The Twenty Year Triangle

Chapter Two

Hunter has the living room cleared out when I get back downstairs freshly showered with damp hair dripping down my blouse. I toweled it as dry as I could get it, but I swear my hair is a damn sponge. 

I glance around one more time, making sure I didn't forget anything, I then toss the keys on the island and hurry outside. I find Hunter standing in the driveway, facing the large rose garden that decorates the front of our house. I step up alongside him, my eyes drifting off as I gaze at the reds, pinks, and purples.

"They're beautiful, Darlin." Hunter comments.

"Thanks, but I hate them."

"Get out of here." He glances at me with a bewildered expression. "The girl that goes running through the orchard barefoot, hugging every tree, does not hate her pretty rose garden."

"I don't hug trees," I mutter, to which he arches an eyebrow.

"Anymore," I add.

This was something silly my mama and I started when I was a little girl; at the start of the season, we were walking the orchard, and my dad told us how plants could feel the energy we put out. He then said, so always give the trees your love, Kinsey; that's how we get a good harvest. I took it literally and started hugging them, one by one. Soon enough, Mama joined in while Dad had a good hearty laugh.  It became a thing after that, and I kept doing it even as a teen.

They deserve the love, though; those apples are the best thing on the planet, and I'm not just saying that cause their ours. 

"Maybe hate is a strong word, but-" I look at them with disdain.

"But what?"

"I didn't want the roses. To be honest, I didn't want any of this." I motion to the large house I'd just left.

"Never seemed like Kinsey Abbot to be living in some hoity-toity gated community," Hunter agrees.

Kinsey Abbot... so weird to go from your new name back to your old. I was Kinsey Rossi just a week ago. Twenty minutes at the courthouse, one form and twenty-three dollars was all it took to erase my husband's last name. It was... is just, weird.

"It was a compromise; the other top execs at Julian's work live here, and his boss lives here. His whole thing was, you got to look like you have money to make the money."

Hunter scoffs and rolls his eyes.

"I know, but his dream was to rise to the top of the sales team and make a ton of money. My dream was to get a small nest egg saved up and take over my parent's farm someday, preferably someday sooner than later, so when the time came to raise a family, we could do it in Sweet Haven."

"Those dreams don't align that well," Hunter says softly, an empathic look in his eyes.

"Damn right, they don't," I agree. "But we were young and newly married and had all the hope in the world. Julian had us on a ten-year plan. Said we'd have enough saved and double the value in the house by then, and we'd move to Sweet Haven and start a family. He could work remote and all would be great, seemed more than fair. We do what he wants for ten years, then what I want forever."

If only we weren't so naive, or if only I wasn't...

"I tried to be excited about everything when we came to look," I continue. "But I was so stressed; every little feature was extra money. Oh, you like those built-ins' great, just a few grand more. The island that'll be an extra twenty... she didn't stop. She was more of a succubus than a relator."

"God, I hate that shit; just build the house your client wants and charge them fairly for it," Hunter mutters irritably.

"When we got to the garden, I put my foot down on the rose upgrade. I wanted easy-to-maintain and cheap landscaping. I told Julian I wasn't going to be working full-time and dealing with fussy roses every night. He agreed or, he said he did."