He swore, then shifted forward to brush the tears away with his thumb. “I’m sorry. God—I’m a jackass. Becca, I’m sorry.”
This couldn’t be more horrifying. She shook her head and swiped at her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m crying.”
“I think you’re allowed.” He stroked a finger across her cheekbone, brushing a stray hair behind her ear. His voice dropped. “If I offer to hold you, are you going to think I’m making a move?”
Was he teasing? She couldn’t tell. She blinked tears off her lashes and looked up at him. “I’m not worried. I know Krav Maga.”
He grinned, and she loved how it stole the tension from his features. But then he was pulling her to him, shifting until they were in the corner of the sofa and her face was against his shoulder. His arm fell around her waist, holding her close. She had no idea where her free hand should go—there were so many wrong places—and finally settled on resting it across his chest, until his heart beat under her palm.
Becca held her breath, afraid to move.
“You okay?” His voice was closer. His breath touched her forehead.
She nodded.
He reached up and pulled the sticks out of her hair, and she felt the semi-damp strands drop onto her neck. “I don’t want to put an eye out,” he said.
She giggled. “Sorry.”
He said nothing for the longest time, and she relaxed into the feel of his body, allowing the rhythm of his breathing to settle her own.
She’d forgotten what this felt like, to rest against a boy, to share the weight on her shoulders with someone else.
“Do you have a curfew?” she asked.
“Not really.” He paused. “Mom’s not ... she’s been kind of distracted since Dad died. She might not even know I’m gone.”
His voice wasn’t empty, but carried a note that warned her to tread carefully. “What about your grandparents?”
“I don’t think they remember that teenagers are supposed to have a curfew.” Another pause, and she heard a smile in his voice. “Why? Want to go out?”
She shook her head, glad he couldn’t see the blush on her cheeks. His hand came up to rest over her own, his thumb sliding along her wrist until he found the twine bracelets. He slid them until the knots were aligned.
“Why don’t you believe in accidents?” she said.
Hunter was silent for so long that she thought he might not have heard the question—or he might not want to answer. But he ducked his head and spoke low, as if the words were too much for the living room to hear.
“My father and uncle used to go on these ... trips,” he said. “I always thought it was adventure-type stuff. Male bonding, sleep in the woods and skip shaving, you know.”
She could imagine. Her dad would probably love it. “Was your dad a cop, too?”
“No.” Hunter paused. “He worked for the government. Ex-Marine—Special Ops. That’s where he learned the self-defense stuff. When he got out of the Corps, he took a job in the private sector. I still don’t know everything he did, but Mom used to worry that he’d die on some top-secret mission and we’d never know what really happened. I don’t know if he was aware of the car crash—like, I don’t know if it was instantaneous or whatever—but I know he’d be pissed to go out that way.”
A lot of pride hung in his voice—and grief, too, though that was better hidden.
“When he and my uncle got together—they never let me come,” Hunter said. “The last time, I’d been bitching about it for days. I always thought they just went fishing and told bullshit stories, and it used to drive me crazy that they wouldn’t let me go. We had a big fight the morning they left.”
Tension crawled across his shoulders, and she lifted her head to look at him. Hunter’s face was close, his eyes dark in the shadowed room.
“They left,” he said. “I was pissed, but they were gone.”
He held his breath, looking at her. The look in his eyes was almost fragile.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said.
He glanced away. “I just—I’ve never told anyone,” he said, and his voice was nearly steady. He paused again. “They came back.”
She nodded.