest. I need to attend physical therapy and get steroid shots. To put your mind at ease, I’ll go to another doctor, get a second opinion.” I shot him an apologetic smile. “I promise I will take no longer than two weeks, and in the meantime, I’ll watch my videos and make notes about my strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Your main weakness,” Junsu spat, his eyes still trained on Hunter behind me, “is standing in front of me.”

  “Helicopter trainer.” Hunter threw a cinnamon gum into his mouth, chewing purposefully loudly. “Clam-jamming her ain’t gonna make her aim any better.”

  “Stop.” I pushed Hunter toward the door, pivoting back to Junsu one last time.

  “I’ll come tomorrow so we can talk, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

  A beat of silence that stretched between us, about to snap like a rubber band against raw skin.

  Finally, Junsu nodded. “Keep him away from here.”

  “I will,” I promised, shoving Hunter out the door and closing it gently.

  The minute we were outside, I threw my hands in the air, widening my eyes at him, awaiting explanation.

  “I said I’d give you ten minutes. Twenty passed before I got my ass out of the car. Twenty-five when I heard him yelling at you from across the goddamn hallway. Remind me, how bad do we want this Olympic gig?”

  Since when was there a we?

  I rolled my eyes and started for the exit. “Very freaking bad.”

  Hunter caught my stride easily, and I felt my anger subsiding. As much as I wanted to keep my distance from him, I had no concrete reason to dislike him. On the contrary, he was kind of awesome, in his own roundabout way.

  “Let me buy you brunch.” Hunter draped his arm over my shoulder. It was muscular, warm, and protective. I thought about all the girls who’d slept with him, how his weight must’ve felt on top of them. His sheer manhood stirred me. I didn’t swat his arm away, even though every fiber in my body suggested I should. Strongly so.

  Actually, I could use some protein to rebuild all that torn-up muscle.

  “I can do the buying,” I said. “You’ve done a lot for me in the past month, and I don’t think I’ve shown enough gratitude.”

  I saw Hunter opening his mouth in my periphery and held a hand up. “No, sexual favors are not a currency I am offering, or accepting.”

  “Too bad. Sex is the bitcoin of our generation.”

  “It is actually the oldest form of payment in civilization. Prostitution, anyone?” I rolled my eyes, but still smiled.

  “Why, yes, I’ll take two of those. Look, I have another deal to offer you.”

  “Thanks, but no.” I quickened my pace.

  “I can hook you up with the Patriots’ physical therapist.”

  “You can do that?” My breath caught in my throat, but I kept my pace even as we nearly raced through the corridor.

  “Money is power, baby girl, and the universe has a twisted sense of humor, which is why I have a lot of influence. But if I do this, you make out with me—full-blown, second-base, tit-sucking, dick-rubbing make-out sesh. Oh, and I get to tour that orange forest between your legs. My time of choice, of course.”

  “No,” I groaned, horrified at the mention of my private part. I trimmed and tended between my legs, but I’d never seen the need to shave or wax the hair away completely.

  “I’ll let you think about it.” He patted my back condescendingly, purposefully riling me up.

  “How long do I have?” I side-eyed him.

  “Three seconds, or the offer is off the table. A friend of mine pulled the same shit this morning. Worked wonders on me.”

  Is he kidding?

  Also, is that what we are now? Friends?

  “Three,” he began to count, slapping the exit door open and nodding for me to go out first.

  We surged through, advancing toward my car, and I smiled a little when I noticed the progress Hunter had made. Less than a month ago, he’d stood in this parking lot, begging me to take a deal. Now I was the one bargaining with him.

  “No,” I clipped.

  “Two.” He ignored me, unlocking the car automatically.

  I was about to walk to the passenger’s seat, but he grabbed me by the waist and forced me to stand close to him, in an awkward half-embrace, chaining me to the moment.

  I swallowed. It was just making out. It wasn’t sex. He’d still be celibate. And the Patriots’ physical therapist? I mean, come on. I’d be a fool not to take it.

  You’d be a fool to take anything this family has to offer you. The Fitzpatricks are one step away from ruining you. They already made you cross every line you thought you had.

  “One,” he whispered hoarsely.

  I opened my mouth. He put his thumb inside. It was warm, rough, salty. I clamped my lips around it. He pressed his thumb against my lower teeth, immobilizing me. My heart pounded so hard, my ribs were shaking with the effort of not letting it burst out. His eyes, dark blue and brooding, bore into mine.

  “I’m going to have you, prey. One way or the other. Our little deals are just a way for you to give yourself excuses for letting me into your panties. Do the smart thing, and get something out of it, too. Yes or no?”

  I looked up at him: a beautiful, unexpected curse, sweet poison dripping from petals onto my tongue.

  No, my mind screamed, but it stood no chance. I could already feel my mouth shaping the word, giving it body and voice and weight.

  “Yes.”

  I ate bacon, eggs, and one slice of whole-wheat bread at the diner. Hunter opted for an Everest-sized stack of pancakes, drenched in enough maple syrup to drown Canada, complete with a milkshake that he hoovered through a Tim-Tam bar, with a donut perched on its side, like a slice of lemon on a Coke. He devoured the food, ignoring his phone on the table between us, which blasted with incoming texts.

  I eyed him curiously, like he was a strange animal, something that had yet to be recorded on Earth. He felt completely foreign. Before we started all this, I wanted to think of him as a reckless, stupid playboy with very little heart and intelligence to match. Every day he proved to be more than that brought me closer to my demise.

  I wanted to undress him. Inhale him. Cinnamon and laundry detergent and thatHuntersmell that made my insides tingle. The kiss we shared was going to haunt me to the grave. The anticipation of making out with him sent jolts of electricity through the nape of my neck.

  “You should probably take some of your calls,” I suggested as I watched him eat, suddenly conscious about making suggestions and grilling him again. Last time we tried to eat somewhere public, it didn’t end well.

  He didn’t look up from his plate, working through his fifth pancake.

  “Is that your dad?” I asked.

  “Affirmative.” He stuffed his mouth with more food.

  “Did you tell him you skipped work today?”

  “Negative,” he said around a mouthful of dough.

  “Why the self-sabotage?” I threw a piece of crispy bacon into my mouth, chewing. “You had a good reason. I could vouch for you.”

  Hunter sucked his thumb clean of maple syrup, releasing it with a pop. Something fluttered between my legs when he did that. “He’ll choose to believe the worst about me no matter what. Also, work is kind of a shitstorm ATM.”

  Yup. He was abbreviating at the moment.

  “Why?” I asked, surprised.

  I’d emailed his father back and forth and read between the lines. He didn’t seem displeased with Hunter. He was actually, dare I say, pretty happy with his progress.

  Hunter let his utensils clatter beside his plate, seeming to lose his appetite.

  “There’s this guy, Syllie. Been working for Da for centuries
. He was my designated busboy until I came here—took care of shit for me. So this one lunch hour, I want to beat human traffic and decide to take the emergency stairway instead of the elevators down, right? I start descending the stairs, and I overhear him talking on the phone. And he says these weird-ass things that sound a lot like he’s talking about my family, but I can’t prove it.”

  “What did he say?”

  Hunter sat back, fingering his Dala horse. He did that when he was contemplating something. It frightened me how well I knew him now.

  “I don’t know, but I feel like he’d run Royal Pipelines into the ground if he could. He said Da was smug, Cillian was smart and dangerous, and that I was…” He paused. The edges of his ears turned pink, and his face turned cold and unreadable.

  “That you were what, Hunt?” I tilted my head forward, asking softly.

  “A fucking joke.” He stared me dead in the eye, watching for my reaction.

  I brought my thumb to my mouth and chewed the skin around my busted fingernail. When he didn’t get whatever he was expecting—a confirmation, criticism, or a compliment—he continued.

  “I voiced my concerns to Da and Kill. Let’s just say it didn’t fly. I wanna know what he’s up to, who he’s doing this with, because it sounded like this conversation was the tip of the iceberg. But I don’t know how. What are the odds of me overhearing him saying something compromising again? Zero.”

  I tapped my chin. “But you don’t have to.”

  He cocked his head sideways, giving me that look again, the look that said I was a Halloween bucket he wanted to bust open, devour one treat at a time and show me all his tricks.

  “What do you suggest?” He didn’t break our gaze.

  “Let’s create the opportunity for ourselves. How much do we want to nail this bastard?”

  Hunter’s eyes glimmered, and his mouth quirked into half a smirk. I was the one using a collective we now, and I realized there was power in it. It was fun to think of ourselves as a team, albeit one that wasn’t exactly glued together organically.

  “Very freaking bad.” He repeated my words about the Olympics.

  “Let’s roll, then.”

  I only knew about this guy because my dad used to take me to him sometimes when he picked me up from school.

  Before I got my driver’s license, Dad gave me a ride to the range twice a week after school. That left us with an hour of driving around. There was no point going home for ten minutes before dashing back to beat traffic. So we’d either grab food together at one of Mom’s many joints or he’d run some errands. One of these errands was this guy, Knox.

  Knox accepted people for house visits only, and you had to text him beforehand. I did just that. I had no doubt his prompt reply came because Dad and Sam were his prime customers. Apparently, he was a former FBI agent who went rogue and now spent his days recreating all the crazy stuff the feds used to track people.

  At any rate, here we were, standing in front of his place in the theater district.

  Knox opened the door. He was the kind of man who could have been any age between thirty and fifty: round-bellied, his skin flushed and bloated with alcohol, and eternally clad in gray sweatpants and a wifebeater.

  “Little Brennan.” He ruffled my hair like I was a kid. To him, I guess I was.

  “Hey, Knox.” I motioned with my hand while it was still stuck in my hoodie’s pocket. “This is my friend, Hunter. I can vouch for him.”

  “I’ll need more than that, sweetie pie.”

  I jerked my hand out of my pocket and called Sam, my brother.

  “Hey,” he answered on speaker. He sounded on the road. “Everything okay? Asshole giving you trouble?”

  “The asshole can hear you,” Hunter grumbled.

  “Actually, I need you to vouch for him to Knox, Sam.” I bit my lower lip nervously.

  “Knox?” Sam chuckled in disbelief.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “I just did.”

  “Look, are you going to vouch for me or not?” Hunter hissed.

  Had they met? It sounded like they had and parted on not the best of terms.

  “Knox?” Sam asked.

  Knox made a sound a swine might produce, a mix between a snore and a grumble.

  “He’s good for it. Hey, asshole?”

  “What?” Hunter answered begrudgingly. Apparently, he was the asshole now. Between that and being the boy, I could tell he didn’t exactly feel the love from Camp Sailor.

  “Tell people about this place or show them the stuff you buy there, and you’re toast. Got it?”

  “Jesus, you must think very highly of me.”

  “Frankly, I don’t think of you at all. Be good, Sail. Talk soon.”

  I hung up on Sam and smiled to Knox. “Can we come in?”

  Knox gave Hunter a final once-over, nodding hesitantly. I had an inkling that he recognized him. Did he think we were a couple? And why did him maybe thinking that make my heart do crazy things in my chest?

  We sat down on his couch. Everything was dark, the shutters closed. The house always smelled like dirty cat litter and feet, but I knew Knox wasn’t broke. I wondered what his story was, what had made him who he was today.

  “I’d ask if you want something to drink, but I doubt either of you would want to put anything in this apartment in your mouth.” Knox parked his hands on his waist in front of us.

  “There’s one thing in this house I’d like to taste,” Hunter murmured, side-eyeing me with a smirk.

  I elbowed him. Hard.

  “So you’ve decided to play Super Spies?” Knox glowered. “Hit me with it. What do you need?”

  I turned to Hunter. “What’s the one thing Syllie never takes off? Ever?”

  “His shit-eating grin,” Hunter deadpanned.

  I rolled my eyes, but smiled. “No, really, though.”

  Hunter shrugged. “His wedding ring. Glasses, I guess.”

  Knox nodded, writing it down on a notepad he produced from the waistband of his sweatpants—another item on the growing list of things I never wanted to touch in this place.

  “Does he have a clock in his office?” I continued.

  “Duh.”

  “What kind?”

  “The generic-to-death kind.” Hunter scratched his light stubble. “Black, silver-rimmed.”

  Knox wrote that down, too. “He’ll need to show me specific images on Google.”

  “We also need a GPS detector for his car and anything else you can come up with to ensure we can listen to his every word,” I said. “In real time. Top-notch stuff, please.”

  “It’ll cost ya.” Knox tsked. “That might require some fieldwork, and I charge extra for that. Driving the van alone to ensure quality, plus equipment, starts at a grand an hour. Then I need to set up a remote server, drop files into a shared cloud for you to access the recording and footage, and there are processing, editing, and overtime fees for weekends and after six o’clock. Depending on your needs, this could blow up to 50k a month before you even sneeze in my direction.”

  “Money’s not a problem,” Hunter said coldly, looking every inch the rich bastard he was.

  Knox smiled at him knowingly. “Yeah, pretty boy, didn’t think so. One more thing.” He held his finger up. “You’re in charge of the switch-a-roo of items and planting any recording devices. I play with the law, but I try not to piss on it whenever possible.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Hunter said.

  Knox went into a side room he kept firmly shut, leaving us in his living room.

  Hunter turned to look at me. “Why am I feeling mildly uncomfortable and seriously turned on that you’ve been here before and know shit about spying?”

  I laughed. “I was with my dad.”

  “The respectable businessman,” he taunted.

  I shrugged, keeping my face straight. “That’s the one.”

  “He is loaded,” Hunter said.

  “You’re one to talk.” I laughed. “How are you
planning to pay for this, anyway? I thought your dad gave you a fixed salary.”

  Hunter flashed me a wolfish grin. “My mother bends backward to pacify me. Venmo is my best friend.”

  “Nice.” I munched on my lips.

  “What about you?” He jerked his chin toward me. “You seem kind of broke for a rich kid.”

  “I am,” I admitted. “I don’t take money from my parents. I live off whatever I get paid from giving archery lessons in the summer.”

  “Pshh.”

  Hunter stared at the wall, considering my words for a second, then said, “We need to shower after this.” Hunter motioned with his index around the room.

  “Naturally.”

  “Together.”

  “Hunt.”

  “Fine. That kiss, though.” He bit his fist, rolling his eyes in their sockets. He pointed to my phone. “Bitch is blowing up like a sex doll at a Virgins Anonymous convention. Everything cool?”

  I looked down. I had two missed calls from Maybe: Crystal PR Manager.

  I darted my eyes to him, feeling my cheeks heating with a blush.

  Hunter studied me very carefully. “Da might’ve mentioned you were slow to answer her emails.”

  “So you gave her my number?”

  “You had a deal with my family. In order to keep our part of the bargain, you need to answer this PR chick.”

  “Stop messing with my phone.”

  But I couldn’t fully be mad at him when he was trying to help. Again.

  “I’ve never messed with your phone. Just your panties.”

  “Ha.”

  Hunter kept staring at me, his smile big and mischievous and full of things I hadn’t even known you could feel.

  No.

  “You did not touch my panties,” I whispered, shocked, flustered, and… Actually, I couldn’t start counting all the things his confession made me feel.

  He raised his arms in surrender. “I plead the fifth and kindly ask you not to check my pockets.”

  “There’s nothing in your pockets.” My eyes flared, but I couldn’t stop smiling. What was wrong with me?