“Carmen loves you,” Asa finally said, his tone cautious but steady. “A lot, it seems. Your presence in her life makes her happy. And I care about her being happy.”
“That’s not answering my question,” Hunter said matter-of-factly.
Asa bit down on the inside of his cheek, willing himself to not lose his temper.
“Your presence in Carmen’s life does not necessarily mean you being a part of my life,” Asa told him, not breaking eye contact. “As long as there are clear boundaries between you and I, there’s no reason for me to feel bothered by you and her.”
Hunter stayed silent, observing Asa for a moment longer before he shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “Fair enough,” he said eventually, but there was something else in his tone—just a tiny hint of it—that Asa couldn’t put his finger on.
“Hey—” Hunter suddenly sat upright, eyes narrowing and nose crunching in confusion “—are you wearing my t-shirt?”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Asa snorted, wondering if the boy had truly lost his mind. “Why the hell would I even want to wear your—” He stopped abruptly, suddenly recalling Carmen handing it to him hours before. Asa had wondered how it had been an almost perfect fit for him. Now it made sense.
“I’m going to kill her one of these days,” Asa finally said in a flat tone, looking down at the t-shirt with a disgusted face.
“That’s my favourite one, too!” Hunter exclaimed, looking genuinely miserable and just flabbergasted. “Now I have to fucking burn it.”
Asa’s head whipped towards him, a deadpan look on his face. “Burn the t-shirt? I have to bleach my whole body once I get home!”
“Asshole,” Hunter muttered.
“Pendejo,” Asa returned.
Hunter sighed like he was dealing with a child. “What have I told you about swearing at me in Spanish?”
“To not do it?”
That earned Asa a glare, not that he particularly minded or was intimidated by it, of course.
A few more beats of silence passed, but the underlying tension wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been minutes back. The awkwardness remained though, doubling, then tripling in its magnitude, until Asa just needed to get out of there.
Was it shame he felt when in Hunter’s presence? The inability to accept that someone who was a stranger had somehow had a huge impact on who Asa was today? The knowledge of the fact that the boy in front of him knew all of Asa’s weakest spots and how to press them?
“I need to go,” Asa said, holding his breath and releasing the words in a rush. “Congrats on the win again.” He turned around, heading straight towards the door and pulling it open, taking in huge gulps of the cool night air as soon as his feet hit the floorboards of the porch.
He didn’t hear the door swing shut nor did he turn around to check if he hadn’t pulled it after him, when he found Hunter’s foot in the doorway, stopping it from closing fully.
Hunter held a finger up, cutting off whatever Asa was about to ask him in confusion. “I need to say something,” he told him.
Asa blinked. “I was just inside. Could’ve told me then.”
“I wanted to,” Hunter said curtly. “And was just about to when you started taking off.”
Asa stuffed his fists into his pockets again, irrational anger simmering inside him. He didn’t want this. Didn’t want to have to speak to this person standing in front of him.
But Asa was also not walking away.
Why was that?
“I know you said that it wouldn’t make a difference to you anymore whether I had this conversation with you or not,” Hunter began, stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind him. He moved towards the railing of the porch and leant his back against it, crossing one leg over the other and folding his arms across his torso. “You also said you no longer needed the closure.” Hunter held his gaze.
“I don’t,” Asa said stiffly, grounding his teeth together.
“I call bullshit,” Hunter stated easily enough. “But for your sake we’ll say you don’t need it anymore and that I’m doing this for me.”
Asa furrowed his brows together, frowning hard as his perplexed state only grew worse. Every time he thought he had Hunter figured out, another layer was peeled off and he got another peek beyond the surface of the cold shell.
“I don’t have a problem with who you are, never did.” Hunter shrugged indifferently, but this time Asa’s eyes caught on to the façade. It was crumbling now, ever so slowly. This—whatever was happening now—seemed to matter to Hunter, despite the nonchalance he was trying so hard to feign.
“With who I am?” Asa asked.
“Yeah—” Hunter nodded “—with where you come from. With your language. Your skin. Your identity. Whatever.” He shrugged again. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
Asa was feeling a little dizzy with all the questions that were storming his mind right now, but he kept his lips sealed because Hunter looked like he had more to say.
“I only picked on you for them because it was easy to,” he said slowly, wincing when the words spilt out of his mouth, apparently only realising how blunt they sounded once he heard himself saying it. “Sounds harsh, but I’m not going to bother sugarcoating. Too much has happened for me to downplay things. I’ll say it like it is. And when I say you made it easy for me to identify all your breaking points, I don’t mean it in the sense where I blame you or where I’m trying to tell you that you contributed to the shit I put you through.”
Hunter exhaled, looking away and running his hand through his hair before bringing it down over his face again. “I mean it in the sense that I saw
