The Play (Briar U, #3)(98)

Hunter is silent for a long time. He absently strokes my shoulder. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “If I tell you, do you promise not to make fun of me? Or judge me?”

I almost laugh until I realize he’s serious. So I put on my best neutral tone. “I promise I won’t make fun of you. And I’d never judge you, Hunter.”

“Okay.” His chest rises as he draws a breath. “I’m afraid I’ll cheat,” he confesses.

“Cheat? Like in the game?”

“No, the other kind of cheating.” He exhales in a slow stream of air. “All those road games, all those hotel rooms and hotel bars, all those women throwing themselves at me. I know I don’t have a sex addiction, but I’ve got my father’s genes and they don’t exactly have the greatest track record.”

“Your father’s a narcissist. You’re not.” I plant a reassuring kiss on his shoulder. “You’re nothing like him, baby.”

“He’d disagree with you on that. A few years ago he told me we’re two of a kind.”

My eyes narrow. “Why on earth would he say that?”

Hunter sighs sheepishly. “The summer before college, he caught me fucking a chick on our kitchen counter. Mom was visiting my grandparents that weekend, and Dad was supposed to be away on business, but he came home early.” An edge hardens his tone. “You should’ve seen how proud he looked to find me buck-naked and going to town on a girl I wasn’t even dating. I met her at a party the night before and she stayed over.”

I try to imagine what my own father would do if he walked in on me having sex with someone in our kitchen. Commit a double homicide, obviously.

“He was genuinely proud to think his son was a depraved cad. But I guess that’s not much of a surprise. I know Dad slept with at least three of his assistants—one I witnessed firsthand. And I just…I think about all the business trips he took over the years. I bet he had a woman in every city. I’m sure there were more affairs than Mom and I could even imagine.”

“And you’re worried you’ll have a girlfriend or wife, and you’ll be away a lot and cheat?”

“Pretty much.”

“So you’re punishing yourself for something you haven’t even done.”

His bare chest tenses. “That’s not it.”

“That’s exactly it. You’re preemptively punishing yourself—depriving yourself of something you love, for fear you might do something you hate, some vague point down the line. That’s not a healthy way to look at things.”

“No. I mean, maybe? Maybe that’s it, or maybe it isn’t. All I know is that when I decided not to enter the draft after high school, I felt relieved.”

“And yet every time I see you watching Garrett and Logan play, there’s envy in your eyes.”

Hunter’s ragged breath tickles my head. His chest rises and falls again. “Let’s put this on the shelf for now. It’s hurting my brain. Tell me about your holidays.”

“I already did—we texted every day,” I remind him.

“I know, but I like your voice and I want to hear you talk.”

I smile against left pec, then offer a more detailed recap of my visit to Miami. I tell him about my new nephew, about my crazy aunts and my excitable cousins. Being a very Catholic community, Christmas is very much celebrated in Miami, and one of my family’s favorite traditions is a visit to Santa’s Enchanted Forest. I took my younger cousins there, and five-year-old Maria peed on one of the rides. While sitting in my lap. Fun times.

“Do you speak Spanish?” Hunter asks curiously. “I just realized I don’t even know if you do.”

“I understand it better than I speak it. Dad has a terrible ear for languages, so he only speaks English at home. Mom used to speak both to me because she didn’t want me to lose the Spanish, but I kinda have,” I say glumly. “Not entirely, though. I mean, I’d be fluent again in a week if I was around people who spoke it exclusively.”

“I’d love to learn another language. You should teach me Spanish, and then we could practice together.”

“Deal.” I snuggle up closer to him. “Oh, and on the flight home, I tried bringing up the med school thing to my dad again. Mom is staying in Miami for another week, so it was just me and him. But he wasn’t having it,” I admit.

Hunter strokes my hair. “You still having doubts about that?”

“More than doubts.” I inhale slowly. “I don’t want to go.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud.

“Then don’t,” Hunter says simply. “You shouldn’t go to med school for your father—you should go for yourself. You need to walk your own path, and that means following your own dreams, not his. Your first priority should be pleasing yourself, not him.”

A laugh tickles my throat. I try to hold it in, but it ripples out.

“What is it?”

“I just realized what a sad pair we are.” I can’t stop giggling. “Here I am sacrificing my aspirations to be like my father, and you’re sacrificing your aspirations to not be like your father. That is fascinating.”

“Jesus. You’re such a psychologist. Is this what it’s always going to be like? Lying in bed naked while you psychoanalyze us?”