We Found Love (15 page)

Hunter grimaced. “Too far. Just… ouch.”

Bubba covered his own crotch with his cards, looking pained. “Yeah, that made my guy shiver in fear. It almost makes me want to stop giving Sunshine shit.” He immediately looked Riley’s way and winked with a kissy-face. Hunter rolled his eyes when Bubba turned back to him with an “Almost.”

“Lights out in fifteen, guys,” an orderly called from the hallway. Everyone groaned as chairs scraped and papers shuffled. He supposed it was understandable. Nothing like being a grown man and being told when to go to bed, when to eat.

He slapped his cards down on the table, where Bubba gathered them up and stacked them to put back in the box. “Night, Jim. Don’t pout all night.”

“Fuck ya, Bubba.” He gave Bubba the finger for good measure but smiled because he knew Bubba was right. He wouldn’t call it pouting…. But he’d definitely not be happy in that single room, all alone.

Hunter stood from the table, and Riley brushed by him, the briefest touch of his shoulder and hand, knuckles rubbing knuckles. Hunter yearned to follow, to go to the room with Riley. He’d almost promise they could both be restrained to their beds at night so long as they could be in the same room. Of course, that might be against the rules. It sounded irrational, but wasn’t this one of those shitty cases of right person at the wrong time?

He kept tumbling over that in his head as he made his way to his room. He lay in bed thinking how he’d have loved to have met Riley out of this hell. Fuck this place and all the time you had to think, think, think.

“Checks,” an orderly said. Hunter didn’t even focus on the guy’s face before the lights were flicked off and the door shut firmly behind the man. He sighed and rolled over in his bed, pulling his covers over him, feeling so strangely alone. It was too quiet. On the outside he always had friends crashing at his apartment, if he wasn’t sleeping on the bathroom floor of theirs. He’d been in his mother’s room at the hospice the last week of her life, family cycling in and out. Then he’d had Riley ever since he’d gotten out of intensive care and been transferred to Hartfield.

He wasn’t sure if he’d dozed off or if his meds had just made the next while fuzzy, but he was startled into awareness by the click of his door. Surely it wasn’t three a.m. yet. He must’ve been asleep.

“Hunter?” a whisper in the darkened room. He would recognize that whisper anywhere.

He rolled quickly in his bed, almost tumbling over the side of the too-small dorm-sized twin bed. Riley reached out a hand, halting his fall to the floor. “Whoa, don’t fucking kill yourself being a spaz, please.”

Hunter looked at the outline of Riley in the dark, just able to make out his features from the outside lights. He couldn’t stop the smile that stretched his face. “Ry, what are you doing here?”

Riley gave him a fond smile. “You’re the only person who’s ever done that, you know?”

Hunter sat up, running his hands over his face to clear the fog from his mind and wake his eyes up. “Done what?”

“Shortened my name. It’s dumb how much I like it.”

Hunter thought it was dumb no one ever had, rather than the fact Riley liked it. It was done out of laziness, knowing someone well enough to speak to them informally. “Not dumb,” he mumbled.

Riley chuckled self-consciously. “Anyway, sorry. I know you’ll get in trouble. I just wanted to see you for a couple minutes. Don’t be mad.”

“Do I look mad?” Hunter asked as he fisted Riley’s plain white undershirt in his hands and pulled him close, close enough their breath mingled and warmed their faces. Riley’s chest hitched, a gust of toothpaste-sweetened breath blowing over Hunter. “I’m definitely not mad. I miss this.” And he kissed Riley. He had to. He didn’t even patiently probe, just pressed their lips together before sliding his tongue into Riley’s mouth. Riley whimpered, insinuating himself between Hunter’s open legs, and melted against him. The kiss didn’t last very long, but they drank from each other as deeply as they could.

When they parted, their breathing was heavy and they wore twin grins. “Me too,” Riley said, voice husky. “Missed it too.”

“Is it a Wally night?” Hunter asked.

Riley nodded. “I wouldn’t even try to sneak down here unless Wally the Wanker was on shift.”

The moment of truth. So he did have one strike left to burn, though it seemed a heady decision whether or not to take the risk. But fuck, Riley in his arms made it difficult to say it wasn’t worth it. Maybe just this once.

“I think you owe me a second date,” Hunter said.

“Oh, it’s on me, is it?”

“Well, I knocked it out of the park with that first one, if I do say so myself, so it only seems fair.”

Riley’s nerves showed in his posture as he stood and cracked the door to check the hallway. “Are you sure? This could get you so fucked.”

“Eh, what’s losing TV privileges when you don’t watch it?”

Riley was clearly less than pleased with that response. “I meant the whole going-to-jail thing, and you know it.”

Hunter stood and wrapped his arms around Riley’s waist. “It would be worth it for one more date with you.”

Riley dropped his head onto Hunter’s chest and heaved a sigh. “I hate this.”

“Fuck it, Ry. Let’s just go, okay? We don’t have near long enough, and I gotta kiss you again.”

When Riley’s big brown eyes came back into view, they were so full of something—something that choked Hunter up, made his chest ache in a good way. Damn, but this guy was going to be the death of him.

Riley stepped back and took Hunter’s hand. “Okay. Let’s go.”

T
HE
FORBIDDEN
wing, with its dust and darkness, the sheets of plastic and piles of abandoned wood, had never felt so welcoming. Not when Andy had taken Riley down there. Not even the first time Riley had shared this place with Hunter. Absence truly did make the heart grow fonder, it seemed.

“I want to go back to New Orleans,” Riley softly admitted as they rounded the corner. “I want to dance again, like we did on the bluff.”

“I couldn’t think of anything better,” Hunter said.

They returned to the room where they’d had that magical first date, and it didn’t take much to put Riley back on the cobblestones. He could hear the Mississippi River crashing against the shore. “Wait. Look.” He pointed. “It’s the
Creole Queen
. Let’s dance on the boat.”

“A boat, huh? Like one of those big riverboats?” Hunter asked.

“Yeah. I rode it once when I was younger, right after….”
No. No. No.
Mimi and John were
not
allowed to be a part of this. “I remember watching the city get smaller and smaller. I kept my face smooshed to the window the entire two hours we were on the boat.”

Hunter let out a soft laugh, and Riley shot a crooked grin over his shoulder.

The city lights twinkled against the night sky. Riley found himself staring up at the ceiling again, replacing stained corkboard tiles with a thick canopy of shimmering stars. The air from the vent transformed into a breeze gusting over the
Creole Queen
’s outer deck.

“It’s pretty damn gorgeous, isn’t it?” Hunter asked.

His voice was so close to Riley’s ear. His breath added a hint of heat to the cool brushing along Riley’s throat. And just when Riley thought there was no way this moment could get any better, Hunter wrapped his arms around Riley’s waist. Riley cut his eyes sideways and found a sexy, stubbly chin at his shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Riley said, laying his hand over Hunter’s. Their fingers laced together, holding hands like Hunter held his body.

“Of course I’m here. I’d never miss a ride on the
Creole Queen
.”

That elicited a small laugh from Riley that no way mirrored the joy he felt right now. It was one thing to believe the mind could take them on these journeys, but another thing entirely for Hunter to get into it the way he did. The fact made Riley start to fall again—not in the physical face-meet-earth sort of way, but the emotional heart-meet-sky kinda way. Riley was walking on air right now, soaring. Happier than he’d been since before Andy had died.

He turned in Hunter’s arms and curled himself around Hunter as if his only friend in the world could hold the weight of his body and anchor his heart. He held on to Hunter as if he could keep Hunter right there, right in that moment forever and never lose him. But Riley knew the latter wasn’t true. Hunter wasn’t a lifer like him. Hunter wasn’t crazy. He had a problem, a small, curable problem. Not like Riley. Riley’s issues were lobotomy worthy. He knew it. The doctors knew it. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know how to fucking fix it.

His arms tightened. It was an involuntary flex of muscles brought on by the profound need to hang on to the dearest thing in his whole entire existence. He laid his head on Hunter’s shoulder, and Hunter started to softly sway.

“The band’s good tonight,” Hunter whispered against Riley’s temple.

Riley couldn’t manage much more than a nod at the moment. His throat muscles had returned to their favorite position—constricted and strangling. He was doing his best to enjoy this moment because who knew when they would have another like it.

“Yeah, they are.” Riley’s voice came out wistful, serene. He cleared his head and let himself become lost in the moment with Hunter, not thinking about the four chipped and peeling walls surrounding them or the dirty, dusty floor beneath them. None of that existed on the
Creole Queen
, and none of the bleakness of the hospital existed in that cool New Orleans night.

“It’s funny,” Riley said, raising his head. “I’ve never really danced before.”

“Ever?” Hunter sounded surprised––amused and surprised.

“Nope. Never.”

“We’ll totally have to fix that when—”

Hunter abruptly pinched his lips together, obviously not meaning to go there. Going
there
sort of sullied the free-as-a-bird vibe they were going for and took away from the whole purpose of escaping to the forbidden wing. Well, not the
whole
purpose, considering that was the only way they could be alone together anymore.

“Will you kiss me again?” Riley asked. Hunter’s gaze ping-ponged, darting from one of Riley’s eyes to the other. He didn’t immediately swoop in for the kiss like Riley had expected him to. But the gradual moving forward and the slow parting of Hunter’s lips made the moment their mouths touched so much sweeter.

A whoosh of air ruffled Riley’s hair. He imagined a cool breeze gusting off the surface of the Mississippi River and encircling their bodies just like their arms did. His lips parted, and his tongue eased out, licking the seam of Hunter’s mouth, begging entrance, and when Hunter gave in, Riley’s heart took flight like it would burst right out of his chest.

They continued to sway to music only heard in their minds. It didn’t matter if the music was real or a creation of a broken mind. Right now, it was perfect. Right now, with Hunter, everything was perfect.

Chapter 15

H
UNTER
HADN
’
T
missed someone in so many years, never yearned for someone. Hell, he’d not understood yearning for a living person since… well, since Cory. He’d been alone so long he’d grown accustomed to not craving another soul. Yeah, he’d been surrounded by friends, noise, all the time. Then he’d had Riley, the simple sounds of someone you cared about, living, existing in the same space, since he’d gotten out of intensive care, so he’d not needed to miss anyone. But this was different.

His first month was coming to a close, one short month left to go. It was too quiet. There was a void that made no sense. He could live with the quiet but not without Riley’s energy nearby. It wasn’t love, but it was definitely more than just a friend. And he’d been without Riley for more than a week and a half. Twelve long nights in which Wally had been a no-show. Hunter was beginning to fear the man had quit, or was finally fired for beating off through his entire shift.

After their last night together, Hunter’s hunger for Riley had grown stronger, his heart beating faster when the other man walked into a room.

But…. What happened after this? Hunter would get out. When would Riley? Would he ever? The last twelve days had been torture. They’d had no more than a few stolen moments when Bubba covered for them, the quick brush of hands, covert looks. He felt like a closeted teenager again, and it pissed him off. But at least he got to see Riley every day now.

Would this ache destroy him outside? It’d been so long since he’d felt deep, to-the-core missing another living person. Hell, he’d been convinced he’d never feel it again. Why’d he have to fuck up and fall for this person who he’d be forced to miss if Riley didn’t get his own shit together?

Hunter had followed everything to the letter. Especially after his brother picked up his phone call.
“Just get yourself together. We’ll be square if you come back to me as my brother. The real Hunter.”
Hunter had choked up. He had Riley, even if only briefly, and Travis who was willing to give him a fucking chance—way more than he could have hoped for.