Winter Jacket: Finding Home (15 page)

The television was on in the living room, but there was no sound. An infomercial for a super gadget your life was incomplete without played on the screen. All the lights were off, but I could see Hunter’s silhouette seated at the dining room table. The light from the television had turned her alabaster skin a soft shade of blue. Her head was in her hands, elbows on the table, but she looked up when the weight of my steps creaked the floor beneath the carpeting.

“Baby? What are you doing out here?” My voice was rough from sleep.  I padded closer. “And why are you sitting in the dark?”

I heard a quiet sound—like a combination of a sob and a whimper.

“Sweetie, are you crying? What’s wrong?” I crossed the room to be near her and steadied her with my palm pressed in the center of her back.

“Why does it have to be so hard?” came her strangled question.

“I know, baby.” I stroked my hand over her back. “I miss you,” I said in a voice little more than a whisper, “and you haven’t even left yet.”

“I can’t live like this,” she rasped. “My heart can’t take it.”

“What can I do to make this easier?”

“Is there anything you
can
do? I mean besides come home with me tomorrow?”

“You know I can’t do that,” I said gently as I continued to stroke her back. “I made a commitment to Troian that I’d give her until December.”

“I know.” I felt her body sag beneath my touch. “And I would never ask you to go back on your word or to give up on this opportunity. But I didn’t think it would be like this.”

I couldn’t find the words to take away her pain. 

She turned into me and pressed her lips against mine. I sighed against her closed mouth. Her tongue flicked against my lower lip and ran along the front of my teeth.

“Make it better, Ellio,” she whispered. “Make me forget that I have to leave you in the morning.”

I couldn’t guarantee that anything I could say or do would make this any easier, but I could try. My hands found the soft flesh of her abdomen. Her tank top had ridden up just enough for me to slip beneath the cotton material. I gripped the sides of her waist and pulled her to her feet. My hands remained at her hips while my mouth continued to explore hers.

My hands rounded her waist and traveled to the gentle swell of her backside. Barefoot, we were close in height. I pressed the full length of my body against hers, pinning the backs of her thighs against the dining room table. I kissed along the sweet column of her throat, and she arched her back and lifted her chin to provide me better access. I stroked my hand down the center of her chest, between the valley of her bra free breasts. I ran my hands across the rough material of her tank top, feeling her hardened nipples press into my palms.

I wasn’t sure of the table’s durability—Troian hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d called it a glorified card table—but I trusted that Hunter’s slight weight wouldn’t cause it to collapse. I gently bent her backwards on the table. The bottom hem of her tank top crept up with the movement, and I dipped my tongue into the shallow indent of her belly button.

A hand came to rest on my shoulder, and I felt the firm pressure as she silently urged my kisses to travel lower. I pressed my mouth against her lower stomach and took a detour to her hipbones that peeked above the top of her sleep shorts.

“Yes,” came her quiet hiss when I curled my fingers beneath the elastic waistband. She lifted her backside off the table, helping as I slid the shorts past her slender hips.

I positioned myself between her parted thighs and settled onto my knees, thankful for the carpeted cushion. With a palm pressed against the tender flesh of both of her inner thighs, I leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss against the tip of her clit.

Her hips jumped at the contact, and I pinned her thighs firmly against the table to keep her from moving. I used two fingers on one hand to separate her outer lips. I stuck my tongue out and wiggled the tip of my tongue against her hairless slit, exerting pressure against her already wet hole, but not penetrating her yet. I licked from the back of her slit, to the front, swirling my tongue around her sensitive clit before suckling the protruding nub in my mouth.

Her hands continued to grip my shoulders, and she maneuvered me to where she needed me the most.

Eventually, I heard her heavy sigh: “Wait.”

I looked up from my task. “Are you okay?”

The muted television cast strange shadows across her face. “I can’t, baby. I’m feeling too much.”

I kissed the inside of her thigh. “Do you want me to try something different?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. My head is someplace else.”

“Where did it go?” I asked with a gentle smile. “Can I help you find it?” I searched her face for the answer when she made no reply.

She pulled me off of my knees and up to eye-level for a nearly-chaste kiss. My heart lurched when I tasted the saltiness of her tears on her lips.

She pulled back and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ll be okay,” she assured me in a voice thick with emotion. “Let’s go back to bed.”

The tears that had flowed so freely the night before had dried by the time I had to drive her to the airport in the morning. Hunter showed no sign of regret or sorrow; it should have been reassurance that everything was fine, but it only heightened my anxiety. I thought her smile was too aggressive and her tone was too bright.

I pulled the car up to the passenger unloading zone near ticketing. “Do you want me to go in with you and wait for your flight?” I asked.

She opened the passenger side door. “No, thanks. I’ve got it from here.”

I watched her in the side and rearview mirrors as she stalked to the rear of the vehicle to retrieve her luggage from the trunk. The car radio was off, which made her absence feel more pronounced.

The car was still idling in a no parking zone, but I hopped out of my seat and jogged to the back of the car. We simultaneously reached for her suitcase.

“I’ve got it, Elle,” she insisted.

My hand dropped to my side. It sounded so foreign, so unnatural, for her to call me by my given name. It made me think the worst.

“Are you okay?” I worried aloud.

“Everything’s fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. You’re not acting like everything is fine.”

“I’m probably just stressed, thinking about all the work I have to catch up on when I get back,” she said in a sharp tone. “I wish the world would stop turning when I’m out here, but it doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m sorry coming to see me is so stressful.” I tried to keep the hurt out of my tone, but it had crept in.

“I never said that,” she sighed. “But this trip has made me rethink how we’re going to see each other the next few months.”

“What does that mean?”

“Now’s not the time to have that conversation. I have a flight to catch.” She touched her hand to my hip and kissed my stunned mouth. “I love you.”

I began to follow her as she walked toward the automatic glass doors. “Hunter …”

A security guard waved me down. “Ma’am, you can’t park there.”

“Just a second,” I said dismissively.

“Ma’am. It’s illegal to park there,” he objected. “If you don’t return to your vehicle, I’ll have no choice but to have it towed.”

“I’m standing
right here
,” I protested.

The sound of honking cars punctuated our conversation as the cars lined up behind my vehicle.

“Sweetie, you should get back to the car,” Hunter said, eyes scanning over the escalating chaos.

“I will, but not until we’re okay.”

“Your car might get towed before that happens.”

It was far from the response I’d wanted to hear. “We’re fine, okay?” she said hastily. She kissed me soundly on the mouth. “I’ll call you when I land.”

I bit my lower lip. I felt far from fine, but I wasn’t in any position to do anything about it. “Okay.”

The honking persisted even as I got back into my car. Ignoring my Minnesota manners, I collectively flipped off everyone in the vicinity as I drove away.

CHAPTER NINE

We sat around the writer’s table, eating candy and brainstorming ideas for future episodes. Sonja sat at the table with us, her fingers moving rapidly across the laptop’s keyboard, recording everything that came out of our mouths, regardless of the quality of the idea. 

It was a rare moment where Troian had found herself between meetings so she’d been able to join us. I hadn’t seen too much of my friend lately. The majority of our work interactions were the notes she’d periodically give me on the episode I continued to work on. 

“I was thinking we should introduce a secondary love interest for Paige mid- to late- season,” Gloria proposed. “Someone cut from a different cloth than her boyfriend. Those love triangles are awfully popular with the female demographic.”

“Shipper wars.” Guillen grinned and rubbed his hands together. “I love it.”

“Are you thinking male or female?” Edward asked.

Gloria tapped a red twist against her lips in thought. “I’m not sure. Do you think the network would let us slip a gay character into the show, Troi?”

Troian sat at the head of the rectangular table. She scribbled a note for herself on a pad of paper. “Let’s put a pin in that idea for now. I meet with the producer from the network later this week. I’ll run it by him then.”

“What if the secondary love interest is one of the mutants?” I spoke up.

“Oh, that’s good,” Aviva approved. “And she’s not supposed to be into him.”

“Or her,” Edward added.

Guillen nodded his head in agreement. “I can picture it now—very 
Romeo and Juliet
. I like it.”

“What about a name for the character?” Aviva asked.

“We can figure that out later once we determine the love interest’s gender,” Troian noted.

“Hunter,” I blurted out. 

I felt more than a dozen pair of eyes on me. My friend snickered at the end of the table. 

“Hunter.” I cleared my throat and repeated myself. “It could be a gender neutral name and then we don’t have to change it up,” I justified. 

“Hunter is a girl’s name, too?” Edward questioned.

I thought about my own Hunter. “Very much so.”

+ + +

Things had been tense in the days since Hunter had been back in Minnesota. Neither of us had brought up the scene from the night before her flight or even the uncomfortable event at the passenger unloading area at the airport. It wasn’t avoidance, however. I was working longer hours because I needed to finish the first draft of my episode, and her shifts at the hospital had been unpredictable. In order to bookend enough time to visit me, she’d had to take on other people’s hours, and as a result, the double shifts seemed to have no end. 

When we did find time to connect, her temper was uncharacteristically short-fused. She seemed to get angry about the most trivial things, but instead of pointing out that I wasn’t the one she was angry and frustrated with, I tried to be accommodating, understanding, and supportive. We were in the middle of one of those conversations online when she finally broke. Sylvia needed booster shots for her vaccines and Hunter was stressing about finding time to bring her to the veterinarian.

“I’m sorry.” She exhaled loudly, disturbing hair that fell in front of her face. “The last few days have been a nightmare. My hours need to normalize soon, or I’m going to burn myself out.”

I knew too well the annoyance of being a junior staff member. I’d put in my years, however, and had jumped through all the hoops the university had required of me. If I returned to teaching in January, it would start all over again in a few short years as I attempted to climb from Associate Professor to Professor. 

“How can you get more regular hours?” I asked.

“In the short term, stop working so many doubles,” she said with a grimace. “Long term, earn more degrees. Pick a specialization.”

“More specialized than neonatal care?”

“I was actually thinking about getting my Master’s degree and becoming a nurse midwife. Or maybe something in fertility to help people have babies.”

“That sounds like a really great idea, Hunt,” I smiled. “I bet you’d be fantastic at that.”

She looked uncomfortable. The weight of it showed on her youthful features. “I looked into taking some classes part-time at the University of Minnesota to work towards my Master’s. I can do some course work online, but I’d have to be on-the-ground for the clinicals.”