Hunter and I spent hours down by the pond.

We stretched out on the rocks at the water's edge, soaking in the sun and talking about everything under the sun. Hunter quizzed me on my favorite sports teams, giving me a hard time about most of my choices, then on what I was like as a kid. It was a strange question to begin with, but I had to admit it felt good, laying there like that, to think back to being small when all I wanted to do was pretend to be a mermaid all summer in my family's pool or play with my dolls.

He laughed when I told him what a goody two-shoes I had been growing up. I'd never done drugs, never smoked, never drank until after I'd moved out after high school, never snuck out or lied. I had been a practical angel child.

"We couldn't be more different in that respect." He chuckled, picking apart a leaf he was holding in his calloused hands. "I was a screw up."

"That's not a nice way to put it." I sighed, rolling onto my side to look over at him instead of the little fluffs of white clouds overhead.

His eyes seemed far away. "There is no nice way to put it." He told me. "I really was awful. I got kicked out of two schools before I was sixteen, I got picked up by the cops with cigarettes and a mini bottle of tequila when I was seventeen, broke my wrist in a fight in school. Literally, if there was a bad thing to do, I did it. I was a mess."

"My parents would have killed me." I shook my head.

He only scoffed at the idea. "Not mine." He wiped the left over leaf crumbles from his palms onto the rocks. "They'd just sweep it under the rug or pay whoever they needed to in order to make any record of it disappear. If I hadn't gotten into football, I would probably be in jail right now."

"So sports saved your life?" I smirked and then shrieked when he swatted his hand into the chilly water and splashed it towards me.

"Don't laugh," he told me even though he was laughing too. "it's totally true. My coach showed up at my house my junior year and gave me the whole speech about how if I'm unhappy with my life, then I need to man up and change it. I started taking practice seriously, and before long I had all the colleges calling my house at all hours begging me to come play for them. I had to straighten up my behavior though if I wanted to have a chance at actually going to play at any of them."

"You ever wish you would have done that instead?" I asked. "Football instead of military?"

He shrugged quickly. "Nah, I don't really think about it." He explained. "No point really when it wouldn't have worked out anyway. I just had to get out of here and the only way to do that, at least at the time, was to sign my life away. I was an angry, pissed off kid. The Army worked wonders on me."

I nodded. "I'd say so." I agreed. "You don't seem anything like the person you describe."

"I'm glad you don't think so, but you might find that the people who know me best wouldn't agree with you."

"Like who? Your parents?"

I hadn't meant to bring up a sore subject again, but I could tell by the look in Hunter's eyes as he gazed out over the water to the waterfall that thinking of them caused him pain. "Yeah, I guess."

"I'm sorry." I told him.

His brows knitted together as he turned back to me. "For what?" He laughed, the smile not reaching his troubled eyes.

"For bringing them up again. I can tell you don't like to talk about it." I dipped my eyes, a little embarrassed.

"It isn't you," He muttered. "I'm the one who keeps thinking of them for some reason. I swear I go months without them crossing my mind but for some reason..."

"Great," I mumbled. "I remind you of you parental issues." I shook my head at him, hoping to coax out a smile but it only worked marginally.

"No, Kit, you don't." He picked up another leaf to destroy. "It's weird, like I almost want to talk about it with you. I'm usually the one digging for secrets you know," He turned to look at me for only a second, his blue eyes wondering, then he shifted back to the leaf. "Somehow you make me spill my own."

I didn't know how to take that. Am I like a friend he feels comfortable enough with that he thinks he can spill his guts, or is he saying I'm like an equally messed up person that draws out his bad memories? I stammered for the right words, but finally decided to keep it simple. "Well, if you ever do want to talk, know that you can, but I'm not going to push it anymore."

I laid back on my back and looked up at the blue cutouts of sky and then closed my eyes, letting the sun warm my skin back up after a gust of colder air left chill bumps across my arms and legs. In the distance the sounds of rustling leaves or the occasional woodpecker filled the quiet that had fallen between us, the babbling water relaxing me so deeply that I might have been able to fall asleep if it hadn't been for Hunter going off on a story about the time that he and a friend from school stole their principal's golf cart and drove it to the local strip club and chained it to a light post in the parking lot. I'd been rolling laughing by the time he got to the part where the police finally located it and had to drive the principal out to the club to have him identify it as his own even though it had school's emblem plastered all over the front.

"The best part was when they covered it on the local news." He told me. "They interviewed him right outside of the strip club and in the background you could see the girls heading in for their shifts and the headline under him said 'Local school principal's golf cart found in Boobtown parking lot.'"

One story turned into ten and before I knew it the sun was sitting lower in the sky, casting dark shadows across the clearing.

"Getting spooked?" Hunter teased, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"No." I lied and he laughed, holding out his hand. "Let's go before it gets dark and I can't find the way out."

"What?" I asked, my voice betraying my worry.

"I'm just kidding." He said in a baby voice, poking out his bottom lip.

He pulled me over to the left on the side with the least terrifying looking jagged rocks and pointed up. "Excuse me?" I said, putting my hands on my hips. "I know you don't expect me to be able to climb up this. Hiking is one thing, sliding down a hill on a kitchen supply is pushing it, but you want me to climb up and die?"

Hunter rolled his eyes, taking my shoulders and turning me back to face the rocky incline. "Don't be so dramatic." He sighed before he leaned in, his hands still on the tops of my shoulders, and whispered close to my ear. "Only three people have ever died trying to make it up this, and they were all drunk so you've already got an advantage."

"WHAT?" I whipped back around to face him but he only cackled laughing and pushed me back forward.

"I'm going to help you." He told me more seriously. "Now put one foot here," He pointed to a grove in a bigger rock. "Then the other foot there and grab that limb."

"I hate you." I pouted as I faced the rock wall.

"You'll get over it."

I narrowed my eyes at the rocks but pictured his face. "Don't count on it."

I wanted to punch him, or go sit by the water and refuse to ever leave, but as the sun got lower it was getting colder, the airs of December finally making their way to good ole Texas. I took a shaky breath and climbed up the first rocks, putting my hands and feet where he directed me. It felt awkward knowing he was watching me, my butt up in the air and pretty much in his face while he climbed up super slowly behind me.

Everything was going good and I could see the top of the rocks coming. I may have gotten a little overzealous in my reach for the next limb I saw jutting out from between the rocks and I grabbed it before Hunter told me to.

"Tayler, not th-." He didn't have time to get his warning out of his mouth before I had pulled on it, leaning my weight back on it only for the limb to come shooting out from between the rocks and my body leaning back out away from safety. I thought for sure I was about to die.

However, not death from falling, but death from embarrassment as I found myself pushed back against the rocks, my hands flailing to grab ahold of the first thing I could find. Once I was steady I looked back down at Hunter. He was shaking his head smiling, one leg hiked up in between two rocks and the other foot on his tippy toe on a rock that jutted out, extending his body higher up the rocks where he was holding me up with one hand firmly pressed against my butt.

"Oh my god." I shook my head and he only laughed harder, pushing a little so I'd go faster.

"Don't worry, I'm not enjoying this at all." He gasped through his laughter.

"Uh-huh, sure." I mumbled and focused my energy on scurrying up the rest of the rocks until I was on my hands and knees on solid ground.

Hunter followed me up and dusted his hands off on his pants while he walked over to the closest tree and leaned back on it while I caught my racing breath.

"You know," He smiled when I looked up at him. "If you wanted me to grab your ass, you didn't have to try to get yourself killed. You only needed to ask."

My face felt hot but I couldn't help but laugh along with him as the tears came out of his eyes from laughing so hard. "You're lucky I don't have anything to throw at you." I told him when I stood up and he tried to gain his composure.

"That's alright, Kit, you probably would've missed anyway." He chuckled. "Now come on, let's go find some more trouble to get into."

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