Darksoul (13 page)

Chapter 13

On Friday afternoon
,
I biked all the way to the party-mansion. Where Hunter supposedly lived. The art project was due on Monday, and this was my last chance to get anything done.

I could’ve asked him to stay after school, but in all honesty I wanted to come back and phot
ograph the place during the day. Because—my goodness—did it look pretty in the hazy afternoon light. Without the cars littered across the green, the surroundings of the house looked magical. Like a fairytale. The trees were bursting with orange and red and auburn, and the driveway looked as white and elegant as it did at night. Damn, this place was gorgeous. Whoever ended up with Hunter—girlfriend, boyfriend, who knew—would be the luckiest person alive.

I
leaned my bike against the fountain and walked up the steps. Io danced on my shoulder, patting her paws together. Right with you, buddy. Holding in my excitement, I knocked.

A
fter an eternity, the door opened, revealing a shirtless Hunter and one beautiful, beautiful house beyond. Letting out a happy purr, Io fluttered toward him and skittered up and down his arms.

“I can’t believe you live here,” was the first thing I said, not bothering with a hello. I got up on my tippy toes to look
past his tattooed shoulder. “I thought I was going to get an old man or something. Like an aristocrat. Or something. Anyway, I’m coming in.”

Before he could respond, I skipped in
side and whipped out my camera. Then I took off my book bag and shucked it at him. “Hold this.”

“Hazel,” he said.

“Huh?” I drooled at my surroundings. “What? Did you say something?”

He didn’t
speak, and I turned to look at him. And then I realized.

I was being extremely rude.

Not just extremely rude—I came in without being invited, threw my stuff at him, and refused to do the obligatory five-minute drool when a hot guy is standing shirtless in front of you. I mean, yeah—nice stomach. Nice tattoos. But for crying out loud, he was Hunter.
Hunter
. And I couldn’t focus on him, anyway, when my dear Magdalena (read: his house) was awaiting the caress of my lens’ imaginary tongue.

“Oh, yea
h,” I said, taking my bag from him. Feeling ashamed of myself, I scratched the back of my head. “Sorry. Um—sorry, got a little excited there. I’ll call next time before I come. Promise. Give me your number before I leave. Uh—”

“Hunter?”
a voice said.

I turned to look and stopped right on my tracks.

A girl stood in the archway that led to the living room, wearing nothing more than an oversized t-shirt. Doe brown eyes rested under perfectly arched brows. Brows that were now pulled together. Io, who’d been twirling along Hunter’s inked skin, stopped and curled her lip in a soft growl.

“Hunter?” the girl
said again. “Who’s this?”

“You don’t have to ask him
,” I said. “I’m kind of sitting right here. Name’s Hazel. I’m his student.”

Wait. What the hell did I just say?

Hunter pursed his lips. The corners of them turned up, as if he were holding back a smile.

“His student?” She raised her eyebrows and stepped forward as though to confront me. “And how so?”

“Ah, well,” I said. “I’m assuming you’re his girlfriend, given your territorial don’t-touch-my-shit attitude. Well, as you know, he’s an amazing artist. Right, Professor Slade? You’re an amazing artist.”

“Get on with it,” she
snapped.

Whoa
, there. “I study painting under his guidance. I’m a terrible artist, so I have to get as many lessons as I can. I hope that’s okay”—and I blinked innocently—“with
you
, Mrs. Slade.”

“She pisses me off,” she said, turning to Hunter with clenched teeth.

He stared at her.

“Oh, sorry,” I said,
batting my eyelashes. “I know that sometimes my beautiful face is too much to bear. Fear not; if you simply close your eyes and stick your head inside a toilet—”

Suddenly
, Hunter grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward the stairs. “I’m going to take her up to the studio,” he said to her, nudging me up the steps. Io followed, plopping down on top of my head. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Sorry for pissing you off, Mrs. Slade,” I called before we reached the second floor. “I promise I’m nice! Your husband is in good hands!”

“Husband?” Hunter muttered under his breath.

“Well, yeah,” I
said, keeping my voice low. “She sure acts like the two of you are bound for life.”

He said nothing. Only kept guiding me down
the hallway as if I were a walking sack of potatoes.

“Hey, you can let go now,” I said, easing his hands off my shoulders. Stepping
out of his reach, I muttered, “Damn touchy. Just like Ash.”

Hunte
r settled beside me. “I suppose he and I do have a lot of things in common.”

“No shit.” I thought about it for a moment. “Well, actually—okay, yes. But at least you have
one
girlfriend. See, that’s nice. Meanwhile,” I grumbled, “Ash is humping everything with two legs and three holes.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you sound a little
bitter.”

“I’m not bitter
!”

“
Whatever you say. And just to be clear”—he led me to a pair of mahogany doors and stopped in front of them—“that’s not my girlfriend.”

I scrunched up my eyebrows. “What? But she—”

“Is not my girlfriend.”

I stared up at him. He stared back, gray eyes as
steady and cool as they’d ever been.

“O…kay,” I said at last.

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’ll never be.”

Interesting. “Does she know that?”

“Of course she does. She just gets a little jealous, even with a toy that isn’t hers.”

“So the two of you aren’t…”

“No.”

Um. “No?”

“It’s all physical. Nothing more.”

I
stared incredulously at him. “Hunter. Come on. Are you serious right now?”

“I’m not emotionally invested in the relationship, and neither is she.”

“She looks plenty emotionally invested, if you ask me.”

“Not my fault.”

The asshole. “Hunter,” I repeated, “you’re better than that. She’s not exactly nice, but she deserves better than that, too. If you don’t feel anything for each other, then—honestly? All you’re doing is wasting your time.”

“I’m getting what I want. That’s all I need.”

Again.
The asshole.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You can get any girl you want, what with your looks. Why don’t you date someone you like and—”

He turned toward the closed doors.
“This whole conversation is tiring me out.”

“No, listen. I mean it. If
you find someone you care about and have a real relationship with them, you’ll get more out of it—”

H
e looked at me, his eyes startlingly icy. “And you say this because you’re so damn experienced?”

I tried not to recoil.
His tone wasn’t kind. In fact, it was cold, colder than I’d ever expect it to be. It stung more than if he’d shouted at me.

“I’m not. I was just…” I focused on the tattoo on his chest, and then lowered my eyes.
Quietly, I said, “…trying to help, I guess.”

“I’m only going to say this once, Hazel,” he said, voice as
icy as winter itself. “You’re the last person I would ever want help from. Don’t come at me with your romantic shit. I don’t care about being in a meaningful relationship, and I doubt I ever will. Understand? Nod so I know you understand.”

“I’m not two,” I mumbled.

His expression gave away nothing. “Go on inside. I’ll be back in a moment.”

“I’m not sure I want you to be,” I muttered, watching his back retreat farther into the hallway. Io rushed over to him, tugging on a tuft at the nape of his neck. I blinked. Was she trying to bring him back?

I waved at her to stop. She continued, feverishly fluttering along his torso and circling around his arms like an angry bee. He didn’t notice it.

Or he ignored it.

“And put on a shirt,” I called after him.

He stopped and g
ave me a sidelong glance over his shoulder. Io grabbed the silky waves that fell over his eyes and yanked on them, trying to tug him in my direction. That decided it—he had to know she was there.

Without a word, he turned
and continued walking down the hallway.

Looking dejected, Io abandoned him and came back to me, melting on my shoulder. I reached up and brushed the back of my forefinger against her cheek. She p
urred something. A bummed little murmur.

I stared after him.
I wondered if he considered me his friend.

Sighing
, I opened the mahogany doors, planning to drop off my bag and then take this opportunity to photograph everything within a fifty-foot radius. But as soon as I stepped inside, I found myself shocked still by my surroundings.

The
room faced the rear of the house. That much I could see. And it was
huge
. About four times the size of my living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the back wall, giving a breathtaking view of the green.

I walked in, awed.

Sleek wood floors. Two or three easels; paper, sketches; paint and watercolor and charcoal. Canvases. Everywhere. A table stood near the windows, its surface littered with paintbrushes and tubes and pencils. The room should’ve been messy, and though some spots certainly were, it only gave it a warm, homey feel.

It was very spacious and quite minimalist. Like Hunter, I supposed. On the side wall, there was a built-in shelf filled with books that, on further inspection, mostly seemed to be about art history. I took out a couple of them, leafed through their worn, dog-eared pages, fe
lt myself soften when I saw the notes he’d written on the margins. His handwriting was small and neat, nothing like Ash’s messy drunken-cow scrawl.

I continued looking around. A rumpled pillow was squished
between the seats of a dark L-shaped couch. A pair of gray sweats, too. I wondered if that was where he slept. There was a polka-dotted bra slung over the arm, along with some panties and—was that an open condom wrapper?

Oh.

Right. Moving on.

In the center of the
setup stood a low glass table. On top of it, there were a couple of books, two ashtrays, and three empty beer bottles. One of the ashtrays was filled to the rim with spent cigarettes. The other one was halfway there.

Something that felt like worry
crawled along the walls of my stomach. I shook it off.

Taking
out my camera, I photographed everything in the room, capturing the caked paintbrushes and covered canvases and even the damned cigarette butts. And I suddenly understood, standing here and gazing at his messy sketches and crinkled paint tubes. At the canister that overflowed with crumpled papers and the mug filled with charcoal sticks, at the box full of wasted pastels—things that were clearly used and adored.

That was it. He loved art. It wasn’t just something he did well. It was something he did well because he loved it
and breathed it. I thought he was a great artist—who was I kidding? He was one total piece of awesomeness—but it was more than that. The rest of the house was shiny and pretty, yes, but this was the place where he spent most of his time, the place where he truly lived.

A smile softened the corners of my mouth
. Finally. I found the things I would draw. Things that embodied who he was. Not cigarettes or holes in between meaty cheeks, but the paintbrushes that stood inside earthy-looking mugs and the shock of paint that had spilled across his artsy table.

When he came back, I was sitting on the ground yoga-style, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows
. My camera was held up to my eye. Faint sunlight slanted in and warmed my thighs. I snapped a photo of the green, focusing on the faraway trees.

“Don’t come here if you’re indecent,” I said, readjusting the lens. A ladybug had landed on the glass, and I focused on it instead.

He sounded so close that I nearly jumped. “Being indecent in front of a piece of cardboard isn’t against the law, as far as I’m concerned.”

Glaring,
I turned around, but stopped on my tracks when I ran into a steaming mug. He’d crouched right behind me, and his face was nearly on the same level as mine. He held a half-finished beer and wore a black shirt. Like always.

“For me?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

He tilted the cup, showing me the slew of fluffy shapes floating on the hot chocolate. “I hate marshmallows.”