Hunter's Choice (18 page)

Hunter

“Hey Hunter?” I looked up from what I was
doing and over to Aaron.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

“I believe you just did.” I said with a dry
grin. He smiled back at me almost shyly.

“What is it?” I asked him, curiosity causing
an itch just under my breast bone.

“You love Jess, right?” he asked.

“More than anything.” I answered honestly and
rather dryly. What was he getting at?

“When did you know?” he asked. I set down the
pliers I’d been using to mend a patch of chicken wire on one of the enclosures.
They made a hollow sound on the make shift work table I’d set up, which was
really just a sheet of plywood over two saw horses. I crossed my arms over my
chest and leaned a shoulder against one of the enclosure’s supports. I leveled
Aaron with my gaze. I would have to be careful here.

“The first time I laid eyes on her.” I said,
which was true. I think I had known we were destined to be together that moment
on the highway when she’d first picked me up. Of course Aaron didn’t know that
was the first time…

“Even with her all bruised and bloody like
that?” he asked. Eyebrows shooting up into his hair line. He thought the first
time I’d ever seen Jess had been while she was being attacked in her barn.

“Yes.” I replied evenly, “I have a protective
nature, so she was attractive to me even then. I wanted to heal her. Fix her
hurts.” True yet untrue, but how to explain that I hadn’t really had a
protective instinct until I met her? True still, she was attractive to me no
matter what she looked like. The woman couldn’t do anything at all to make
herself undesirable. Just thinking about her now, like this, had my cock
stirring in my pants.

“Aaron,” I said gently as I could. “Just ask
me what you want to ask me.” I smiled and hoped it was encouraging.

He let out a gusty sigh.

“There’s this girl…” he started.

“Ah.” I jerked my head over towards Jess’s
picnic table. He followed me and I sat on the table, booted feet on the seat.
He copied me. I rested my forearms on my knees and waited for him to continue.

“Her name is Fallon and she goes to my
school.” He palmed the back of his neck.

“Pretty I take it?” and I smiled.

“Dude, you have no idea… On a scale of one to
ten she’s a freaking twelve!” he exclaimed and I laughed.

“Okay so Fallon’s a twelve, what’s the problem
lad?” I asked him.

“Have you looked at me?” he asked holding his
hands wide in front of him leaning back in invitation for me to assess. I
raised an eyebrow and gave him a look.

“Okay, fair point well made.” I said but I
said it with a smile. His eyes clouded and he scowled.

“Boy, I don’t find males attractive as a
general rule but as far as lads go, if I were a female,” I looked at him
critically.

“Eh, you’d hold your own. So what is the
problem?” I asked.

“She’s kind of dating this douche bag?” he bit
his bottom lip and closed one eye, looking at me out of the other.

“I see, has she noticed you yet?” I asked.

“I don’t know… I think so?” he chewed his lip
and looked so very young. I gave an inward sigh.

“Does she talk to you?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, all the time! We like the same
music and some of the same movies. She thinks what I do out here is cool and
said she wants to come out some time. She promised to be at the bird festival
to watch me and Jess present. She wants to meet you all.” He was smiling and I
laughed.

“Aaron, she’s noticed you.” I said flatly. His
face crumpled.

“They why is she with that dickbag Jordan?” he
asked. I sighed.

“Girls your age can be complicated,” I began,
stopping at the crunch of gravel beneath booted feet. Jess was coming across
the yard with a pitcher and some of those red plastic Solo cups popular at
modern American parties. She poured us each some cold sweet tea and brought out
one of her white writing boards from beneath her arm.

What are we talking about?
She inquired. I looked to Aaron for silent permission. He gave a gusty
sigh.

“Girls.” He answered flatly. Jess raised her eyebrows
and with a wicked gleam in her eye pulled out her whistle.

“No! That’s okay don’t call Charlie. I asked
Hunter ‘cause we’re closer in age…”

And you were afraid Charlie would give you
a bad time?
She held up her sign after he trailed off.
He blushed.

Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I
love Charlie to death but dating advice from a 70 something year old man…
Outdated much? Hunter was a good choice.

Aaron smiled and held out his fist. Jess
bumped it with her own and sat down on the bench between us. With us on the
table top it put her lower and made it easy for us to read what she was
writing.

Recap, I missed most of this.

“Okay, so there’s this girl at my school named
Fallon. Same grade, even a few of the same classes.” He took a drink of tea.

“I really like her and Hunter asked if she’d
noticed me, and I was saying we’re friends but she has this boyfriend who is
like this total douche named Jordan.” Jess began writing.

What makes Jordan a douche?

“Okay, okay, okay!” Aaron scrambled off the
table and took four gigantic leaps out into the yard putting distance between
us.

“So picture this blonde haired blue eyed kid
about this tall,” He held his hand up to indicate his shoulder height which was
respectable enough given how tall Aaron was. “Wearin’ a white tee shirt that’s
three sizes too big, crotch of his pants around down here,” He leaned down and
waved his hand between his knees and straightened.

“Now this is how he walks.” Aaron leaned back
and thrust his hips forward, brushing his thumb against the side of his nose.
Jess began laughing, and I had to admit that the sight was a bit funny, then he
walked with this slouching rolling gate towards us and I had to laugh too.
Aaron straightened and held out his hands.

“As if that isn’t bad enough, he has on this
big silver chain around his neck and talks like this…” to which he immediately
launched into this over the top nonsensical accent I had heard some inner city
youths use. Jess and I laughed and she wrote,

Okay I’d say he’s a bit misguided, what
makes him a douche though?

She looked at Aaron critically.

“He’s all acting like he’s hard when he’s not!
This is Sequim, not Seattle, and I don’t even think Seattle has a ‘hood like
the bigger cities. It’s not like we’re freaking L.A. or whatever!” Aaron leapt
back up onto the bench and dropped down onto the table top beside me.

“What’s worse is he deals drugs, weed mostly,
and calls girls ‘bitches’ and ‘hoes’ like it’s cool. Fallon is a
nice
girl, sweet and pretty and we’ll be talking or whatever and he’ll come by and
be all like ‘Yo you’s my bitch, stop talkin’ to that fool!’ and she’s always
apologizing for him and goes after him and it kind of drives me nuts.” Aaron
looked a little hopeless, I couldn’t see Jessamine’s expression from this
angle, bowed as her head was over her writing board.

I can’t speak for all womenkind here, or
your friend, but I remember what it was like when I was that age.

“Any insight is better than no insight at this
point.” Aaron remarked dryly and I thought it was a very grown up thing to say.

This is a lot to write so bear with me…

“Kay.” He said.

When I was in college, so older than you
guys by like two or three years, I dated, but not much. Pretty self-conscious,
you know? There were some nice guys and some not so nice guys.

“Kay.” He acknowledged and she erased what she
wrote and went on.

I fell in with someone that on retrospect
wasn’t so nice my graduating year…

“Josh?” Aaron asked wrinkling his nose.

Yes, Josh. I can’t remember if you’d ever
met him.

“I’ve been around three years, you got rid of
him two years ago. So yeah in that year I met him a few times. I always thought
he was kind of a douche canoe. He was never really interested in anything you
were doing. Let you do all the work while he just sat inside the house and
played his stupid guitar. I never figured out what you saw in him. Charlie
bitched about him all the time behind your back. Said you could and should be
doing much better than the likes of him.” Aaron grinned.

Okay, hold up… Charlie never bitched about
Josh behind my back, that’s not Charlie’s style, you know it and I know it. He
told me to my face that Josh wasn’t good enough for me and he was right. YOU
DON’T TELL HIM I SAID THAT. I would never hear the end of it.

We both laughed and she erased what she wrote
and looked around as if Charlie would pounce out of the shadows at any moment.

My point is, now that I’m a year or two
away from Josh and have Hunter here to compare to, I get what Charlie was
trying to say. It guess it’s no secret I have pretty low self-esteem.

She shrugged and looked decidedly
uncomfortable. I wanted to comfort her but I waited, letting her have her say.

That’s the difference between Josh and
Hunter. Josh saw my low self-worth and exploited it to his own end. Hunter sees
me struggle and tells me I’m beautiful and perfect.

“You are.” I remarked.

You follow me?

“I think so, you’re saying Josh is Jordan in
this situation… That maybe Fallon doesn’t think she deserves better treatment?”
Aaron looked at Jess who nodded emphatically, put a finger to her nose and with
the other hand pointed to Aaron. Her white board slipped off her lap and landed
in the gravel at her feet, she picked it up and wiped it clean with her sleeve
and continued writing.

Right, even though Charlie kept saying I
deserved better my low opinion of myself kept me from seeing it. I mean,
Charlie, Dave and Margie pretty much raised me they had to love me right?

I was quiet.

“Er…” Aaron looked off kilter.

Rhetorical question, you aren’t supposed to
answer that.

Sorry.

Anyways, that was my line of thinking. I
didn’t think I deserved better and Josh fostered that illusion. It’s a form of
control. Josh never hit me, never laid a hand on me but he didn’t love me, and
the way he treated me was a form of abuse in a way. I know that now. I know
what being loved is better than any notion I had before.

She smiled up at me and my heart squeezed in
my chest, crushed under the weight of my pride in her. She cleaned off the
board and went on.

Admittedly I don’t know the entire
relationship dynamic going on between Fallon and Jordan, but from what little
you’ve told me it sounds like Fallon is young and doesn’t know any better about
how a woman is supposed to be treated by a man.

Aaron nodded and she erased and went on.

She gravitates to you because you’re doing
it right and it feels nice to be around you, but girls and boys are raised to
believe that when you love someone, or when you think you do, you stick it out
through thick and thin. We’re a monogamous culture, you stick with your
mate/boyfriend/husband.

“Right.” Aaron said agreeing.

How long have Fallon and Jordan been
dating?

Aaron looked up at the sky and blew out an
explosive breath while he thought about it.

“We’re all juniors in high school, coming up
on senior year. I’ve seen them together a lot since… seventh grade? Maybe
eighth?” he nodded.

That’s four or five years Aaron. Hell even
for adults that’s a long time! She’s comfortable…

Jess stopped and frowned at what she’d written
and erased
‘She’s comfortable’
and replaced it with
‘It’s familiar’

Letting go of what is familiar for the
unknown can be anxiety inducing. Really anxiety inducing, but it can also be
really freeing. Exhilarating.

“So what should I do?” he asked.

Be her friend. Be patient with her, she’ll
figure it out and when she does just be there for her but it has to be her
decision.

“Well lad, I agree with everything Jess has
said to a point.” I said smiling, “I would suggest that her agreeing to see you
present with Jess is a good indication she’s interested in spending time with
you. Ask her to dinner after, here at the house. That way it doesn’t feel like
a date, just a gathering of friends. No pressure.” I leaned back and Jess
beamed at me.

Really good idea. Yes. Do that. Don’t be
disappointed if she says she can’t, just be patient and available until that
isn’t feasible anymore. Don’t wait for her forever, that isn’t fair to you.