by Noelle Adams
I can’t even begin to figure out what’s happening here.
Hunter is waiting for me.
I thought—I knew—that if he was going to respond to my note, he would have done it right away.
Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I’m smart about everything except my own heart. And his.
He’s nodding at my sisters, who are hurrying into the building with barely suppressed grins, and then he walks over to stand right in front of me.
“Hey,” he says gruffly.
“Hi.”
“You shouldn’t be walking on your ankle.”
I stiffen. “I can walk on my ankle if I want.”
“You’ll make it worse. It’ll never get better if you don’t rest it.” He’s frowning at me, his eyes scanning my body from messy hair to bound ankle.
“If you just showed up here to boss me around, then you can turn around and go home.”
Hunter blinks. “I didn’t come to boss you. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
“I was waiting for you. I told the doorman I was your husband, but I think I was spooking him by waiting out here for so long. He was about to kick me out.”
“Oh.” I swallow hard. “I didn’t know you were waiting.”
“I was.”
“Oh.”
One of us should say something now, broach all of what is unsaid between us.
Cut through the noise, the confusion, the fear, the social inhibitions like Wentworth finally did in Persuasion.
I open my mouth, but Hunter beats me to it.
“I love you, angel,” he blurts out.
I blink. “What?”
His mouth twists in his familiar wry smile. “I love you. I have for what seems like forever. And I just don’t care if I’m not ready to be the man that you deserve. I love you anyway. I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
Ten
TOLKIEN IN ONE OF HIS essays talks about the concept of eucatastrophe. It’s the opposite of catastrophe. It’s a sudden, miraculous turn at the end of the story—the transformation of disaster into joy.
This is my eucatastrophe. Right here on the sidewalk outside Chelsea’s building. Late on a Thursday night.
Hunter blurting out that he loves me.
It changes everything. Transforms everything. Redirects the course of the universe.
I stare at Hunter with my mouth open.
He waits for a few seconds and then shifts from foot to foot. “You okay?”
“No!” I burst out. “I’m not okay. Did you just say that you love me?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what I said.” His eyes lower, like he’s self-conscious.
I make a choking sound. “You love me?”
He darts a quick look up to my face through his lashes. There’s the slightest of glints in his eyes. “That’s what I said.”
I can’t resist that face. That warm, wry, fond, irrepressible humor even in the middle of a step that must be incredibly hard for him to take. I burst into laughter—or maybe it’s tears—and I throw myself against his chest.
He wraps his arms around me, and they get tighter and tighter as he hugs me. I understand the feeling in his grip.
Need. Desperation. Like he’s holding on to the most important thing in the world. Something he almost lost.
That’s how I feel about him.
“Oh, fuck, angel,” he mutters, tightening his hug until I can barely breathe. It’s like he can read my mind. “I thought I lost you.”
I try to pull back enough to look up at his face, but he won’t release me. “You didn’t.”
“You shouldn’t forgive me.” He’s nuzzling my face now, his beard scratchy and familiar and exactly what I want. “I don’t deserve it.”
“I get to decide who I forgive.” I’m seriously having trouble breathing now so I add, “Sorry to ruin the moment, but can you let go a little?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He gives me an adorably sheepish smile as he drops his arms.
I reach out to hold on to his shirt because I can’t bear to not be touching him. “I get to decide who I forgive, and right now I want to forgive you.”
“I’m not going to complain, but I know I don’t deserve it. I was... scared shitless, if you want to know the truth. I’ve been trying so hard to get myself together so I could be the kind of man who’d... who’d deserve you. Who you could love.”
I make a little squeaking sound at this. “You were?”
“Of course I was. Why do you think I was tryin’ so hard to do everything right. I kept dreaming... of finally having it all together. Then maybe you’d...” He shakes his head roughly and reaches out to cup my face. “I couldn’t stand to go through the same kind of rejection with you that I did with my dad. I couldn’t do it. So I kept avoiding the issue. I knew you didn’t love me like I love you, and I couldn’t let you break my heart by telling me so. That’s why I wouldn’t let us talk about it. I didn’t think I was ready. I didn’t think I was good enough yet. I... couldn’t stand for you to reject me.”
“Oh my God, Hunter.” I reach out to hug him again, emotion wracking my body, shuddering through me. “Oh my God. I would never reject you.”
“You wouldn’t mean to. But I wanted you to love me. I wanted to be your real husband. Not just practice. And if you didn’t want that too, then...” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. I can feel the angst in his body.
How deeply this goes for him.
There are tears on my face when I straighten up again. “I’m not like your dad, Hunter. I’ve never expected a certain performance from you, and I’ll never just toss you aside if you don’t measure up. You should have known better.”
“I know. I did know. But it’s not always so easy to...”
“I know it’s not. I messed up plenty too.”
He wipes away my tears with his fingertips, and then he holds my face with both hands, leaning forward slightly as he says hoarsely, “I’ve figured it out though. I keep thinking about what we talked about in bed the other night. About being all in. And I realized I was just being a coward. If I’m going to love you, then I have to do it all the way. All in. And not wait until I think I’m finally good enough. So I do. That’s what I came here to tell you.”
I try to answer but I can’t. I can’t say a word.
“And I’m not pressuring you or anything.” Hunter is obviously on a roll. The words keep tumbling out. “I know you’re probably not in the same place I am. But I can wait for you. I don’t have to have everything right away. And if you think you’ll never be able to love me the way I love you, then at least you’ll know—”
“Wait. What?” My voice breaks in with an embarrassing rasp.
“What, what?” The corners of his mouth turn down.
“I do love you. You already know.”
His frown deepens. “I do not know. How was I supposed to know?”
“Because I told you!”
“You did not.” He’s almost glowering at me now through his beard. “What the hell are you talking about? I think I’d know if you ever told me you loved me—it would be like the answer to my prayers—and you never did.”
“I did too! I told you today. In the note.”
“What note? What are you talking about?” His tone is more urgent than bad-tempered now.
I’m strangling on rising emotion, on what all this confusion must mean. “Hunter, haven’t you been home this evening?”
“No. I was too upset to go home. I just walked around for hours, and then I came here to wait for you.”
I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself in growing excitement. “So you didn’t read my note?”
“What note? I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
I burst into tears—not half laughter this time—just plain old tears.
“Oh my God, angel,” Hunter rasps, pulling me into another hug. “What is happening here?”
“I left you a... note. At
home. I told you... I loved you... in the note.” I manage to get the words said through my sobs.
“You did? I never saw it. I had no idea.”
“So you came here and said all this not even knowing...” It’s hopeless. I’m sobbing again.
“No. I didn’t know anything. Just that I love you and I was wrong to hold back on you. I’m all in.”
I eventually manage to pull myself together, leaving a wet spot in his shirt as I straighten up. I sniff and clear my throat and sniff again.
Hunter’s face contorts briefly with emotion. “So you love me?”
“I love you.”
“Like I love you?”
“Exactly the same.”
“And you want me for more than your practice husband?”
“For my real husband.”
He groans and rubs his beard almost roughly. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
I’m briefly distracted from my overload of emotion by indignation. “I didn’t tell you for exactly the same reason you didn’t tell me. I didn’t think you loved me, and I couldn’t stand to be... helpless and exposed that way. I have a few issues too, you know. You’re not going to act like a hypocrite, I hope. It’s really hard to come out and say you love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
He starts to chuckle, reaching out to take both my hands. “I know that. God, do I know that. But that’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean why did you write it in a note? You could have called me, you know.”
“I didn’t want to call you. I wanted to write a note. Notes are... special.” I glance away. “We wrote those letters while you were in prison, and I think that’s when I started to fall in love with you for real. Plus people in books write them all the time.”
His chuckles turn into full-fledged laughter. I think he’s going to hug me again, but he kisses me instead. He murmurs with his mouth a whisper away from mine. “My beautiful, brilliant, passionate angel. This isn’t a book.”
I know it isn’t a book because Hunter Ness is kissing me.
And there is no book ever written that could come close to describing this moment.
We do eventually stop kissing. It’s the middle of the night, after all, and I have a sore ankle and a new tattoo on my back.
I text my sisters, telling them that all is well and Hunter and I are going home.
Aahh!!! That’s Chelsea’s response.
Finally. Melissa’s.
I don’t like for Hunter to be proven right unnecessarily, but my ankle is in bad shape when we reach our building. He has to put his arm around me to help me walk up to the third floor, and I’m limping pretty bad when we finally make it.
The first thing I see upon entering the apartment is the note on the kitchen bar with my wedding ring. I feel a sudden impulse to go get it, but Hunter leads me over to the couch and helps me stretch out my legs and elevate my sore ankle.
Then he stands up.
I think he’s going to get me the ice pack. I can really use it. The lingering soreness from my small tattoo is nothing compared to my throbbing ankle at the moment.
But Hunter strides across the room, his speed close to a run, and he grabs up the note I left him.
He stares down at it for a long time after he reads it.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. But I can see the emotion very plainly in him just the same.
When he finally lifts his eyes to meet mine, I say hoarsely, “See? Notes are special.”
He doesn’t respond in words, but he comes back over to the couch to kiss me hungrily again.
His kiss is so hungry that I gasp as my lower back rubs hard against the cushion.
“What’s the matter?” Hunter asks, pulling back immediately.
“Nothing. Just sore.”
He looks down at my ankle.
“Not that.” It seems impossible that Hunter doesn’t know I got the tattoo, but he doesn’t. Not yet. I’m almost embarrassed as I turn over and lift the bottom of my shirt to show him the little tattoo on the small of my back, covered with a clear dressing that’s supposed to protect it and help it heal quickly.
“Angel,” he breathes, staring down at it.
“You know that’s not an angel.”
It’s a phoenix.
“Is this... is this for me?” He reaches out like he might touch it, but he doesn’t.
“No. It’s for me. You’re not the only one who needs to rise again from the ashes of an old life.”
He appears momentarily trapped by conflicting emotions—like he’s not sure whether to gasp or laugh or kiss me or burst into tears.
He settles for squeezing my hand. Even after his grip loosens, he doesn’t let my hand go.
“Now we match,” I say. “Both of us have phoenix tattoos.”
There’s a surprisingly long pause.
“Uh, angel?”
“What?”
“My, uh, tattoo isn’t actually a phoenix.”
“Yes, it is!”
“No. It’s really not.”
“But you said—”
“I never actually said.” He’s half-amused and half-embarrassed. “You just assumed it was a phoenix, and it was a really good guess, so I went with it because the truth would have... given too much away.”
“What truth?”
He finally lets go of my hand. Then he unbuttons his shirt, takes it off, and then pulls the white T-shirt he has on beneath it over his head.
I stare at his gorgeous tattoo. Beautiful reds, golds, and oranges blending into each other. Carefully drawn lines and details. The unmistakable texture of feathers.
“It’s a phoenix.”
He turns on the couch so his back is facing me. “Look over my shoulder at it.”
So I do. I look at it from a different angle. From the viewpoint he sees it every day.
And I’m stunned, frozen, as I start to see a female face barely visible beneath the wings.
It’s a long time before I say the words. “It’s an angel.”
He turns around to face me. “Of course it’s an angel.”
“But... but... you didn’t love me back then.”
“Yes, I did. Not like I do now, but I did. As much as a selfish, immature boy knew how to love. I’ve always been crazy about you.” When I start to object to this, he goes on, “I have. I really have. But I was a kid, and I was stupid, and I knew you were way too smart for me. I was gonna ask you to that dance. I’d never known anyone who took me seriously like you did. Who seemed to want to know me for me. But you were too good for me, too deep, too... much. I knew I’d never... So I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even try to...” He never finishes the sentence, but he doesn’t really have to. “And then later, when everything happened, when I completely destroyed my life and any hope of being a man you could love, I still couldn’t seem to... give up on the memory of you. It was the only thing that was still... pure for me. That’s why I got the tattoo.”
“But you weren’t even talking to me then!”
“I didn’t get the tattoo thinking I would someday be with you. I got it because I knew I never would.”
I’m holding my hand against my chest, trying to contain the swelling of my heart. “That’s so beautiful, Hunter.”
“It’s not beautiful. It’s kind of pitiful. But that’s how I felt. Then when you wrote that first letter to me... and then kept writing... I started to... I still didn’t think you could ever love me, not with the mess I’ve made with my life, but then you wanted to marry me, and it was the best thing that ever... even if it wasn’t all the way, I still wanted to be your husband.”
“You are my husband.” My voice is soft and raspy.
“You have no idea how... Anyway, that’s the whole pitiful story.”
“It’s not pitiful. It’s beautiful.”
He clears his throat. “Don’t make a big deal about it. I was just... stupid.”
“It is a big deal. It
’s beautiful. It’s like in Jo’s Boys, when Dan is secretly in love with Bess and he ends up in prison but has this picture—”
“Sam!” Hunter interrupts in a sharp voice, although there’s nothing but tenderness in his eyes.
“What?”
“Time to stop talking about books.”
And you know what?
I do stop. For now.
A LITTLE WHILE LATER, we’re in bed, and both of us are talked out.
So we don’t say much at all as we kiss and caress each other under the covers. I’m feeling a lot better, but I prefer not to be on my back since my tattoo is still sore, so I eventually crawl on top of Hunter and start kissing my way down his body.
He gets tenser and tenser as my mouth descends until I pull down his underwear and take his erection in both hands.
He’s gazing at me. Waiting to see what I’ll do.
I slide my mouth over the head of his shaft. Then take him deeper and suck.
I’ve hollowed out my mouth four times when he jerks his hips, arches up, and comes hard. I’m ready this time and don’t choke. I suck him through the spasms, and I’m smiling as I let him slip out of my mouth.
“Fuck,” Hunter mutters. “I did it again.”
I’m relieved to see his expression is fond and resigned rather than unhappy.
I giggle as I stretch up to kiss his mouth. His hands settle on my bottom.
“You shouldn’t laugh at your husband’s insufficiencies,” he says dryly.
“It’s not an insufficiency. I love that you lose it like that. It makes me...”
“Makes you what?”
“It makes me feel really special. Like you have no control when it comes to me.”
“I don’t. But fortunately for you it only hits when your mouth is on me. I do okay otherwise.”
“You do more than okay.”
“Give me a minute, and we’ll see how okay I can do for you.”
Hunter is my husband now. My real one. And the marriage doesn’t have to only last a year.
I’m beaming. “We’ve got all the minutes in the world.”
WE GO TO SUNDAY SUPPER at Pop’s that weekend as usual, and nothing is really all that different.
Pop is in a decent mood and doesn’t pick on anyone too badly. Trevor is particularly entertaining tonight, and Hunter is as quiet as he always is.
