Because of Ellison

  “Whatever, Lil! That’s not the point at the moment. Please distract her so I can find El.”

  “You want a bump, baby?” My eyes met the cocaine tipped key Tiffany was holding at the exact same time Lily saw it.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” Lily turned so that she was nose to nose with Tiffany. “Don’t bring drugs and shit around here, Hunter’s trying to quit. That’s the whole point of him coming down.”

  Tiffany laughed. “Quit? Why? Everyone’s doing it. Plus, he’s already finished off about ten lines since I’ve been here, so I highly doubt another bump is going to hurt him.”

  Fuuuuuuuuuuck ….

  Lily turned her blue eyes back to me. Her face was red with anger and I flinched knowing that I was about to hear it.

  But then she surprised me.

  Plastering a sweet smile on her face, she angled her head toward her shoulder when she said, “Hunter, why don’t you go deal with what you need to deal with for a moment, okay? I’d like to have a little girl talk with Tiffany.”

  Tiffany rolled her eyes.

  I didn’t wait around long enough to let Tiffany object. I looked around the clearing and eventually found Ellison sitting with Finn on a blanket out near the tree line. I had no idea why they were sitting so far away, but I didn’t have time to concern myself with the details. I just ran in their direction. By the time I reached her, she was bent over her guitar strumming out a slow song.

  “Hey, Hunter! Is your girlfriend having a good time at the bonfire?” Finn smiled up at me.

  This guy was really starting to piss me off with the friendly act …

  “Uh, she’s not my girlfriend … ”

  Ellison snorted.

  “Hey, Ellie. Can I talk to you? Privately, please?”

  She looked up at me and the smile I’d seen earlier was completely gone. “What do we have to talk about, Hunter? I think you’ve had plenty of time to talk to me over the past weeks and you had nothing to say then. Why now?”

  Finn looked between us with a suspicious look on his face. “Look, Hunter, maybe you should just take your girl- … ”

  “She’s not my fucking girlfriend! Say it again and I’ll beat your fucking face in, asshole!”

  Okay — so, the blow was definitely not doing good things for my thought process.

  Ellison stood up and the guitar swung on its strap to her back. “Whoa! Hunter, calm down! If you want to talk to me so bad, then fine, we can go for a walk. It’s obvious you’ve got more in you than anger at the moment and walking it off might do you some good.”

  She knew. I didn’t know how she could always see right through me, but, somehow, she knew.

  She walked towards the road and Bear followed behind her. Sasha chose to stay on the blanket with Finn and I eyed the dog. Traitor. Ellison was moving fast and I jogged to catch up to her.

  “Ellison, listen, this is so not what it looks like. I broke up with Tiffany. She’s my ex-girlfriend — EX. Just like you and Finn. She hasn’t accepted the split, but that’s not my fault, El. You have to see that.” I was babbling, but I was so freaked out, I couldn’t formulate an intelligent statement to save my life.

  She didn’t bother to turn around when she asked, “When did you break up with her, Hunter?”

  “On the night of the last bonfire. I borrowed Lily’s phone and called Tiffany to end things.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No … but I don’t see why that matters.”

  Ellison stopped suddenly and turned around. The brim of her hat shaded her face as the sun set beautifully in the distance behind her.

  “Because it’s the respectful thing to do. When are you going to learn that? You can’t just go around doing things that are right for you without considering how it affects other people. I believe that you probably broke up with the girl, but not in a way that would give her any kind of closure. I’m not surprised she showed up. I mean, it’s a little bit crazy for her to travel all that way, but still. She has a right to know what happened. And you disrespected me by never saying anything to me about her. You could’ve mentioned you’d just broken up with your girlfriend. I don’t want to be the branch you use to swing away from her. Take some time to be alone before jumping from one bed to another. But, dammit, Hunter, if you can’t learn to respect yourself, you’ll never learn to respect other people — which is obvious given your current state. How long did it take for you to go back to drugs since she’s been here? Five minutes? Ten?”

  I looked down at my clothes. Everything was clean and in place. How did she know? “I’ve got to ask how you know, El. It amazes me that you can see right through me. How the fuck do you do it?”

  She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest before uncrossing them and pointing at me. “You’re all fidgety, Hunter, and you’re sniffling like you have a cold. Plus, your eyes are dilated and shifty. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what that kind of behavior means. Not to mention you threatened Finn when all he was doing was trying to get you to leave me alone.”

  El wasn’t psychic. She was just observant.

  “I … fuck … I know I shouldn’t have done the lines and I won’t do it again. Not while I’m around you … ”

  “It shouldn’t be about whether or not you’re around me. It should be about the fact that you want to care about yourself and you don’t want to end up a fucking loser who is too damn stupid to do something meaningful with his life. Especially you. You’re a special person, Hunter, and it’s a damn shame you don’t see it! All I heard about before you came down here is how smart you are. I was really excited to meet you because I thought you’d be a great person to be around. But all that you’ve shown me since you’ve been here is that the only thing you’re good at is making bad decisions. I have no problem with alcohol, Hunter, when it’s used in moderation. Hell, I don’t even have a problem when people smoke pot around me. But you’re an addict and you don’t need to be around it at all. You can’t handle it.”

  I held up my hands at the ‘a’ word. “I’m not an addict, El. I was sent here to change my lifestyle, not to attend rehab!” I was yelling again and I tried to calm myself down.

  She walked up to me and craned her neck so she could look me in the eyes. Poking her finger into my chest, she said, “When it gets to a point where you are parking your car in a pool, Hunter, you have a problem. There isn’t anything you can tell me that would convince me otherwise. Withdrawal symptoms or not … you’re an addict.”

  I grabbed her around the shoulders. She was so close to me that the heat from her body rolled over and intensified my own. Her scent permeated everything — it was the only thing I could smell. I didn’t want her to move away, I would fucking die if she moved away. I was a stupid bastard at that moment and I leaned down to kiss her.

  “Ow! You fucking bit me!” My hands released their grip and I pulled away from her and brought my hand to my mouth. It stung like a bitch and when I looked at my hand, I noticed a speckle of blood.

  Her finger was pointed in my face when she warned, “You try anything like that again and I’ll take your lip off the next time. You can forget about kissing me, Hunter. I won’t be making that mistake again.”

  She turned around and I watched her as she walked down the street into the setting sun. I didn’t know where she was going and I wanted to stop her. But I knew she’d only yell at me if I tried. Bear followed at her heels and her guitar was held to her side. I wanted to fucking puke and I wanted to cry like a bitch while I watched her walk away, but I couldn’t do anything but stand there.

  I was defeated in that moment — absolutely and completely. I’d finally met someone who I could connect with and my dumb shit decisions were screwing it up.

  I was an idiot.

  I was a fool.

  And I was the man who was letting Ellison James walk out of my life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Bitch! Let go of my fucking extensions! Those cost more mo
ney than your entire fucking outfit!”

  “Oh?! Of course, your hair is fucking fake as well! Is there anything about you that’s real or are you 100 percent plastic?! I bet if I check your ass, there’s an imprint there that says ‘Made in China’!”

  My eyes bugged out of my head when I witnessed the girl fight that was going on between Lily and Tiffany. Ryan was doing his best to pull the little rabid beast that was my cousin off of Tiff.

  “Why don’t you just take your Louboutin-wearing-Mercedes-driving-coke-snorting ass right back to the state where you came from?! Nobody wants you around here!”

  Breaking into a fast sprint, I reached them within seconds and helped Ryan pull the two girls apart.

  Lily looked like she was giving Ryan a run for his money, but he whispered something in her ear and she calmed down. With her chest heaving out in front of her, she demanded, “Hunter, love you to death, Cuz; but you’re going to need to take that THING away from this party before I throw her fake ass into the fire.”

  Tiffany scoffed, but I just grabbed her arm and dragged her in the direction of her car. “Let’s go Tiff, it looks like your not making many friends tonight.”

  “Like I’d want to be friends with these people! They’re all a bunch of poorly-bred lunatics!”

  I shoved Tiffany in the passenger side of the car and walked around to take my seat behind the wheel. As we drove down the road, I saw Ellison walking up the shoulder on her way back to the party. Her face was tear streaked and red and she looked absolutely alone and miserable. My foot hit the brake pedal to slow down, but when she looked over to the car, she fake smiled and waved, and I knew that stopping wouldn’t do me any good.

  “I mean, just look at the people you’ve been hanging around. Take that bitch for instance. Who the fuck wears a dress with cowboy gear? Add in the guitar and the dog and you’ve got the poster child for backwoods. Mark my words, Hunter: that girl will be barefoot and pregnant before the night’s even finished. No class. None of them.”

  My hands gripped painfully around the steering wheel while I kept myself from doing something stupid like hitting her. I remained quiet and stepped down on the gas pedal. Even traveling at 80 miles per hour wasn’t fast enough and luckily, there were no animals in the road to slow me down.

  By the time we’d reached the hotel, Tiffany had shut up. It only took 20 minutes of me not responding to her snide comments and annoying babble for her to realize I wasn’t interested in talking. I helped her carry her suitcases to the room and she immediately jumped on the bed and assumed a seductive position.

  “It’s about time we get alone in a place where I don’t have to worry about bugs and rats and shit. Why don’t you come over here so we can make up? I’ve been missing the shit out of you since you’ve been gone.” She reached over to her purse and pulled out the rest of the coke. Dangling it in front of her, she smiled and said, “I’ve got the goods baby. We can still have some fun tonight.”

  She licked her lips and I walked over to the bed. I sat down and she immediately moved to crawl over to me. She went for my pants without hesitation.

  Grabbing her hands, I stopped what she was doing. “Tiffany, we need to talk.”

  Looking up at me she pouted. “Baby, we can talk all we want later. My man hasn’t ridden me in over a month and I’m needing it. You know I’m obsessed with that body of yours.” She worked her way up and went to kiss me. I placed a hand between us.

  “Tiffany, I’m serious.”

  “Fuck! Whatever! Just say whatever it is you need to say so we can get back to our lives and forget all about this bullshit trip of yours. You need to call your parents. I convinced them to let you come home early. That’s why I’m here — to pick you up.”

  I let out a loud breath and my head dropped down. When her hands went to massage my shoulders, I forced her arms away and looked her dead in the eye. “We aren’t going anywhere, Tiffany. You are getting on your plane tomorrow and going home. I’m staying here to finish fixing up my uncle’s house. He needs the help and I’m going to finish the job before I return.”

  She rolled her eyes and I resisted the urge to get up and leave without saying what I needed to say. Ellison was right when she said I’d been disrespectful to people. I lived for myself and made decisions that would benefit only me regardless of the needs of any other person. I was hurting people and I was hurting myself in the process.

  “I shouldn’t have broken up with you over voicemail. I get that. But what I said was the truth. I don’t want to be with you anymore, Tiffany. I want to move on with my life and change some things and I can’t do that and remain around people who only care about getting off and getting high. You have a whole group of men who want you back home and I suggest you go choose one of them. I’m not boyfriend material anymore — not for you anyway.”

  Her mouth opened and the shrill quality to her grating voice as she screamed at me was enough to chase me out of that motel room. When I heard something hit the door after I’d closed it behind me, I knew she was most likely destroying the room. But that wasn’t my problem and it wouldn’t be my problem ever again. She was a grown woman. If she wanted to act like a spoiled brat, she’d have to suffer the consequences all on her own.

  . . .

  I walked around the porch attempting to mentally survey the damage and come up with a game plan on how it needed to be fixed. The piles of miscellaneous car parts and chemicals would have to go first. Once I could get the area cleared out, I’d be in a better position to determine what needed to be done to the structure itself in order to repair it.

  The porch had been neglected for too many years and I was sure once I removed all the excess baggage I would find a weak shell underneath. But, just like any good thing that’s been neglected in life, all it took was a little TLC to make it functional again — unless it’s neglected for too long. In those instances, the only thing you can do is tear it down and start all over again. Regardless of what you had to do, there was always a way to pick up and fix it. It just took some desire, will power and elbow grease and a person could always turn things around. I was looking forward to this part of the job. At that time in my life, the mundane task of clearing out the garbage, fixing the loose boards and slapping on a new coat of paint would be rewarding. It was a type of meditation I could understand — one where I could force myself to work through things and one where I could be alone with my thoughts.

  Lily stepped up behind me and huffed out a breath. “I’m surprised to see you up so early. What time did you make it home last night?”

  “Late. It was a four-hour walk back from the hotel. I didn’t sleep well so I’ve been out here since about six.”

  “You weren’t trying to catch Ellison before she went on her hike, were ya? She left with her daddy real early in the morning. I don’t know where she was taking him, but she said she wouldn’t be around here today.”

  Crap. After all the other drama that happened yesterday, I’d completely forgotten about what El was going through with her dad. I hoped they’d taken the day to have some fun and it wasn’t something having to do with his health. She didn’t need that shit on her shoulders and I felt like a dick for having made things worse for her. I was also pissed to realize that I’d been hoping to see her. I wouldn’t have admitted it to myself if it wasn’t for what Lily said, but now that I recognized it, the fact that I wouldn’t see her added disappointment to the load of crappy emotions I was already experiencing.

  Lily followed me as I walked around the perimeter of the porch.

  “Well, it’s going to need new screening, that’s for sure.” She pointed a spot at the base of the structure. “Looks like you’ve got a snake living around here as well. That’s definitely a burrow of some sort.”

  I looked down where she was pointing and looked up at the bent and busted rain gutters that ran along the top. “I don’t think so. I think the rain has just been beating the hell out of the ground. It probably drops heavily righ
t there where the gutter is broken.”

  Lily cocked an eyebrow at me. “If you say so, Hunter — but I’ve been living in Florida long enough to know that when you see a hole like that, you’ve got critter problems. And that one there is a snake hole. I’d bet money on it.”

  I shivered. One of the things you didn’t run into very often in the city was a snake. Sure, they could be found in the state parks and even the city parks on occasion, but not too often. Most of the time, it was too damn cold for snakes in New York to be out in the open where you could see them. And that was a good thing — because I hated snakes. Reptiles that could chase you on four legs were scary enough; it just got weird when they could chase you on no legs at all.

  I walked back up to the porch and picked around in the piles of junk. A lot of it was garbage and I would need several boxes of contractor bags to get rid of it. Lily stood silently on the steps watching me complete my task. The silence between us was killing me and I couldn’t get past my urge to ask her more about Ellison.

  “Did Ellie say anything to you after I left last night?”

  Lily nodded and smiled. “Yep. She high-fived me for kicking your girlfriend’s ass. It wasn’t that she cared about Tiffany being with you or anything; she just didn’t like the fact that the girl was carrying cocaine around with her. El’s got a real problem with drugs like that.”

  I stopped and looked at her. “Did she say anything about me?”

  She sighed and slowly moved up the steps to stand beside me. “Hunter, listen — you hurt Ellison pretty bad by not telling her about Tiffany. I understand that you are a man and that instantly makes you an idiot, but still … you should have known better than to keep from telling her about a girl you had just stopped dating. It’s important when you’re trying to date someone new.”

  Turning to her so I could look her in the eyes, I argued, “That’s just the thing, Lil. I wasn’t trying to date Ellison. I mean, sure, I’ve been into her since I laid eyes on her, I’d be blind and stupid if I didn’t want her — but after she asked that we remain friends only, I respected her request. She’s the one that … well, you know what — I’m not going to be the one to tell you what happened. Just know that she wanted things to change and I didn’t have much time between that occurrence and Tiffany arriving to tell Ellison about my previous love life. It all kind of happened at once.”