Birthday Christmas
Holding the puppy close to my chest, I glare at Hunter as I stuff huge forkfuls of chocolate chip pancakes in my mouth. Hunter, Candy and I all sit at the bar. Candy sits on the left of me and Hunter sits on the right. I’m stuck in the middle, and after I witnessed them going at it like wild animals, I can’t help but feel…uncomfortable. I don’t know why I’m here. Hunter clearly has company. He should have dropped me off at Falcon’s house.
“She’s just the cutest thing ever,” Candy coos, caressing my puppy. “Have you named her yet?”
“No,” I mutter hastily.
“What about Daisy? That’s a good name, right?”
“No,” I reply just as quickly and irritably.
“What about Tootsie?” Her jolly tone is annoying me beyond belief.
“No. That’s a stupid name, just like Daisy,” I snap, feeling childish and overwhelmed with anxiety.
Candy flinches as if I threw scalding grease on her and drops her hands, turning to pick over her pancakes. I risk a glance at her and she looks like she’s about to cry, but as I examine her face, I notice that actual tears are pooling in her eyes.
Damn.
I feel bad. Knowing Candy is not the type of person to ever retaliate makes me feel worse. She’s too abnormally kind to ever be a bitch.
I didn’t want to make her cry. She’s too sweet and too…innocent in some weird inexperienced way.
Hunter’s arctic eyes narrow at me. “Isabel, I need to speak to you. My room. Now.”
Gliding off the stool with puppy in hand, I stroll up the spiral staircase, down the corridor to Hunter’s room.
He shuts the door behind us and turns to face me; his eyebrows snapped together and his forehead creasing. “What’s your problem?”
I cradle my puppy close to my side, reaching up with my free hand to smooth the wrinkles between his brows. A face like his should not be twisted with any kind of stress. Most of the anger leeches from his expression. “That’s rhetorical, right?”
He advances closer. “Why are you acting like that? The dead look in your eyes has vanished only for fury to take its place. Something’s up. What’s wrong?”
Everything.
“Nothing,” I lie.
His studies me with a critical eye for a moment and then tilts his head. “I thought we were friends.”
“We were friends, once upon a time,” I agree, “before you made it crystal clear we weren’t.”
He shuts his eyes, dipping his head down.
“Look, Hunter. I don’t know what you want from me. You said we can never happen and I’m cool with that. But what I’m not cool with is, you being a jerk to me and you demanding to know my whereabouts like I belong to you. Newsflash, I don’t. I think it is best we stay away from one another.”
He straightens his pose and gazes intensely into my eyes, then cups my jaw, his thumb moving over my bottom lip. “I can’t do that, Isabel.”
“It’s not your duty to take care of me.”
His hand shifts to my neck and glides down. “But it is,” he whispers.
My heart thuds heavily in my chest as I stare into pure blue eyes that shoot right through me. “Hunter.”
He moves closer and circles his arms around me, careful not to crush the puppy. “It’s been my duty from the very beginning, Isabel.”
Every muscle in my body seizes from being so close to him. He embraces me tighter and lovingly strokes my back. It takes no time at all for me to lose this battle and melt completely into him and hold him closer, so our beating hearts pound against one another.
We stay silent in a monumental moment, until Hunter speaks. “What are you going to name her?”
“I don’t know. She’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“I thought you’d like her. What’s beautiful to you? Maybe I can help you with a name.”
Taking a moment, I ponder this over. What’s beautiful to me? Tyler was beautiful to me. My mom was beautiful to me. My dad was beautiful to me. They all didn’t live long enough to celebrate the joyous things life has to offer. They didn’t live long enough to celebrate the rest of my birthdays like we once did.
“Birthdays are beautiful to me,” I whisper into Hunter’s shirt.
“I love the name Birthday.”
“Me, too. What were you thinking?”
“Christmas.”
“I love Christmas.”
Hunter squeezes me before he drops his arms. “Birthday Christmas it is then.”
I glance down at the content puppy in the nook of my arm. “Maybe just Birthday.”
He nods. “Birthday.”
“Though, Christmas can be her last name.”
“That’s a great last name,” he says, smiling and scratching Birthday behind her ears. She is completely lost in Hunter’s touch, wagging her little tail and shutting her eyes into small slits, her tiny tongue hanging out her mouth. “I know Candy isn’t your favorite person in the world right now, but I need you to be at least respectful towards her. Like you, she’s going through some rough shit,” his eyes drift from Birthday to me, “shit she wish wasn’t going through at all.”
My brows frown. “What? Did she try to…?” I trail off horrified that someone like Candy would even consider suicide an option. I mean, she’s so ridiculously happy and animated. What dreadful matter occurred that made her feel such despair and that made her feel like she had no other choice?
“Can you manage to be nice? I can take your witty sarcasm, in fact, I love it. But Candy, she’s…breakable.”
Understanding what he means, I nod. “Yeah, I can manage that.”
Hunter’s fingers curl at the back of my neck. He leans in and places a chaste kiss on my forehead. “I know you can. You can do anything. You have no idea how strong and precious you really are.”
His words penetrate and pierce right through my shield, sinking into the core of my heart. “Can we go back and eat pancakes now?” I ask his throat.
“Yeah, we can go back and eat pancakes.”
When Hunter and I make our way back down to the kitchen, I introduce Candy to Birthday. After witnessing that calamitous scene with Hunter and Candy, never in a billion years would I imagine myself sitting comfortably between the two, contentedly eating Hunter’s chocolate chip pancakes.