2. Hunter

TWO

HUNTER

T he antiseptic stings my nose as I round the corner of the inpatient floor at the children's hospital, but the burning in my face is from sheer anxiety.

Despite the two drinks I had in the hour before landing and fucking the eager flight attendant, restricting her movements and controlling her breath, I still feel like my head is going to pop off my shoulders.

It's clear that no matter who I fuck, how much I drink, or what I take, nothing will erase the mess in front of me.

How the fuck am I supposed to step into parenthood? I can barely take care of myself.

It's been twenty-four hours since I was contacted by state police and told my high school girlfriend and mother of my only child died of a drug overdose. It's been that many hours since I accepted that I need to step into the role of Dad for our fifteen-year-old son.

This new development rocks my shit—tilting everything off-center.

First, to my knowledge, Maiya has been sober for the last decade at least .

Second, I haven't been in my son's life beyond infrequent visits and regular child support deposits.

Maiya was my high school girlfriend—a scholarship kid from the wrong side of the tracks whose presence in my life made my father livid.

I loved the shit out of his reaction.

Plus, if Maiya could do anything, she could suck and fuck a cock.

But then, everything changed when she got pregnant right after graduation.

I did the best thing I could do for everyone involved when she said she wouldn't abort: I gave her money and stayed the hell away.

I would have destroyed him.

The energy in my body pulses and sharpens, looking for an exit out of the prison of my skin. The headache I've nursed since leaving Türkiye sixteen hours ago is in full bloom now. I was in Bursa to finalize the plant details for the European arm of BwP. We're hoping to expand outside of the United States—if we can get the Feds to play nice.

My temples pulse again.

I'm the CEO of BwP, a MedTech company that's grown a multibillion-dollar industrial powerhouse in just over a decade. I run it with my best friend, Leo, as my second in command.

Well, saying I run it isn't really accurate. Leo and I decided it would be best if I operated as CEO and him as COO. The only reason is because with the Brigham name and connections, I was able to get us access to what we needed to grow in a way that Leo was unable to.

He tried. But the gatekeepers kept the doors closed.

I show my face when it's needed to bypass the bullshit. But Leo's the real brains behind the operation. BwP is his baby. So I do what he tells me to, use my connections and influence when necessary, and try to not fuck up the company.

Which is fine by me.

I don't have to worry about many things. I go where I want. I do what I want. It's live and let live over here.

And now I'm going to have to play Daddy Dearest.

I scratch my nose and crack my neck.

Navigating my way to Room P1403, I pass vivid cartoon animal sketches on the walls and try to squash down my discomfort at being here, in this hospital, back in this goddamn cesspool of a town I vowed to avoid.

"H."

Leo's voice echoes off the gleaming floors, and I catch sight of him standing between the metal double doors leading to the locked ward. I shift my direction to catch up with him.

Leo Polanco is often deemed intimidating. It's an unfair and inaccurate assessment. As tall as I am at 6'3", the fact that he's a quiet guy with strong, dark features causes people to assume he's a threat. They're wrong. Sure, he can be a grumpy motherfucker, but the Leo I know has Katy Perry on his Spotify playlist and likes to watch TikToks of otters holding hands in the sea.

It's rare for others to see that side of his personality, though.

Just as I'm the son of a powerful man, so is he. The Lost Boys of the Ultra-Elite.

Over the last few years, Leo has been more serious than relaxed. BwP takes up a lot of his attention, especially with what we have about to hit the market.

Hopefully soon. Hopefully.

"Got a bit of a situation." Leo places his hand on my shoulder, and we walk together. Turning the corner, I look at him and say, "Explain."

"Well—"

"Get the hell out of my goddamn way! "

"Miss!" The pointed voice of a vexed nurse hits my ears, as does a familiar voice I'd also hoped to avoid. At least for a little while.

"Ella is here," Leo says, much like one would say, "You've got gonorrhea."

He rubs the skin above his eyebrows.

Ella Elizabeth Brigham should be demure and respectful, given her breeding. But she's acting now as she always has: loud and demanding. Ella's all hard edges. But my little sister isn't a tomboy anymore, nor is she the girl who was forced to be a debutante, puffy white dress and all, when she'd rather ride dirt bikes and read fantasy novels.

Instead, she stands before me in Chucks, black leggings, and a long-sleeved Henley. She looks very different from when I last saw her in person.

When was that? Seven years ago? Longer?

Her once-unmanageable sable-hued hair, the same color as mine, is in a sleek ponytail that looks like it's vibrating as she rages on the nurse.

She's an adult now. Twenty-two years old.

My little sister isn't my baby sister anymore.

Ella shifts in my direction as Leo and I rush down the corridor. Her acne problem is gone, which makes me happy for her. She was always so self-conscious about it. Her skin is clear, although her face is not—her impertinent scowl deepens as the seconds tick on.

"Ma'am," the nurse spits out, "screaming and cursing will get you nowhere . You are not on the visitor list. Please leave before I have you escorted by security." Two other nurses, both male, flank the nurse, and Ella squares her shoulders.

I butt in before things can escalate.

"Excuse me, I'm August Brigham's father. This is his aunt. She can come in."

The nurse sniffs as I hand over my ID. Leo points to the sticker badge on his shirt, as he'd come in before .

Leo's involvement in August's life is complicated. When Maiya popped up pregnant, he was the first person I told about it. While we both went off to college, he ultimately returned to D.C.

Because he was close by, I asked him to check in on August once. It was his fifth birthday, and I wanted him to have a gift. It was a little helicopter I picked up from a toy shop in London. I don't know what drove me to go into the store or decide to give August a gift, but I did.

While I could have mailed it, I had Leo hand-deliver the present. And years later, he's kept up with August, seeing him often when I can't.

Or, more accurately, won't.

The other nurses roll their eyes as they walk away.

"You'll show her the way then," the nurse replies. "And please know that any aggression toward staff will not be tolerated. You will be removed."

With that, the nurse turns away from us and walks over to her computer, sitting on the rolling chair with a huff.

"Right," Ella says. She arches her eyebrow in a way that's so much like our mother. It's uncanny when she does it because she never got the chance to know the woman who birthed us.

I swallow down the memories.

Ignoring Leo and me, Ella enters August's room and stops a few steps from his bed. I brace myself to see my son for the first time in years. When was the last time?

For an hour on his thirteenth birthday. He's fifteen now.

Fuck.

Father of the fucking year.

Sucking in a breath, I turn around. Ella pulls up a chair and holds his hand. The sharp, angry look on her face dissolves as tears stream down her face. Her pale nose is red.

August has always been considered frail. He was born small, slightly premature, but he hasn't jumped any significant percentage on the growth chart from every report I've gotten from his caregivers. In part due to genetics and in part because there are only a few foods he eats.

After nearly a week of dehydration, his cheeks are sunken in, and he looks gaunt. Bandages wind around his hands, and a plastic cover protects the IV site in his right arm.

"Ella," I say after a tense moment, and she looks up at me with watery eyes.

"So you decided to show up, huh?" Her anger takes me off guard, even though I deserve every drop.

"What else was I supposed to do?" I say, genuinely searching for an answer. Maybe she has one.

She sighs and stands back up. Walking toward me, she says, "I don't know, Hunter." She hesitates for a minute before grabbing my hand.

I flinch at the touch.

"It's good to see you, H. I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Ellie." And it's the truth. Even though staying away was a hundred percent my choice, it doesn't mean I haven't missed the only woman I've ever loved besides Mom.

She would have been killed too.

Ella takes a step back and gives me a warbled smile. Then she hits me across the chest.

" That is for staying away so long! And that ," she slaps me on the arm, "is for not telling me you were in town. I had to hear everything from Dad." I pivot away to avoid her pinched fingers as they make their way toward my nipple.

At the mention of our father, ice shoots down my arms.

He will always know. There's no hiding from him.

"Oh? What do you know?"

"I know that Maiya died days ago. I know August was found after wandering around for God knows how long. I know no one thought to contact me until two hours ago. Me. His only aunt. The only person in our family who has any regular contact with him."

Her severe frown reappears.

Ella should have been contacted first, not me. I understand why the investigators called—I'm his father and next of kin on his school forms and the area-wide ChildFind database. But I was across the planet, and Ella is right here where she's always been, doing what she's always done: being here for August.

"Help me understand it, Hunter. Why have you stayed away for so damn long? From me? From your son?" The last two words shoot at me like bullets as they explode out her mouth. She crosses her arms over her chest, her stance combative.

I want to fidget under her scrutiny as I think about a way to explain what is unexplainable. At least, not without making me look like a total fuckhead.

But wasn't that the point? Didn't I say that I'd rather everyone think I'm an asshole than know the real reason why I left?

"Maiya and I were toxic," is what I land on. "You remember how she was."

She rolls her eyes, then stares at me even harder.

"Okay, but that still doesn't explain your absence in your son's life, Hunter James Brigham." She pokes me once with her sharp, black fingernail, and her gaze telegraphs what I'm sure are her inner thoughts: I'm sick of your shit.

Her mouth tightens. "Is it because he's Autistic?" Her voice is low, but so fire-filled I think she really could incinerate me on the spot.

"Absolutely not!" I reply without hesitation. "I know I didn't understand it when he was first diagnosed, but I've done my best to get educated."

I won't say I'm the poster child for autism allies, but I've taken time to listen to and learn from Autistic people in an effort to know my son .

I didn't get it back then, but I wanted to understand. Even if I couldn't be there for him.

Wouldn't be there for him.

I clear my throat, forcing myself to ratchet down my defensiveness.

"I've taken a lot of time to educate myself. I was the one who got him into that spelling program over in Herndon when those idiot therapists wanted to sit him in a corner forever because he couldn't talk," I say, infusing more calm into my delivery.

For the first eight years of August's life, I watched as report after report came in from the aides and therapists I'd hired to help him, all essentially saying in one way or another that August would never amount to anything. They said I might as well give up on any hopes of him learning because he couldn't learn.

Speech therapists, occupational therapists, music therapists—they'd all given up because his body seemed so out of control to them.

They still came around to collect a paycheck, though.

Holed up in the Waldorf in Manhattan one snowy weekend, I dove down the rabbit hole and found a program so close to August and Maiya that it couldn't have been anything but divine intervention that I stumbled upon it.

Through the new therapy, I learned that August has a lot of thoughts inside him, but apraxia prevents his brain from sending the signals to his body in the way it needs to for speech. There's a disconnect between his mind and his body. The reason why he doesn't speak is more of a motor issue rather than a cognitive one.

There are millions of non-speaking Autistic people who are just like him.

It took a few years, but August graduated from poking out his thoughts letter-by-letter on a laminated board to using a word processor to type and communicate. Over those years, he's become happier and less stressed. He's even said as much.

But now this…

"Sure, H. Money is great and all. But he doesn't need money. He needs—needed—a father." Ella's words pull me back to this sterile hospital room, reminding me that my son is here. And he really does need me this time.

I hold Ella's gaze. "I care. I care about him. I know I've chosen shit ways of showing it, but…" I shrug, not really knowing what else to say.

Her exhalation is short. "It's whatever, I guess," she drawls. She starts to move away, but I grab her arm.

"I'm sorry, Ella. Things have just been insane—busy with BwP. Things with Maiya were getting complicated way before this." That's not exactly true. Maiya and I don't talk. Or, I guess, we didn't talk. As long as the deposits hit her bank account every month, she left me alone. It works. Worked.

"Ever the avoider. Right, H?" Her eyebrow lifts, her sardonic expression socking me in the solar plexus. "Anyway, I know things were complicated. August told me," she says, flopping back down on her chair and pulling her legs beneath her. I sit down too, but pause, looking at her when her statement registers.

"What do you mean?"

"He told me. He talks to me. We see each other all the time. I'd take him out on weekends, for his birthday, yada, yada. He damn near lives with me. Maiya and I weren't ‘friends , '" she moves her fingers to make air quotes, "but August is my only nephew." She drops her phone on the seat next to her.

"Lives with you? When did this start?"

And why was I not told this?

"For the last year or so. She came to Dad's place asking for more money. She said you were…unresponsive to her needs, and she needed more. "

"I was paying her a hundred grand a month for child support," I say with a low breath.

"I know," she says, waving my words off.

Between my business and the fact that my family has more money in their bank accounts than most people will ever see in ten lifetimes, giving someone over a million dollars per year in child support actually puts me in deadbeat territory.

"Wait, so she was taking the child support every month, but not actually taking care of our son?" The back of my eyeballs feel itchy.

Ella doesn't respond; she just does that waving thing again.

"In any event, she showed up at Dad's making a fuss about ‘airing the family's dirty laundry,' but you know Dad," she finishes.

I do indeed know Dad.

Ella reaches into her pocket and pulls out a wrapped nugget of bright pink Bubblicious bubble gum. Pulling away the waxy paper, she pops it into her mouth and smacks noisily. I get a flash of her as a teenager.

"So anyway ," she draws out the word, "IDK what happened with that situation in the end, but I made sure to let her know that I had no problem hanging with August. She didn't really care either way." She blows a bubble and pops it.

Leo shifts as he leans against the wall. His shoulders are tense, even though the rest of his body seems relaxed.

"Well, I'm glad you've been there for him." I clear my throat.

"Yep," is all she says before blowing an obnoxiously large bubble and popping her gum. "Anyway, I'm not really here for you. I'm here for Augie." She leans forward in her seat to grab August's hand.

"Are you planning on coming to Sunday dinner?" she asks without looking at me .

The anxious energy that's simmered beneath the surface of my skin flares to full force, shooting arcs of electricity through my body. "Sunday dinner. With Dad?"

"Yeah, who else? He requested you be there, H. You should show your face. The prodigal son and all that jazz." She smiles at me as if she's not telling me to deliver myself to the devil himself. But to her, he's just Dad.

To me, he's the ruler and destroyer of all he touches.

"I'll think about it," I say finally.

"I really wish you would. I've really missed you and want to spend time with you before you run off again. This time with August?" she says with a question in her voice. I can't tell whether she thinks that's a good or bad idea.

I don't know how long I'll be here. Or what my plans are beyond today. So all I can say is, "Yeah."

"Well, figure it out. If not for yourself, for August." She shifts in her seat. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan?" I say dumbly. I don't have a fucking plan. My plan consisted of getting back to D.C. without jumping out of the plane while over the Atlantic.

"He's going to need help. A lot of help. When I called Leonardo ," she says his name with just as much disgust as Leo showed when mentioning her name in the hallway, "he told me that August has not talked at all since he's been here. He's been melting down, hence the sedation drip. So what's the deal?"

Leo clears his throat and says, "I spoke with Dr.Wagner. She suggested he receive in-home therapies rather than going somewhere else."

"Somewhere else—like a home? What the fuck!" Ella yells.

August makes a noise in his throat, and his hand closest to me twitches. At the movement, I shoot Ella a sharp look, and she appears contrite. We're silent for a moment, watching the monitor as his heart rate and respirations stabilize into their previous restful pattern .

"No, more like inpatient mental health treatment," Leo says with a softer voice.

"He's fifteen . True, he's gone through a lot this past week, but he will get the best support if he's able to be home with his family," Ella continues.

Home. Something else I'll have to figure out.

"Will you stay at Amelia Manor?" Ella pipes up as if she can read my thoughts.

A wave of sadness threatens to crush me, as it does any time the topic of my mother comes up. I normally wouldn't consider it, but staying at the estate mom left to both me and Ella would work. It's a good option. I shut my brain down when it starts to call up memories of me and my mom at Amelia Manor, picnicking on the thick, impossibly green grass.

"Yes, I think it'll be comfortable for August and me."

"Great. Good thing I've been keeping the property up," she replies. "I'll have a room ready for him by the time he's discharged from this place." She swings her head back around to Leo. "But back to the hospitalization bullshit. What's the alternative?"

"She mentioned getting a therapist to come to the home and basically recreate an intensive outpatient program. With those, you usually spend all day working on your problems, but you go home at the end of the day. With him being Autistic and already needing different therapies, and with this new trauma, she basically thinks we can recreate an outpatient program, but at home."

What he says makes sense, even though I struggle with how we'll get this done.

"Did she have ideas on how we can do that? I don't have a fucking therapy team in my pocket, much to everyone's surprise," I say. I feel myself getting antsy.

I pick at the skin on my thumbnail.

"She had some ideas. We'll need to hire someone, but she has a list. I'll make sure she stops by in the morning," Leo says.

"So it's all settled," Ella declares. Still ignoring Leo, she stands and leans over to give August a kiss on the forehead. He inhales deeply, even in his sleep.

"I'll take care of the hiring part, H. Just be here. Okay?" She wraps her arms around me and squeezes with her head on my chest.

I breathe in her familiar scent of lemon verbena and coconut. "I'll do my best," is all I say.

She's silent for a moment, searching my face. "I know you can do even better," she says before walking out the door.

The room hums with the sound of machines—the IV pumps, the pulse oximeter reading, and August's delicate, slow breathing. I take steps closer to him until I'm beside his bed.

His narrow face and sharp eyebrows look so much like Maiya.

"I see you in him now that he's older," Leo says.

"Maybe," I reply, although I do think he looks more like me now. I take up residence in Ella's abandoned seat. As my body settles into the cheap plastic, soreness seeps into my bones. My palms tingle.

"Tell me about how you found them," I say, not looking at Leo. I'm watching the rise and fall of August's chest.

"She was in a drug house in Baltimore," he says, still leaning against the wall. "It took a while to find her because she left her phone behind at the house in Potomac Mills. August's summer school reported him missing after they couldn't get in contact with anyone for a few days."

I blanch, thinking about the call I might have missed from his teachers. I'm too chicken shit to look at my call logs.

I take my eyes off August and lean on the bed, resting my chin in my hands.

"Why was August there?" I ask .

"I don't know. My best guess is that she didn't expect to OD where she was."

I grunt in reply.

"As for August, the best we could figure out is he left the house where his mom was, probably trying to find help. The police found him five miles away under the interstate. His communication tablet was gone."

I want to vomit.

"Was it Fentanyl?" I ask.

He nods, somber. I sigh and cover my face with my hands.

I tried Fentanyl once, and not of my own choice. It was in some coke I got when I visited Toronto six years ago. It was the first time I got Narcan'd.Thankfully, that experience was sobering enough that I stopped doing drugs altogether. Withdrawals were a bitch, but I got through it. The luxury rehab center in Calabasas helped.

The cravings are a distant memory now. At least, most days.

"She was doing so good, though…" I say. I'm sad that August has lost his mother, that this disease of addiction took her from the world even after being sober for so long.

I rub my chest. When Maiya and I met, she wasn't a hardcore drug user. She was a partier, but she kept her wildness limited to weed and the occasional molly. When we got together, though, I was into drugs. Bad.

Pills brought us even closer together. But when I left her behind, she spiraled while I soared.

The world isn't fair, and I'd have to be dead not to recognize that from the outside, I look like a monster.

Maybe I am.

"We have to talk about the issue of your father," Leo cuts in. He moves to the chair on the other side of August's bed.

My muscles seize up.

"He knows you're in town. He's going to want you to start back up with?— "

I give him a searing look. "I will not. I won't go back there." I won't do whatever the fuck it is that he wants me to do.

Won't I?

"Well, how are you going to break the news to Pops?" He leans back, folding his arms across his chest.

Leo hates my father as much as I do. Besides the fact that my father is a racist, elitist fuck, he's also responsible for the shittiest moments in Leo's life.

And mine, too.

"I don't have to say shit," I reply.

"The hell you don't. You don't have an ocean separating the two of you anymore. Plus, you and I both know that if he wanted to, he could have gotten to you at any time, no matter where you were."

I know this. I've always known this. But instead of living in fear of my father and what he can do, I've drowned it out.

Not that my brain doesn't take every opportunity to remind me.

"The fact that he dropped all that info on Ella's lap shows that he knows how to get to you and show who is in charge. You can't outrun this, H. You've got to face up to all of this. Face up to him."

I run my fingers through my hair, gripping the strands at the roots.

Of course, Leo is right. He's always right, though I'll never tell him so. He's a "think first, then act" kind of guy. I'm a "punch first, then think" kind of guy.

We're foils.

"The timing of all this is just fucking great," I say, blowing out my breath.

Leo nods.

Project Panacea is BwP's biggest secret project: a drug using gene therapy to create killer proteins that eradicate cancer for each person. No more blasting people with chemo and hoping it kills the cancer cells. BwP has technology that will encode and then decode cancer cells on the genetic level.

Yes, we're altering people's genes. It's history-changing shit.

"I've got things under control here," I say to him, gesturing toward August and the myriad of tubes flowing from him.

He shakes his head. "With all due respect, you really don't," he says.

Ouch.

"I…" I start to speak and then stop myself. Because he's actually right. I don't have this, even though I want to. "I've got Ella. You really need me at BwP."

"No, I don't need you at BwP," he disagrees. "But you need me here."

"Well, shit, tell me how you really feel," I say.

"You're going to use Amelia Manor, right? We'll set up shop there. It will give me the chance to be with you and August and be close enough to handle things at HQ if needed."

After sixteen hours of travel, I'm too tired to protest or offer any additional solutions, so I nod in acceptance.

We both fall silent. I watch August's breathing.

The plastic chair creaks as Leo shifts, standing.

"Later," he says.

In typical Leo fashion, he's hit his quota of words for the day. After he leaves a few minutes later, I turn off the main lights. The monitors cast a cool glow around the room. August doesn't stir, and the IV machine whirs as it delivers more drugs into his system.

I move over to the couch and unfold the paper-thin blanket and plastic-covered pillow. Setting up for the night, I walk over to August and dare to touch him.

I put my hand on his hair, gently pushing his straight locks out of his eyes .

"I'm sorry, August," I whisper in the darkness. I don't usually apologize to people. Most people don't deserve or require it. But for August…none of this should have happened to him.

Silence greets my statement.

"I've been fuck all to you. But I promise I'll try my best."

Ella's words echo in my head.

I'll try to do even better than that.