Hunter’s Baby

by Alexis Abbott

  But I can’t be open with her, I suddenly remember, and the glow of joy starts to fade just a bit. I’m still the same man I’ve created over the past five years. Obviously, I can’t let her know any of that. I have to keep myself a secret from her, just like everyone else. I truly didn’t think I’d ever see this girl again in my life, and I have been so convinced of that fact that I’ve never considered what I might do if I found myself in this very situation.

  But she’s not a girl anymore, she’s a woman, just like I’m not a boy anymore, but a man.

  We used to be lovers, but we didn’t break up. Her parents took her away from me-- far away. So far that I couldn’t find her. It was a dark time in my life, and I’ve always assumed it was a dark one in hers, too. The way she’s looking at me right now sure makes me think she never wanted to leave in the first place.

  We obviously can’t just pick up where we left off...but I have a feeling both of us want to find out how close we can get to that. Just how measured of a chance can I take with her?

  “Where do we even start?” she says, asking the very question burning on my mind.

  “How about ‘how have you been’?”

  “That works,” she laughs, “I knew I liked you for a reason.” She winks, and I can’t get over how much it really does feel like we’re five years younger again. She jokes and talks the same way she did back then. “I’ve been pretty good, all things considered. Ever since I had Flora over there,” she says, nodding to the child, “I moved out and started kind of chasing my dreams, as whimsical as that sounds to say out loud,” she says, blushing and laughing at herself. Meanwhile, my heart is doing flips.

  So, the kid is hers, after all? As she glances to the bar, my eyes flit to her hands to look for a wedding or engagement ring, but I see neither. Could she really be single after all these years?

  “That sounds amazing, actually,” I say with another genuine smile. “You look like it’s been going well for you.”

  “It’s...going,” she says, and she starts twirling a lock of hair around a finger, then back again. “I’m working as a barista part-time, but...okay, promise you won’t laugh.”

  “We’ve been laughing this whole time, so no promises,” I say with a wink.

  “Fair enough,” she giggles. “Do you follow podcasts at all?” she asks.

  “Not really, but I’ve heard of a few.”

  “So, they’re kind of like radio talk shows,” she explains, “but they’re on the internet, and they’re usually about a single subject. So, there are cooking podcasts, or travel podcasts, or comedy podcasts, you get the idea.”

  “So, what’s yours about?” I ask, smiling.

  “True crime!” she chirps proudly, and for the first time in years, I have to put some effort into keeping a straight face.

  “Really?” I say, leaning forward and arching a brow, smiling. “That’s fascinating. What does all that entail?”

  “Well, I’m trying to break into journalism,” she explains.

  “Right, I remember you talking about that so much,” I say, and she looks touched that I remember.

  “For the most part, I just work off what I can find on the internet, but some of my leads let me do some freelance investigative journalism. Since I’d only have to be somewhere physically part-time, I could take little road trips every blue moon to track down a lead-- which is what brings me to Ithaca, incidentally.”

  If I had to fight to keep a straight face before, it’s a real battle now. There’s no way...could she really be following up on a tip about a murder I committed? I want to pry for more answers, but just as I open my mouth, Sage and Flora arrive with all our drinks.

  “One cherry mocha for you,” Sage says to Blossom, setting her cup in front of her, “one nasty black sludge for you,” she says to me with a wink, handing me my black coffee, “and some concentrated nasty black sludge for me,” she finishes, sitting down with a cup of what appears to be just a double-shot of espresso.

  “I got a cookie,” Flora says proudly to Blossom, who takes the girl in her arms and sits her on her lap, kissing her on the head.

  “Thanks, Sage,” Blossom says. “Good timing, you missed all the boring stuff.”

  “Oh, is she telling you how she’s been chasing serial killers around everywhere?” Sage asks, and while we chuckle, Blossom blushes furiously and rolls her eyes.

  “What about you?” she asks me, eager to change the subject. “What have you been up to?”

  “Nothing half as interesting,” I say modestly. I hate feeling like I have to hold back so much from her, but it’s necessary.

  No matter what I feel for Blossom, and no matter what she might feel for me, I can’t let old feelings get stirred up again. My life has no room for that, and more importantly, her life is clearly full and rich. It warms my heart to see her there, with a good relationship between her daughter and sister, thriving and following what she has always wanted to do...but I have to keep it at that. I have to stay back and watch from afar, if anything.

  “It can’t be too boring if it’s enough to get us to run into each other again,” she says, and I can’t help but smile.

  “I’m a consultant for hunters,” I explain, and Sage raises an eyebrow.

  “That sounds fake. Especially considering your name,” she says, and I chuckle.

  “It should be. In short, I meet with hunting clubs or, more often, wealthy people who are thinking about buying up woodland to use as hunting grounds. I organize a few meetings between us and some rangers and other wildlife specialists, and I help them make plans for land that ensures the hunting is sustainable and healthy for the environment.”

  Both Blossom and Sage look mildly impressed, but it’s the same rehearsed line I rattle off to my prospective clients. I want to say that really, I’m just a scout for rich people with nothing better to do with their money. But I don’t want to show too much sincerity.

  Just keep holding back.

  “That’s awesome,” Blossom says, and I can tell she really means it, despite my best efforts. “Sage, that sounds like something you’d be into.”

  “Does it get you outdoors a lot?” Sage asks.

  “Almost constantly,” I say, looking down at my strong, rough hands and chuckling. “Takes me all over the northeast. I never thought I’d be doing anything like this five years ago, but I don’t have many complaints.

  The truth is, much like Blossom, that job is just what pays the bills while I carry on what I consider my true calling. It’s both serendipity and cruel irony that our passions put me and Blossom on opposite sides of the fence.

  “So, is that what brings you to Ithaca?” Blossom asks.

  “Yes,” I lie. “But I don’t think the appointment that brought me to Ithaca is going to get me anywhere. You’d be surprised how often it happens. Some trust fund baby realizes how much work actually goes into setting up a hunting camp, and suddenly they lose interest and decide to just sign up for a country club.”

  “Sounds about right,” Blossom laughs. “So, you’re not living around here?”

  “No, I’ll be heading back up to Maine soon,” I say, shaking my head. “Nothing like a seven-hour drive to the coast to look forward to, you know? But hey, maybe I can get the name of that podcast of yours to keep me company while I drive.”

  Blossom looks delighted, but she restrains herself, biting her lip for a moment.

  “Well, it doesn’t actually exist yet, I’m kind of...doing some groundwork to get that started. How soon are you leaving?” she asks suddenly. I can tell what she’s angling for, and my heart races. She wants to stay longer and catch up. This whole time, the more responsible part of me has been saying that I need to keep this to nothing more than ships passing in the night, a brief reunion to remind me what I’m fighting for and then we move on with our lives.

  But that’s not enough for Blossom.

  And now that she has brought it up, I know that deep down in my heart, I can’t deny her anyt
hing. I want it just as bad as she does.

  “Long enough to stick around, if you all are going to be here a while,” I say.

  She smiles at me, then gives her head a little shake, as if snapping herself out of something.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, I just…” she trails off, looking into her coffee before looking back up at me with a face that would make an angel jealous. “You remember those white lilac trees we used to sit under, talking about everything until it was too dark to see?”

  My heart thuds hard against my chest. Why would she bring that up now, after all this time?

  “Of course I do,” I say, and she looks delighted.

  “I just kind of miss that,” she says with a dreamy look on her face, and it’s infectious.

  “Yeah,” I admit, a little relieved for the time being. “Me too.”

  Blossom

  I am still in shock. It feels like the moment we reached Ithaca, I stepped through some metaphysical veil and ended up in a dream scape. There is no way this is my reality. There is no way I’m actually, truly, legitimately in the same city as the man I lost years and years ago. I had long since given up on my pipe dream of finding Hunter again. It seemed so impossible. I mean, obviously when I was first dragged away from northern Maine and sent away as punishment for my misbehaving ways, I used to fantasize about Hunter showing up out of the fog. I would lie in bed and stare out the window, imagining what it would feel like to see a rock pelting against the pane. I thought I would get up out of bed in my long, white nightgown and check the window to see the boy of my dreams climbing up to rescue me from my tower, like I was some modern-day Rapunzel. But the months had gone by without word or sight of the father of my child, and over time, my hopes turned to idle fantasy, and from idle fantasy into a discarded dream. That’s not to say I didn’t still long to have him in my arms again. But I knew better than to put all my hopes into a man who didn’t know where I was and had no means of rescuing me. For all intents and purposes, I gave up.

  Sometimes I still fantasized about running into him at a coffee shop or the grocery store or something. During the lull hours of the afternoon during my shifts at the Lazy Bean, I would stare at the glass door entrance and picture Hunter striding through them, somehow looking exactly as he did five years ago. He was the hero of my every dream. He was the long-suffering but valiant prince searching high and low for his lost princess. At least, that is the role he’s always played in my daydreams.

  But to have him here now, in the flesh, looking and sounding just as real as the busy streets of Ithaca all around me-- it’s almost too much to handle. I keep fighting the urge to pinch my arm and try to wake myself up. I know how it feels to lose everything in an instant, and I’m quietly terrified that it will happen again. That I’ll take my eyes off of him for one second and he will evaporate into the air, never to be seen again except for in my fondest, warmest memories. I keep wanting to reach out and touch him, just to remind myself that he’s really here. It’s like my brain can’t even comprehend reality, not after the five long, lonely years I have spent without him. It’s too good to be true. He’s too good to be true.

  Especially because he looks so damn good. He’s even taller and much sturdier-looking than he even was back then. When I was eighteen and he was twenty-three, he still had a sort of scrappy, lean, almost hungry look about him. Like he had spent much of his life slightly undernourished and incapable of relaxing. I can still recall so perfectly the sensation of his scratchy, patchy beard against my smooth skin when we kissed under the lilac trees. But now, his beard is lushly filled in and even all around, kept neatly trimmed. His dark hair, once tufty and tousled as though he had perpetual bedhead, is thick and well-kept. Where once he was lean and sharp, now he is bulky and hard. Everything about him speaks to his probably newfound ability to look after himself. He’s no longer under the thumb of some disinterested foster guardian. He’s free to be his own man, to live the life he wants to live. From the sound of it, he’s pretty damn successful. He’s pulled his life together and really made something of himself, and it shows. Hunter almost shines with an inner glow that draws me to him like a moth to a flame.

  I’m proud of him. And I find myself desperately wishing to make him proud of me, too. I never want to stop talking and catching up. I never want to let him go. And luckily, he seems to feel the same way.

  We end up spending hours and hours at the coffee shop just talking and basking in one another’s company. I am eternally thankful to have Sage with me, as she does a great job of keeping Flora entertained and relatively quiet while the grown-ups chat. About an hour and a half in, Sage runs out to the car and comes back with a coloring book and a small pack of crayons packed for the express purpose of keeping wandering little hands occupied. And when the morning shifts into afternoon, I notice the barista glancing over at us now and again with a nervous, furtive look that is all too familiar to me.

  I lean in closely to whisper to Sage and Hunter, “I think we might had overstayed our welcome here. The barista keeps glancing over at us.”

  Sage nods. “Yeah, that’s true. We have been hogging the table for awhile now.”

  “Should I buy us another round of coffee to pacify the staff?” Hunter asks helpfully.

  I smile. “If I have any more caffeine I might give myself the shakes.”

  “Fair enough. I forget you’re not as hopelessly addicted to coffee as I am. Barely even affects me anymore,” Sage says with a shrug.

  “Well, when you spend the majority of your waking hours surrounded by coffee at work, it tends to lose some of its appeal,” I chuckle.

  “So, where should we go? Or do you need to get going? I’m not holding you up, am I?” Hunter asks, looking back and forth between Sage and me.

  I shake my head vehemently, my eyes going wide. I can barely contain my enthusiasm as I jump to assure him we don’t need to break apart just yet. “No, no. I don’t want to leave yet-- or, well, I mean I don’t want to leave you yet. We could always go somewhere else, though,” I explain, embarrassed at how over-eager (read: desperate) I sound. I don’t dare make eye contact with Sage right now. I can feel her smirking at me. She knows me better than anyone.

  Hunter nods and smiles. I think I can detect a hint of relief, as though he’s pleased to hear that I want to spend more time with him. As if there would ever be any question about that. Flora, however, is getting impatient. It’s easy enough for three adults to sit in one place and chat for hours on end, but for a five year old, it’s akin to torture.

  “I bored!” she exclaims, setting down her favorite purple crayon decisively.

  “She tends to tell it like it is,” I remark to Hunter.

  “Yeah, no sugar-coating with this one,” adds Sage, laughing.

  “How about this,” Hunter begins, looking at Flora with a sweet twinkle in his eye. “Would you and your auntie like to go see a movie?” Then, he looks at me and mouths the words, I’ll pay. I grin as Flora starts excitedly bouncing up and down.

  “Movie!” she bursts out, clapping. Sage smiles.

  “Sounds like a yes to me,” she says. “You two should go somewhere and chat, and I’ll go see a movie with the little one.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to just...abandon you and Flora,” I tell her, biting my lip. Secretly, though, I can’t wait for it to be just Hunter and me. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my sister and daughter, of course, but this could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reconnect with the literal man of my dreams. I’ll do anything to keep this ball rolling.

  “Yeah! Of course. I’d love to,” Sage assures me.

  “Great!” says Hunter. And with that, it’s settled. The four of us head across town to the movie theater, my car tailing after Hunter’s. When we get there, he pays for them to see some kids’ film about dogs, and the sets of two part ways. Sage and Flora head in to see the movie while Hunter and I walk around the corner to a hip little restaura
nt tucked away off the beaten path. Finally, it’s just the two of us, and from the moment we sit down, the conversation flows as easy as water pouring down Ithaca Falls. Sparks are flying, and my heart is pounding along like crazy just from being in such close proximity to Hunter. It’s wild to think that our connection is just as powerful, if not more, than it was all those years ago in small town Maine. We were just dumb kids back then, essentially, but the electricity between us has never faltered.

  The restaurant Hunter picks is nice, but not overly fancy. He has good taste. The waiter comes and pours us a couple glasses of red wine and I giggle a little as I raise the glass to my lips. “Too bad we were never able to go on a proper date like this years ago,” I tell him.

  Hunter nods, a warm smile on his face. “Yeah, your parents would never have let that happen. Besides, that town didn’t have a single restaurant suitable for a date with the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  I blush and hastily take a gulp of wine to distract myself from the compliment. “Plus, I wasn’t able to drink back then. It’s crazy to think I was just eighteen,” I sigh. “So young and so dumb. And so in love.”

  “So in love,” he repeats softly, shaking his head as those cinnamon-brown eyes gaze into mine. “I’d never seen anyone like you before. Do you remember that first day we met? I was being a delinquent, as usual, stealing produce from that grumpy old farmer.”

  I laugh. “Yes! You leaped over the fence when I was picking berries. I was so shocked.”

  “I was, too. I knew I needed to keep running so I wouldn’t get caught, but you were just so pretty you stopped me in my tracks,” he says. “That blonde hair braided down your back, those bright blue eyes. You looked like an angel. I still remember seeing your shoulders just slightly tinged pink from the sun.”