It somehow drowned out all the other noise, even from the guy next to me, who was now chain-cursing at his friend. He spoke animatedly, with his hands, and sometimes elbowed me when he tried to demonstrate something.
“Besides, I always wanted to know how to use a weapon. Guns are cold, metallic, impersonal; archery requires patience, precision, and passion,” I concluded. “Once I got into it, it became an addiction. It was a safe haven from the chatter about my family, about me. I guess by now you can tell I don’t have a ton of friends, so this helped burn time after school.”
It was unlike me to open up to someone, especially a stranger, and a beautiful, male one at that. I sounded like a reject, but if Hunter felt I was oversharing or pitied me, his face didn’t betray it.
He nodded, seeming to consider my words. “I’m glad you found your calling.”
“I’m sorry you haven’t.” I put my hands on the table between us, expecting…what? That Hunter would gather them in his?
He didn’t, of course.
The waiter materialized behind my back to take our orders. I swiveled awkwardly, realizing for the first time that I hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.
I was about to ask for a few more minutes when Hunter boomed behind me, “We’ll both take the pot roast with gravy, onions, and roasted potatoes, with a side of stuffed portabellas. Also, I’ll tip you twenty bucks for every time you bring a shot of Baileys to the lady when she blushes. Can you do that for us, old sport?”
The pimply waiter didn’t even bother carding us. He flashed his yellow teeth in a grin, nodded, collected our menus, and dashed to the window separating the bar from the kitchen with our order.
I turned to Hunter. He wore the lopsided grin of a misunderstood villain.
“You’re not driving, and seeing as I’m fully sober and celibate, I figured I’ll even the score.”
“In reverse,” I noted.
“It is my favorite position.” He opened his arms exaggeratedly, not caring if he bumped into other people’s shoulders in the process.
That made me blush, and he laughed, muttering, “Easy prey.”
Luckily, the waiter had his back to us, because it hadn’t even been three seconds since he left. I was going to be so screwed by the end of the evening. Also, so drunk.
“So… You said you don’t know what to do with your life.” I redirected him back to our conversation.
The man who sat beside me scoffed, turning his body toward me, but I didn’t swivel to meet his gaze. It was probably just in my head, anyway. I was minding my own business. Why would he look at me strangely?
“I’m brick dumb, yo. Of course I’ve no clue what I want to do with myself. I’m only good at partying, fucking, and drinking semi-responsibly. Not many people pretend to think otherwise. In fact, I’ve been told very few times that I have potential, and each time I was, I hated it. Potential is like a twelve-inch dick on an impotent: dazzlingly useless. ’Sides, I don’t need potential. I’ve known I was going to take over Royal Pipelines with Cillian since I was four.” Hunter knocked the rest of his root beer down, smacking the empty pint on the table.
My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “Whoa. That’s young.”
“My future was written for me long before I was born. Just as well, as I’d have probably been too lazy to write it myself.”
“And if you could choose?” I pressed. “What would you want to do with your life if you weren’t a Fitzpatrick?”
The man next to me was now laughing with his friend, slapping the wooden table. Utensils and glasses rattled, dancing against the wooden surface. Hunter seemed completely oblivious to him. He was confident and nonchalant. Things like that didn’t register for him.
“I don’t know. I could be a DJ. Or maybe I could be a male prostitute. But only for hot chicks. And I would probably be too nice to charge them. Wait, there’s a name for that. Tinder.”
Hunter laughed at his own words, but the light in his eyes switched off.
I stayed silent for a few beats, considering the way he saw himself. Finally, I said, “I think you’re talented in a lot of ways. I think you’re funny and stupidly likeable and carry an energy inside you that’s explosive and enviable. You can make anyone feel comfortable around you, and that’s something they don’t teach you at college. You are charming, confident, and could talk your way out of a murder charge. You could probably be very helpful to your father’s company, but maybe not crunching numbers. What about public relations, or—”
“Jesus Christ, man. Unzip his pants and suck him off, already,” the man beside me snapped.
He blasted into frantic, slurred laughter, coiling his fist and offering it to Hunter for a pound. He was promptly left hanging, as Hunter stared him down with an expression that suggested he was going to maim him with his empty pint glass. The man dropped his fist, raising both palms in surrender.
“All I’m saying is you’re wasting your time with Wilma Flintstone over here. I died a little listening to her salivating all over your lap. Don’t you have a friend to save you from this date from hell? Did she scam you into thinking she’s hot on Bumble? What’s going on? Y’all don’t look like a natural fit.”
The guy beside Hunter—Rude Guy’s companion—coughed out a potato chip, almost toppling backwards on the bench with laughter. A few people stopped what they were doing, quieted, and sent curious glances our way.
The taunts hit me like hail. Hard and painful and cruel, like that boy on the balcony in the wintertime who didn’t want to go away.
Like Hunter felt when I first saw him.
I felt the heat of the humiliation on my cheeks, the sting of tears stabbing the back of my eyeballs. There were many things I wanted to say, scream, throw in the man’s face, but I couldn’t. I was too frozen to speak up.
And Hunter…Hunter just stared at him.
“Look, man, you’ve got the looks. You obviously make a fine buck with how you dress. You can do so much better than this ratty-looking thing,” the guy continued, throwing a thumb my way. “Just sayin’ what everyone in this room is thinking right now.” He grabbed his beer and finished his drink in one gulp, throwing the empty pint behind his shoulder comically, wiggling his brows. The pint smashed on the floor.
Nobody laughed. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed.
Hunter’s left eye twitched—just the one tic. Other than that, he was very still.
I wanted to die. To cry. To shoot a poisonous arrow through Rude Guy’s heart. To run away from here as far as my feet could carry me. Pack my things and leave Hunter’s apartment. I wanted to change my name and my hair color and my wardrobe. Start over somewhere new, where nobody knew me. This guy didn’t know me. That’s why he’d said it.
He didn’t know who my father was.
Who my brother was.
He wasn’t scared of the aftermath.
How many more men I’d known had viewed me the exact same way as this guy, but never voiced it aloud because they were scared?
I stared at the jerk, knowing my face was beet red. From the corner of my eye, I could see our waiter running over with a shot of Baileys in his hand, half of its contents sloshing over the already sticky floor. He was making his way to me, I realized, my lungs deflating.