AS I STOOD SWEEPING UP the broken glass, I kept raising my head to look toward Hunter. He had his back to me and every muscle in it moved as he worked on my car. Every now and then, he would emerge from under the hood and push the hair out of his face or take a drink from the whiskey bottle he had brought from the truck and now kept on the work table next to him. I had seen people drink a lot before, but never like this. He didn’t seem to get drunk. He never stumbled or got clumsy, just worked away and acted like I wasn’t even in the room. In a word, he was an infuriating pig.
I finished cleaning up the mess I had made and set the broom and dustpan in the corner. I heard a loud grunt from behind me and turned to see Hunter pulling the battery out of the car. He blew the stray hair from his eyes and let the battery drop on the table next to him. He wiped his hands on a towel that now hung from his waist and moved to a shelving unit across the room.
“How’s it going over there? Anything I can do to help?”
He just looked over at me and laughed to himself.
“No, darling. Just sit tight and don’t break anything else.”
Part of me felt like an idiot, some helpless lady sitting there while the man did all the work. At the same time, I liked the feeling. I liked having a man like that fix my broken car. I watched Hunter move across the room with various parts and tools, watched him working beneath the hood and coming up every now and then for a drink and to wipe the sweat from his forehead. I had no idea what he was doing, but I knew it was fine. He’d clean his grease covered hands on the towel and then go back to it. I just stood there and took in his every movement, every grunt he let out as he went about his work in silence.
He was trying to be a jerk to me, and all I was thinking was that it was nice to be taken care of by a man for once in my life.
After about fifteen minutes, he slammed the hood, turned around, and sat back on it.
“You’re all good to go, sweetheart,” he said as he took out a cigarette from his nearly empty pack. He seemed to either always have a bottle or a cigarette in his hands.
I watched his lips purse when he took in the smoke as he brought the flame close to his face, making it glisten in the sweat that covered him.
He pulled the fire away and breathed out a thick cloud that hung in the air before it slowly disappeared.
“You drink and smoke more than anyone I’ve ever seen. Aren’t you worried about the damage you’re doing?”
He let out a loud laugh. It was the first time I had heard something like that from him. I wasn’t even sure he was capable of light-hearted emotion. Everything about him was so intense, so primal. This was the first time I had broken through that. It felt good, even if it was unintentional.
“No, Kelly. I’m not worried. There’s nothing a bottle or smoke can do to me that’s any worse than what’s already been done.”
He wasn’t bragging and he didn’t sound upset. He just said it, matter of fact, and took another drag of his cigarette. It was the closest I had come to finding out just who this man was and I wanted more.
Who are you? How did you get here? Why me?
“Hunter, what are you talking about?”
He stood up and walked over to the sink, letting water run over his hands and take whatever last bits of grime clung to them down the drain.
“Nothing, sweetheart. I’m fucking drunk. Talking shit. Don’t worry about it.”
He may have been drunk, in fact, there was no way he couldn’t be, but he wasn’t lying. He had only been in my life since that morning, but one thing I knew more than anything was that he didn’t lie. Everything about him was pure and honest. The anger, the strength, the desire. He didn’t make excuses or try and be anything other than what he was. When he did speak, he meant it.
“Hunter. Who are you? Why are you here?”
He turned off the tap and walked back over to the hood of my car, grabbing the whiskey bottle on the way. When he looked up at me, he paused and stared like he was going to finally open up to me. He was about to tell me just who this mysterious stranger was and what he wanted. Then his eyes broke away and he took a pull from the bottle.
“I told you this morning, Kelly. I’m from up east, it was time to go, now I’m here and I work on cars. That’s it.”
That wasn’t it. It was like he forgot that I saw him almost kill two men today, or that he’d taken me back to my house and set it on fire with both of us in it. Didn’t he know I could see who he really was every time his deep, blue eyes locked onto mine?
There was power and there was pain, and whether he liked it or not, he had pulled me into both. I didn’t have a choice and now I wanted to go further. I wanted to see all of him. Who he was, really.