Chapter 29: Gwen - Hunter or Hunted

“It’s okay, baby,” Simone kept saying to the little girl in her arms. Junie wasn’t crying anymore, but she’d opened her eyes a few times, only for the tears to start again, before she squeezed them shut, and I saw it all. I saw myself.

While I’d never stood in those precise shoes, I remembered the dynamic. An adult dragging a child into a situation they never should’ve been in, a situation they couldn’t begin to understand.

Sometimes because my mom had so much on her plate, bits of it spilled onto mine. Other times, because an outside source dropped it on me, purely because hurting me hurt my mom even more.

My mom’s boyfriends did that the most. They’d say the same things. That she was a junkie. A whore. A slut, a bitch. Any of it, all of it.

Before I even understood what the words meant, I knew the intent. To hurt her, insult her.

But if those insults were true, why did they lie beside her in bed each night? What did that make them?

“Simone,” Edwards called out behind us. “Simone, wait.”

She kept walking.

I stayed close behind.

We were almost at my car in the drive when he brushed past me. “Hey, just wait a⁠—”

“I can’t.” She spun around, reddened, watery eyes like daggers. “My kid needs me. I can’t do this right now.”

Edwards’ frown stretched toward his chin. A little redness sparkled in his eyes too. “You’re right. She does. She shouldn’t have—No kid should be in the middle of that shit.”

On an exasperated sigh, Simone licked her teeth. “Yeah. Now that that’s established⁠—”

“I said that wrong. I didn’t mean—I just—Don’t let her win. You were having a great time, so was Junie, and you deserve that. You both do.” He furrowed his brows, shaking his head. “Don’t leave.”

A scoff left her. Juggling the child in her arms, the things she could say in front of her, and all the pain of that interaction, her mouth opened and shut a few times. “Don’t leave, Malachi? I can’t ever show my face in this town again⁠—”

“That’s not true. Gwen, tell her⁠—”

“Don’t do that.” She shook her head, voice low but honest. Powerful. “She gets it. You don’t.”

While that was true, I was still hung up on the fact that Edwards had a first name. Malachi Edwards.

“I—Shit.” Simone struggled with Junie’s weight, hoisting her back up her waist, better positioning her hands beneath the backs of Junie’s legs. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I-I just need to breathe. I gotta get Junie to bed.”

His frown stayed in place, but his eyes stayed soft. Understanding. “Okay. I get it. But nothing she said changes anything here, alright? I’ve been dealing with her for months, I know how she is, I know she’s lying⁠—”

“Mostly, yeah,” Simone said. “I never hurt him. Never. I probably should’ve, but I didn’t.”

“I know⁠—”

“But it wasn’t all lies.” Simone choked on the words, but she found her composure. “I’m a mess, Edwards. Where I’ve been, what I’ve lived through, the things I’ve done to make rent, I—Why are you interested? Why do you wanna deal with this shit?”

“Your past doesn’t matter⁠—”

“Tonight perfectly illustrates why it does.” She blinked at tears and swallowed hard. And she waited.

So did I.

For the rebuttal. For the words she needed, for the hope that he knew just how bad the world she came from was, and that he still wanted this. The good, the bad, and the outright awful of it.

She needed him to say, I know you’re a mess, and I don’t care. Your mess matters. This shit made you who you are, and I still wanna do this. I want you for all you are, regardless of the mess. Regardless of the trauma and the pain. I want you.

But his mouth opened, and nothing came out.

Simone sniffled and cleared her throat. “Can you unlock the car, Gwen?”

I dug around in my pocket and clicked the button.

Edwards stood there, catching snowflakes on his silent lips, while I opened the rear door.

Simone slid into the back and strapped Junie into her booster seat.

“I’m gonna stay right here,” Edwards said. “Until you leave, I mean. In case she’s still out here.”

“Thanks.” I gave his shoulder a pat as I started around to the driver’s side. He leaned against the rear passenger door while our collective breath fogged the windows.

In the rearview, I saw Junie rub a balled fist against her eye. “He’s a good guy, Mommy.”

Simone glanced at him out the window. “He is.”

“You should be nice to him,” she said. “He just wants to be nice to you.”

Simone’s nostrils flared, and her lip swelled. “Yeah. You’re right, baby.”

Sebastian rounded the corner of the house in a jog. He exchanged a few words with Edwards, they did one of those boy handshakes that wasn’t really a handshake, and he hopped in. “Lizzie’s gonna stay back for a while. Wants to see the ball drop.”

“Could we do that at home?” Junie asked. “In town? We’re dropping a ball too.”

Simone grabbed the side of her daughter’s head and pressed a kiss to her forehead, gazing out the window. “Sure. We’ll watch the ball drop from the balcony, kiddo.”

* * *

We drove in near silence. Junie dozed off a few minutes after we left the Jacobs’ home. Once she was out, Sebastian said, “I get it. I would’ve wanted to leave too.”

“Thanks,” Simone said.

“Can I give you some insight, though?” He gazed out the window, voice calm, but not doting. Direct, but not blunt. “As a regular Black Pines pariah myself?”

She huffed. “I’ve never heard anyone call you a pariah.”

“Maybe you should get your ears checked.”

She let out some breathy sound I didn’t have words for. “Alright. Enlighten me, pariah.”

“They love the drama,” he said. “When an Angela shows up, or a belligerent Mr. Everett, or a half nodded-off Mrs. Everett, they’ll talk about it. Because their lives are empty. They hate their wives and husbands and kids. If they’re shitting on you, or me, or my dead parents, or my dead sister, it’s because it makes them feel better about the mistakes they’ve made.”

Another one of those indescribable sounds. “You think Mallory hates her husband and kids?”

“She hates that she had them right out of high school,” he said. “She hates that she didn’t move to the city. She hates that she didn’t finish college until her mid-thirties. She hates the girl whose panties she found in Chris’s truck a few years back.”

Both mine and Simone’s eyes widened. I glanced from the double yellows ahead to meet his gaze. “No shit?”

“She was talking to her mom about it on the phone when she brought her cat in for vaccines right after I opened.” He gave a half smile, raising a shoulder. “Look, I’m just saying. Everyone around here is performing. All their shit stinks too.”

“Nature of small-town America, I guess,” Simone said.

“When we were kids, and it was my dad making a scene like Angela just did, everybody talked. No one offered to help. They ran their mouths about how dysfunctional my family was so they’d feel better about how dysfunctional their family was,” he said. “But one person always asked if I was okay.”

Ah. Now I saw where he was going with this.

Judging by Simone’s sigh, so did she. “If you’re trying to tell me Edwards is a great person, I know that, Sebastian. That’s the problem.”

“Why? Because you don’t think you’re good enough?” he asked. “He’s got his shit too. It might not be as heavy as yours, but he’s not perfect either.”

“No one is,” she said. “But he’s close enough. And one day, he’ll get sick of it. My drama, my chaos. And it’s not just mine, either. Junie’s got issues too. He doesn’t wanna deal with us.”

“He stood up for you.” Sebastian looked out the window again, that calm directness returning to his voice. “He ran after you. I dunno what happened when he caught up, but if he said something wrong, it’s because he doesn’t have years of Rhiannon’s therapy language in his head. Not because he doesn’t want you.”

Silence set in again.

I didn’t have anything better to say, so I nudged the stereo up a couple notches. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

When we got to the ranch, I headed down to the apartments first. Main Street looked busier than usual in the distance, but only the dull sound of voices and music carried. Now, I wished we would’ve rung in the New Year here.

I got out to help Simone, but she already had the sleeping child in her arms. Junie stirred, but her eyes stayed shut. “Do you want to get a drink? Watch the ball drop on the balcony?”

She shook her head. “I just wanna lay down.”

“I can lay with you.” I smiled. “Sebastian can take my car back up to the cabin. We can watch the New Year’s Eve party in Times Square, and listen to music, and⁠—”

“You’re not bailing on him for me.” She managed a smile too, but it couldn’t disguise the sadness in her eyes. “I’m okay, Gwen.”

“Then he can come up too,” I said. “I’ll lay in the middle. It won’t be weird.”

She laughed. A real laugh. “I’m okay. Really. Go ring in the New Year with your man. Kiss at midnight. Toast to the future. We’ll catch up tomorrow.”

I frowned. “Are you sure?”

“A hundred percent.” Lifting Junie higher, she nodded toward the double glass doors. “Just open that for me, would you?”

And so, I did.

I gave her a hug at the entrance, Junie a kiss, and reminded her to call me if she needed anything. She said she would and reminded me to have some fun.

When I plopped back into the driver’s seat, a grunt of exasperation escaped me.

“Yeah, that sucked,” Sebastian said.

“A lot,” I agreed. “I guess you were right about that too. Angela’s a problem.”

“Yep.”

“But Simone’s already agreed to get a restraining order,” I said. “Rhiannon’s handling it when everything opens back up after the holiday.”

“That’ll keep something like tonight from happening again.” He settled back into the passenger seat. “As long as a judge signs off on it. But I still don’t think she’ll go quietly.”

A deep breath lifted my shoulder and eased from my nostrils. “Probably right about that too.”

He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “I can try and run damage control with Mallory. She’ll get word around about Angela. I was kind of a dick to her before we left though. But Lizzie loves Simone, and Mallory loves Lizzie, so that’ll help.”

“Speaking of which.” I glanced at the clock, reading 11:18. “Do you need me to get you back to your truck? To pick her up?”

“Actually, I was thinking about stopping somewhere else first.” Another one of those half smiles. “Lizzie won’t be ready ’til one-ish. Are you in a rush to get home?”

“No?” I squinted him over. “But where did you wanna go?”

His smile widened. “Our second location.”