Love Under Construction (Love By Design Book 1)

by M. C. Cerny

  24

  Taylor Jane

  Twelfth Grade - May

  “Do you think they’ll kill each other?”

  Hunter glanced over my shoulder at the bickering twins. “Does it snow on the mountain in winter?”

  “And I was so hoping for a peaceful night.”

  “It will still be perfect for you. I promise. I’ll make it magical.” Hunter took my hand and spun me in a circle leading me back into his arms. I didn’t know this but Coach Calloway made all the football players take six weeks of dance classes to improve their agility and balance. That was where Hunter and Damien had learned to dance.

  I felt light as air as he spun me round and round. “Magical, huh?” My pale icy blue dress caught on his tuxedo clad legs and I wondered how it would feel to get tangled up in him.

  “Yeah, try not to bruise my ego though.” He laughed taking a moment to rub his chest before taking me for a turn around the dance floor again. The mirror ball above our heads twinkled matching the beaded crystals in the bodice of my dress.

  Hunter had been quiet since he’d picked me up. We might have all lived on the same street, but the Hart boys made a production of driving over in his uncle’s classic Ford Mustang. We did the traditional set of pictures. My dad, Mrs. Hart, and Mrs. Calloway made us pose for over an hour until our faces hurt and the boys threw a tantrum. Well, Damien anyway. Hunter was stoic as usual. A smile peeked out from the edges of his lips. He said my dress reminded him of a frosted cupcake with glitter on top. Kristen and I pinned on their boutonnieres and wore matching wrist corsages. We drank punch, and Hunter dragged Jeremy Dolan out, who got caught pouring rum in the bowl. Everything was going according to plan until the final dance of the night. I excused myself to powder my nose in case there were more pictures and bumped into Becky and Clarissa. I wasn’t close with them, but we got along just fine. I’d given up on the girls who gave me the stink eye for showing up on Hunter’s arm.

  “Did you hear he’s going into the military right after graduation?”

  “How do you know?” My heart stopped listening to the two of them. Why hadn’t he told me about this? Was life so bad for him that he had to run away and get himself killed?

  “My dad saw him walk into the recruiter’s office last week. He had a bunch of papers and was shaking the staff sergeants’ hands.”

  “Can you image a Hart boy in uniform? So swoony.”

  “I know. I bet he’ll learn all kinds of cool stuff and come back like this super-hot war hero.”

  “I’d love to nurse him back to health.”

  “What?” I exited the stall, interrupting them. Shock filled their faces until Becky smirked. I swore she always had it out for Kristen and me and here was her chance to finally nail it to me.

  “Oh, come on, I’m sure Hunter tells his best friend everything. Or does he?” She breezed past me and went back to the mirror, reapplying her lipstick that looked more like a slut pink if there was such a thing. I didn’t know what Kristen’s brother saw in her and hoped they broke up before graduation. She would probably give him a wicked crotch itch if he wasn’t careful.

  “We haven’t talked about it,” but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to ask him the second I left this bathroom.

  “Oh, sad little Taylor Jane with the super long name only Hunter uses. You are so lame, like he’d stick around for a girl like you. He hasn’t applied to any schools for college, what could he possibly offer you?”

  “He’s my best friend,” I argued feebly, and the boy I loved with all my heart since the day he’d moved here.

  “Oh, come on, every girl in town has seen what’s in his pants except you, which I’ll never understand because you are so freaking obvious in your obsession with him.”

  I was? Was I obvious? Crap. Was that why Hunter never made a move, never crossed a line?

  “Maybe he respects me,” I said because that was all I had at the moment.

  “Yeah, and maybe he doesn’t like cold little puffer fish who don’t put out.” Becky’s words were cruel and a reminder of my foolish hopes. She was a royal bitch and for her to mention my allergic reaction from last year, fan-freaking-tastic. I would never live that down. So much for the friend who comes to visit you at the hospital. Big faker, that’s what Becky was.

  “Never mind,” I told their smirking faces, brushing past them into the hallway decorated with crepe paper and balloons rolling down the hall like lonely casualties.

  I raced into the gymnasium to find Kristen and Damien, but they were gone. I was turning in circles when a hand pulled me into a broad chest.

  “Whoa, little dancer, you spinning without me?”

  I stopped, stunned. It was Hunter.

  I turned in his arms, looking up at him, and asked him directly if what I’d heard was true. “Have you enlisted? Are you leaving New Paltz?”

  “Shit.” Without preamble Hunter’s smile dropped and he pulled me outside through the slow dancing crowd. Warm air hinted of the coming summer and the breeze lifted the edges of my strapless chiffon and tulle.

  “Are you?” I asked again, my voice cracking. I felt broken and betrayed, barely holding it together.

  Hunter licked his lips I once thought so kissable before tonight. As Becky reminded me, I was a pathetic puffer fish and Hunter was nobody’s prince charming.

  He hesitated in answering, and I stomped my foot, raising an eyebrow, asking again without words.

  “Yes.” He had never been one for lengthy discussions unless we were debating Star Wars movies and apoplectic concepts in Blade Runner, his all-time favorite movie. Of course mine was the Princess Bride and I realized how different we were.

  “Why?” I was choking on my tears and he was standing there. He just stood there. I punched his chest, angry at him.

  Angry at me.

  Angry at the world.

  Hunter was supposed to be mine.

  This was supposed to be magical.

  What a fool I had been.

  “Taylor Jane, look at me.”

  I refused to budge even when his arms touched my shoulders. The calluses on his fingers that spent years carving wood animals rubbed the soft spots on my skin.

  “I need you to look at me.” I turned to face him, his throat bobbing and his head down shame faced. He might not have lied to me, but it was an omission of the truth and in my mind, the same thing.

  “You’re leaving me. I don’t think I can look at you.”

  I pulled back until he let go. My legs pumped each step with the heels of my princess shoes clicking against the gym floor as Hunter called my name. I found Kristen sitting on the gymnasium bleachers, eye makeup resembling a raccoon, and drinking from the spiked punch bowl. We were twin messes and when she handed me her drink, I gulped down the bitter alcohol, no second thoughts. I didn’t have the energy from my own broken heart to be the good friend and ask what happened with Damien. Chase found us in tears and drove us home leaving Becky to sulk with her click. He was a good older brother and set us up with his stash of ice cream from the basement freezer, a box of tissues, and a movie marathon including Empire Records and 10 Things I Hate About You.

  I never understood the allure of going to prom when the night ended in the worst clusterfuck of my teenage years.

  25

  Hunter

  I left Taylor Jane at my house after a morning marathon of sex that had her begging me to leave her alone. I didn’t want to give her up even when she pushed me out the door. She hobbled hissing under her breath that I didn’t have to make up ten for years in one night. I might have disagreed with her. Since I was banned from her downstairs lady parts until further notice, I headed over to the project house to get some work done.

  “Hey, buddy, it’s good to see you.” I shook hands with Whit, who pulled up to the house in his jeep. I decided if we were going to get this house flipped and stay on budget I was going to call in a few favors. Whittaker was someone who’d gone to school with us and ended up st
aying in town to be one of the local New York State Forest Rangers.

  On the side, he operated a nice little landscaping business. Both his knowledge of forestry and landscaping would come in handy since Taylor Jane’s house looked like an advertisement for some creepy ax murdering bed and breakfast. The snarky video crew comprised of hippie looking college students who had more light stands than brains between them, and said the house didn’t have the right feel. If they wanted to argue design atheistic or the readings on the ghost meter, I was the wrong guy to ask. What I wanted to do was give each of them a kick in the ass. One had already fallen through the porch, and I figured I had one more to go. Until Taylor Jane held me back, the temptation was there.

  Chase and Damien showed up later. Damien had some plumbing work to take care of, but I could use Chase’s former football strength to help dig out some of the more offending brush roots around the perimeter of the house. My landscaping budget was about to go to hell due to some crown molding and a porch repair.

  I was determined to get this house perfect for Taylor Jane. She deserved that much and at least that was something I could control.

  “Dude, could TJ have picked a worse project?” Chase and I had our elbows deep in honeysuckle bushes that were blocking a good section of the front yard.

  “I don’t know. It’s actually a sound foundation. Most of our time has been spent on cosmetic upgrades for the house and some repairs here and there.”

  “And cleaning up the abominable shit demon.” I regarded my pain in the ass cousin and willed him to shut his smiling mouth.

  “Did you run out of stuff to do already?” I asked.

  “Nope, just came out to say hello to my future brother-in-law.”

  Chase dropped his brush pile and laughed so hard he bent over. “Right, because my sister isn’t planning to cut your balls off.

  “I’ll give her another year to bone that cop before she sees my greatness for what it is.”

  “He has got to be fucking high.” Chase mumbled turning to me with a question. “So are you seeing Taylor now?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Chase, don’t go there.” Whit was smirking, and I knew he had a thing for some college girl in town he’d rescued in the woods recently. I wished they’d focus on his fascination with younger chicks instead of me.

  “Taylor is like a little sister to me, but less annoying. I wasn’t inquiring as to her singular status as much as I was wondering if you figured your shit out.”

  “Oh my God, are we the freaking sewing circle?” I threw my branches of honeysuckle into the dumpster thinking they smelled a little like Taylor Jane, bright and sweet.

  “Boy Scout rules.” Whit made the sign, and we laughed.

  “Yes, we’re together.” I admitted but that was all those knitting needle dicks were getting out of me. The rest was between us.

  “Yeah!” Damien yelled at the top of his lungs, doing a stupid dance from our touchdown football days, looking like a maniac.

  “Shut up and keep pulling roots before I strangle you.”

  “Hey, I’m not into kinky shit like breath play. I’ve told you this before.” Damien threw clumps of roots and dirt my way, and I threw it back, hitting Whit by mistake. Things escalated quickly and before we knew it we were tackling each other and Chase grabbed the hose, spraying us into muddy, disgusting messes. The water was cold and its own form of torture, but we have to clean up before going near the house. Taylor Jane would not take too kindly to four idiots tracking mud through the foyer on her new lacquered wood floors.

  26

  Taylor Jane

  I knocked on Kristen’s door looking behind me, wondering if anyone could see me. I mean, of course they could, it was the morning and it wasn’t like I was hiding from the police, just the town gossips, who could probably smell sex in a fifty-foot radius.

  “Go away.” The door talked back, and I knocked louder.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, Kristen.”

  She opened the door looking like hell rode her hard and came back for more. I mean, her hair was a cockeyed mess and a smear of pink lipstick ran over her puffy mouth, followed by raccoon eyes I hadn’t seen the likes of since prom.

  “You’re looking at me with those judgy eyes like I’ve sinned.” Her arm was over her head, resting on the half open door. She looked belligerent, but that was her in the morning before coffee, or alcohol.

  “You haven’t recently?”

  Kristen was a sex kitten, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “Get your ass inside. You know Becky still lives down the block.”

  Becky was still on my shit list for a number of reasons, and I brushed past Kristen, dumping my purse on her table.

  “Oh God, I’m hungover. Can’t it wait until I have like two cups of coffee first, love?” Kristen’s hair was in a bun high on her head like a pompom of dark hair. It swayed precariously as she opened and closed cabinets, getting the supplies for her old school coffee maker.

  “I don’t think this can wait.”

  “Ugh, I needed a nap or an exorcism. My head is killing me.” Kristen said from the kitchen resuming her hunt for mugs, hunched over grumbling.

  I called out across the room while I organized, or at least attempt to organize the mess on her coffee table that made my fingers twitchy trying to size the envelopes up in some kind of order. “Maybe if you cut back on the alcohol you wouldn’t feel like a bus ran you over.”

  “Tay—this is the last time in my life I’ll be in my mid-twenties. Let me sow some damn oats while I still can.” Kristen ignored me and while she had a point I also didn’t relish the idea of pickling my liver before I was thirty.

  My mouth took on a life of its own and blurted out the unexpected. “I slept with Hunter last night.”

  The apartment went quiet and I swear a pin dropped.

  “The hell you say…” She pulled down two coffee mugs, muttering, and closed the cabinet with a bang. She faced the windowsill in front of the sink before rummaging in the cabinet below. “I’m gonna need something stronger than coffee.” Kristen riffled through the cabinets until she found a bottle of half drank peach schnapps. Unscrewing the top, she guzzled an obscene amount.

  “I thought you were hungover?” I hoped this wasn’t going to be earth shattering news to my best friend.

  “Hon—your cooter just got attacked by your life-long crush. Find the fucking OJ so we can celebrate or commiserate. Your choice.” Her voice croaked and I decided we needed to celebrate this life-changing event after all.

  I looked for the orange juice and the chilled vodka I knew was left over in the freezer.

  Turning too late, Kristen was back guzzling the schnapps down with a vengeance. “Hey! Share that!”

  Kristen pulled the neck of the bottle away from her lips, looking me over with raised eyebrows.

  “You tell your BFF you just shagged the dark horse without a warning and expect a rational answer?”

  That was news to me. “Do they really call Hunter the dark horse?”

  Her eyes narrowed with accusation and I guessed it was true, but still—were we really that much of a long shot? We’d known each other for years. Our friends, or at least Kristen, hinted that we’d look good together as a couple, but I brushed it off.

  “You sure you want an answer to that question?”

  “Yeah, you’re right, probably not.” I shook the orange juice container and lifted the vodka in my other hand, hoping Kristen would lay off the booze long enough to share.

  She shrugged and put the schnapps on the counter.

  “Screwdrivers ought to do it. Umm… unless you’re going to tell me you took it in the prune shoot because that’s gonna need something stronger.”

  Shaking my head no, she sighed, pouring the drinks a bit heavy-handed before giving me the coffee mug of sweet OJ and alcohol.

  We moved into the living room, sitting on the couch and sipped in silence. Neither of us s
aid anything, letting the moment hang between us with a heaviness I didn’t expect to feel the morning after.

  “You know, I kind of expected you to tell me something different.” She said to me letting our mugs join each other mutually on the coffee table letting them clink together. The air was thick, emotional. It wasn’t regret, but I felt something shift not only in my relationship with Hunter but with my best friend. We had always backed each other up even when we were separated at different schools. I wasn’t ready to explore both until one resolved itself.

  “Like?” Hungover Kristen usually needed some prompting.

  “It’s always the quiet ones who are into kinky shit.” Leave it to Kristen to take this confessional into the gutter. Her own escapades in college were enough for both of us.

  “Really? We didn’t have anal sex,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “No, but you did make out with your roommate from college. What was her name? The cupcake girl?”

  “Carmen. We’re still friends, by the way.” I picked up my mug sipping my drink.

  “I still don’t know how I feel about that.” Kristen adjusted her robe giving me the side-eye.

  “What? Me kissing a girl one time?”

  “No, you got to live with her during the four most formative years of our young adult lives.”

  Right, because college was another time and space dimension and Kristen wasn’t over me leaving New Paltz. “You say it like she replaced you in my best friend treasure trove.”

  “No, you saucy bitch. Besides, I doubt anal is your thing.” Kristen chuckled, and I laughed awkwardly letting her continue.