Our Favorite Days

  “Thanks, that would be amazing, Jos.” Hunter said. She grinned and shoved her headphones on her ears and got to work.

  “Well, that was fun, but I have to go back to reading about diseases,” Renee said with a sigh. I shared a look with Hunter. Jos still hadn’t talked to Renee about Dusty moving in. I understood why she was scared, but it was only going to get worse the longer she put it off. It was a real possibility that Dusty’s apartment was going to fall completely apart sooner rather than later. That place was a hazard.

  Hunter’s phone rang as he was plucking our a few chords and he smiled when he saw who was calling.

  “Hey, Hope,” he said, getting up and heading toward the stairs to give the rest of us quiet to work on our homework. I wanted to go with him, but there wasn’t a way to do that without making it obvious I had asked her to call him. Too bad this wasn’t like the old days when I could just pick up another phone in the house and listen in. We didn’t even have a landline here.

  I waited several agonizing minutes until I couldn’t take it anymore, then I headed upstairs. If I got busted, I was going to claim I needed something in our bedroom. If Hunter was a normal guy, I’d just say it was period-related, but nothing about menstruation scared my fiancée.

  I paused just outside the bedroom door, but I didn’t hear any conversation. He must have hung up. I pushed the door open and pretended to be startled to find him in the room.

  “Hunter?” I asked. He was sitting on the bed, staring off into space, the phone right next to him. “Hunter?”

  He blinked and looked over at me.

  “You’re so worried about me that you called my aunt and asked her to check on me?” Uh oh. This plan was starting to blow up in my face. Time for damage control.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help you or what I should do and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back, but I was desperate.” I threw myself on my knees in front of him, reaching for his hands. Maybe it was a bit dramatic, but I was so scared of ever losing him.

  His eyes were unreadable, but then his face softened into a smile. I thought I was going to faint from relief. Taking my hands, he kissed my palms.

  “Missy Girl, you are too much sometimes.” I fell into his arms and we ended up sprawled on the bed.

  “I really am sorry,” I said, touching his face. I shivered at the slight stubble that met my hands when I stroked his chin.

  “I know. And I can’t say that if I were in the same situation, I wouldn’t have done the same thing. But there’s nothing that you can do. Short of inventing a time machine or something, going back and changing the past…” he trailed off.

  “I just hate when you’re hurting.” He kissed my forehead.

  “I love that you tried.” I held up my hand and he slapped it with his.

  “High five for trying!” I said and he laughed.

  “Good effort.”

  I nestled against his chest.

  “So what did Hope have to say?”

  “Nothing I haven’t heard before. She suggested that I try therapy again, or go to the group for kids who have lost their parents. I don’t know. I mean… I just really don’t want to go back to that. It’s like ripping the bandage off a wound and reliving everything all over again. I know I’ll never get over it, but I’d like to think I can at least try and live as normal a life as I can.” I put my hand on his heart.

  “If you asked me to marry you right now, I’d say yes,” I said.

  A chuckle rumbled through his chest.

  “Good thing I already did that.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right! How could I forget?” His fingers brushed against my left hand where my ring lived.

  “No idea. It was pretty epic.”

  I wasn’t angry with her for going behind my back. I was more… frustrated with the whole situation. Pissed that she’d even had to do that. Pissed that my past was such absolute shit that she got dragged into. Taylor had her own past to deal with. She didn’t need mine on top of it.

  The nightmares came again that night and she woke me up even though she was as exhausted as I was. If I didn’t deal with this, it was going to come between us. Taylor was sweet and understanding and an absolute rock, but she couldn’t keep doing this forever. I wouldn’t let her get dragged down into my darkness with me.

  So with shaking hands and a lump in my throat, I walked into the campus health clinic.

  “Yeah, I’d like to make an appointment,” I said in a low voice, as if someone was going to catch me in the act. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I could be here for any reason. Still, it was a challenge not to keep looking around to make sure no one saw me. I had an excuse all ready to go in case I needed it.

  “Okay, what did you need to make the appointment for?” the sweet receptionist asked with a wide smile. She had just a smidge of bright pink lipstick on her teeth. I tried not to stare at it.

  “Uh, yeah, uh, I need to talk to someone about… some stuff?” I sounded like a fucking moron. She narrowed her eyes at me and handed me a clipboard with a form and a pen on it.

  “Fill this out with a few more specifics and then we’ll see what we can do.” She gave me another sugary smile and I went to the little waiting area with my form to fill it out. I did it as quick as I could so I could get out of there. The receptionist was on the phone with someone when I brought the form back, so I had to wait for her to be done.

  “Let’s see what we have here,” she said, her eyes flicking over the boxes I’d checked under “depression” and “trouble sleeping.” I knew she wasn’t judging me, but it still kind of sucked to have this stranger know all of my personal business.

  Taylor. I was doing this for Taylor. I was going to be her husband and I had to be the best husband possible for her. I had to get my shit together.

  After some more irritation, I finally got an appointment for the following week to see one of the counselors. It would probably be some grad student working on a thesis, but it was better than no one.

  I folded up the appointment card and stuck it in my wallet. I was still on the fence about whether or not to tell Taylor about the appointment beforehand, or wait until after. Right now I was leaning toward after.

  I worked a few hours at the library and then headed home to find the house in chaos. Mase had invited Dev and Sean over, as well as Dusty and they were locked in a videogame battle with Renee. Judging by the level of trash-talking, she was probably crushing all of them. Jos was egging them on, Paul was trying to be supportive of Renee, and Taylor and Darah had escaped to the kitchen to work on dinner.

  “They’re going to destroy that couch, I swear,” Taylor said, rolling her eyes.

  “Eh, we’ll buy a new one,” I said, going over and giving her a kiss.

  “Money doesn’t solve everything, you know,” she said with a smirk.

  “Yes, but it does solve a lot of things.” She wrinkled her nose at me and I placed a kiss on it.

  “Too true,” Darah said, stirring something on the stove while Taylor began telling me about some drama in her Women and Communication class. It was a little ironic, given the title of the class.

  “So then we had this whole thing about the term ‘feminazi’ and I think my brain is still exhausted,” she said, leaning against my chest. I wanted to tell her about my appointment, but I couldn’t make the words come.

  “Well, if you need a male feminist to come to your classes, I volunteer,” I said with a smile.

  “What a suck-up,” she said, smacking me in the chest.

  “Excuse me, I will have you know that I have been a feminist for a long time.” She snorted.

  “Yeah, about five minutes after I told you I was a women’s studies major, I’m sure.” I pretended to glare at her. There was another yell from the living room and Renee started doing her victory dance. There was lots of cursing and throwing things at her in retaliation.

  Chaos.

  But I wouldn’t have
it any other way.

  “I’m almost done with my training, so they said I could start volunteering soon. It’ll probably be nights, since I can’t swing it during the day,” Taylor said once we were in bed. “Are you okay with that? I know it cuts into the time we spend together.”

  She looked up at me from her position on my chest.

  “Of course I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be?” Seriously, what kind of shitty fiancée would I be if I was mad at her helping other people?

  “Oh, I know. I just wanted to check.” She smiled and I wrapped some of her hair around my fingers.

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?” The only thing I was concerned about was that. She nodded.

  “Yeah, I think I am. Because in this situation, I’m the one who has the power to help someone. It makes me feel better, somehow.” She shrugged and my heart thumped an extra beat.

  “Angel,” I said, kissing her forehead.

  “I am not,” she said.

  “Yes you are.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Make me.” She straddled my legs and glared down at me.

  “Well, Missy Girl, I’m in a position to make a lot of things happen,” I said, rolling my hips. She bit her lip, but shook her head at me.

  “Nope. Looks like you’re going to have to take care of Hunter Jr. on your own,” she said with a little sigh as she climbed off me, got out of bed and tried to head toward the bookshelf.

  Tried, because I lunged forward and nabbed her around the waist, hauling her back into bed with me.

  “No way, you’re not getting away that easily. You tease.”

  “Neanderthal,” she shot back as she squirmed against me. But she was smiling.

  “Sexy.”

  “Horny.”

  “Gorgeous.”

  “Bastard.”

  “True.” She laughed and then let me kiss her.

  He was hiding something from me. No idea what it was. But there was something. I’d seen it on his face when he walked into the kitchen that night. I didn’t say a damn thing about it, hoping that maybe he’d come clean.

  But he didn’t.

  I was thinking about it the next day when I was putting together toiletry kits at the crisis center.

  “How are we doing?” Mel, the director said when she came to check on me.

  “Almost done,” I said, and she smiled and gave me a pat on the back.

  “I know it’s a small thing, but these families often have to leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs and it’s such a comfort to be able to offer them soap and toothbrushes and other little things.” It broke my heart that in addition to the toiletries, we also packed a little stuffed toy in each bag. Just in case there was a child who needed one.

  Thinking about that snapped me out of worrying about Hunter. I had it so good. I had it better than so many people.

  “You okay?” Mel asked because I’d been staring at the bags covering the table where I’d been working.

  “Yeah, just thinking about how much different my life could have been.” She squeezed my shoulder.

  “This isn’t easy work, so if you need to talk to me, my door is always open.” I gave her a smile and she walked back to where more volunteers manned the hotline. Pretty soon I’d be taking shifts and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. People could call for any reason, so every time the phone rang, you had no idea what you were going to get on the other end.

  I’d had several training sessions, worked through simulations of calls and observed, but actually being the person on the end of a potential emergency was freaking me out.

  I mean, I wasn’t the best person in an emergency. Shit, when Hunter and I had first met, I’d punched him rather than handling things a different way. What if someone called and I just blanked?

  I had to get myself together. People were depending on me. This was what I wanted to do with my life, so I had to get used to it.

  I finished my shift and headed home, my heart and mind weary. Everyone was knee-deep in homework when I walked in, but Hunter was there with a plate of food that he’d warmed up for me.

  “I love you so much in this moment,” I said as I sat down to a veggie burger with melted Gouda and stir-fried vegetables. I shoveled the food into my face while Hunter watched. He’d seen me eat like this before, so it was nothing new.

  “Oh, thank God,” I said when I was done. I sat back in my chair and put my hand on my stomach. “Dessert?” He smirked and whipped out two red velvet cupcakes.

  I gaped at him.

  “What did you do?”

  “Uh, nothing?”

  He pushed the plate closer to me and I went for one of the cupcakes.

  “So you didn’t bake my favorite kind of cupcakes because you did something that was going to upset me and you thought sugaring me up was going to soften the blow?” My heart started racing a little, hoping that he was going to tell me what he was keeping from me.

  “No. But I love how your mind works. I haven’t done anything that would require me to grovel,” he said, peeling the paper off the other cupcake, breaking it in half and then making it into a sandwich before he took a bite. I did the same.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, giving him another chance to tell me what he’d been keeping from me. I wasn’t paranoid enough to think that he was cheating on me, or that it had something to do with our relationship. No, he would be much more freaked out than this. He wouldn’t be able to hide that from me. His little nervous ticks would give it away immediately. I’d known something huge was up when we woke in the morning on the day he proposed.

  We’d met with Joe earlier in the week to go over Hunter’s financials and our joint accounts. Near the end of the meeting, Joe mentioned that he wanted to get my ring appraised so he could add the exact value to our list of assets. I didn’t want to take it off, but he insisted and Hunter didn’t speak up in my defense.

  It didn’t even occur to me that he was taking it back for another reason. Not until all of us were standing in front of the bookstore where the Steiners were going to perform. Hunter was tapping. Really tapping. He was pale and even though he was smiling, I knew better.

  “He’s tapping. He always does this when he’s freaking out,” I said to Jos and Meg. “I have no idea why—this isn’t his first show. I swear, the minute I think I understand him is the minute he decides to surprise me,” Hannah said something to Jos, but I was too focused on Hunter.

  The leader, Kent, introduced them like he did before every show and then they started singing “One More Night.” Hunter pointed right at me, so I knew that the song choice was his doing. He even got to sing lead for a little while. They followed that up with a medley but I could still see Hunter’s nerves.

  I was rubbing the empty space where my ring used to be when Hunter stepped forward.

  “Hello, everyone. I’m Hunter and I’m going to have to beg for your attention for a second.”

  “What the hell is that boy doing?” I said, more to myself than anyone else. Because something was definitely up.

  He said some other things and beckoned me forward. And my brain just shut off. Numbly, I took his hand and dropped onto a stool someone brought out. I was starting to see what was happening and I wanted to die.

  Not in front of all these people! But then I looked up at him as he started singing. “I Can’t Wait” by Runner Runner. It was a song that I’d stumbled upon and he must have heard me playing once or twice.

  Of course I started blubbering, but I couldn’t put a stop to it. Everything else around me faded into the background and it was only him. Only this man that I loved, singing to me. Asking me if I’d spend the rest of my life with him.

  “Taylor Elizabeth Caldwell, you are the only song I want to sing for the rest of my life and I love you more than the stars. Will you marry me?” I couldn’t get my voice to work at first, but finally I got out a whisper.

  “Yes.”


  It was chaos after that. I didn’t remember much else.

  I just knew I’d never been happier in my life. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like that. I thought I’d die from it.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, nabbing some frosting with his finger and smearing it on my cheek.

  “Oh, you are going to get it,” I said, doing the same.

  He held his hands up in surrender, but I got him again anyway.

  It took Hunter a week to tell me that he’d gone to talk to someone. An entire week of me agonizing and pretending that I wasn’t watching his every move, while I was watching his every move.

  “So. Um,” he said, as we lay in bed. He’d made some vague excuse as to why he was going to be late for dinner and my heart had been pounding the whole night, worrying what was wrong.

  “Yeah?” I asked, sitting against the pillows as he crawled in next to me. Naked as always.

  “I went and saw someone today. A counselor at the student health center. To talk about the nightmares.” They were still just as vicious as before, so they definitely hadn’t been getting better. Neither of us had been getting much sleep and we’d been short with each other for days. I hated it.

  When he told me he had talked to someone, I sagged in relief.

  “Oh thank God. I knew you’d been keeping something from me but that was what I hoped you were going to say.” I put my hand on my heart and told it to calm the fuck down.

  “Were you really that worried? I’m sorry, why didn’t you say anything?” He reached for me and I let myself be drawn into his arms.

  “I was, but I knew it was something that you would tell me eventually. I knew it wasn’t… I knew you hadn’t done something stupid.” His chest rumbled as he chuckled.

  “Oh, yeah? You didn’t assume that I’d left you for a side piece?” I made a disgusted sound and smacked his chest.

  “Gross, don’t talk like that.” He just kissed the top of my head.

  “You don’t know what it means to me to know that you trust me that much. I never thought anyone would.” His words sent a bolt of pain to my heart, but I just held him tighter.