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Truthfully, for as long as Hunter could remember, he had been desperate for Cheryse. Not only was she funny and insightful and all the things that he and Trent had admired about her, but ever since everything had happened with her husband, there were these walls around her that he understood. He had the same walls, and even more of them had gone up now that Trent was gone.
They often sat in her backyard, where she talked about gardening and plans for the yard. It soothed him. The house she’d bought was old, and he figured she needed to pull up all the landscaping if she was serious about gardening. She knew that, too. The square-footage gardening she wanted to implement would need a grid, and she’d have to look up which vegetables needed sun. He kept all of that to himself, though, and just let her talk.
He felt … somewhat normal again. Like this was the same bubble he’d existed in when Trent was gone on an op for his SEAL team.
He and Cheryse also got into the habit of borrowing one of Marshall’s motorcycles. She would hold on to his back as they took drives around South Port at night. Often, they stopped at their old haunts and reminisced about Trent. They talked and talked.
Hunter didn’t tell her he wanted to kiss her all the time. He pushed aside his romantic feelings and let himself be with her as a friend.
One night, after dropping her off, he went back to the inn and found a letter on his bed. It was a letter from the Navy, telling him he could go back to active duty. It was also time for him to decide if he wanted to re-up. So … he had a choice to make.
A choice he thought he had already made, but the more he thought about it, he wasn’t sure.
He stared at the letter and thought of Cheryse. Should he be done?
Part of him was surprised that he was getting another chance to be a SEAL. Did he want it? He and Cheryse had fallen into a pattern of being together, and dang if his attraction for her hadn’t kept climbing. He’d kept himself in check, of course, but it had been hard.
Hunter had behaved normally, but things would get heavy once he returned to their house in Virginia Beach. It wouldn’t be easy to sort through Trent’s belongings and go back to his team and see Trent’s old teammates. Part of what made SEALs able to operate in a crisis was that they had to train themselves to only deal with what was in front of them. That’s what he had been doing for the last two weeks.
His phone buzzed; it was a text from Bravo One on his team.I just got word you’ve been released to come back. Are you in or out?
That was so typical. Just rip it off like a Band-Aid. There was no treading lightly in the world he was a part of.
“What are you going to do?” Trey, who had been passing through the hallway, stuck his head past the doorframe.
Hunter turned away and wandered to the window. “I don’t know.”
For a long time, Trey said nothing. Then he sighed. “I know I put this out there many times, but you can stay as long as you want to, bro. Whatever you decide will be the right decision.”
Hunter said nothing. He waited until he heard Trey leave, then he moved to the door and shut it. He needed time to think.
Trey and Ava had gone back to business as usual. There were guests at the inn again; Hunter mostly ignored them.
If Trent weren’t dead, it wouldn’t feel much different from when he’d been alive. Since they’d been on different teams, they’d often had to be absent from each other’s lives. They had joked it was like long periods of being apart and sometimes long periods of being together. Hunter had never minded. It had always been that way with them, and even though Trent bugged the crap out of him, they had shared a bond ever since they’d shared the womb.
Even thinking about Trent brought the pain roaring to life.
Hunter glanced at Trent’s box. Since that night with Cheryse, he hadn't touched it. He hated that he’d thrown everything in so haphazardly. He put the box on the bed and unloaded it, then began doing what he should’ve done the first night—organizing it.
It was quick work, and when he was done, he stared at Trent’s phone. Suddenly, he was overcome with the urge to see something of Trent’s, like a message from beyond. He powered it up and punched in the code to unlock it. Naturally, they knew each other’s codes.
There were thirteen missed texts, and Hunter’s heart raced as he looked through them. There were some from numbers he didn’t recognize, some from his team guys, and one from Hunter himself when it looked like his brother’s team was being deployed. He had sent a text that said,Be safe. I love you.
Both teams had always teased them about that. They would dramatically say “I love you” because he and Trent said it. It didn’t help that Trent had always said it in a way that annoyed the crap out of Hunter. Now Hunter grinned as he thought about it. It was a fond memory to revisit.
There were three texts from Liberty, expressing her love and concern. The time was coming that Hunter needed to seek her out and somehow be there for her. He just didn’t know how to do that right now.
He saw a message from Cheryse in the inbox, and curiosity brewed within him. He tapped on their conversation. Trent had told her he was getting spun up and didn’t know when he would be back, but he would tell Hunter hi for her.
Cheryse had said,Okay. Be safe. Love you.
Her saying that to Trent didn’t surprise him, but it caught him off guard. His curiosity grew, so he scrolled up and began reading their earlier text exchanges. He’d known they’d texted. All of them texted each other, and he had his own running jokes with Cheryse. It was just the messy nature of their relationship.
Still, he chastised himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he be getting jealous of Cheryse’s interaction with Trent? Even from the grave, Trent, who’d been married, was making him green with envy.
He scrolled through their previous texts, and his name caught his eye.
When I get back to South Port, I want to talk about it.
