by Lee Heaven
Jacob never mentioned what happened between Liam and me, but I knew he heard. We weren’t exactly quiet and when I walked into the kitchen that morning he raised an eyebrow at me then went back to fixing the sink.
Tobias walked in a minute later rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had shed his shirt, it did have my makeup smeared all over it from sleeping on him. I started piling food on plates and bringing them to the table. I looked at the three guys sitting around the table and started to giggle, the three of them looking at me weird.
I looked at Liam as I held his plate in my hand, “You want to eat, you lose the shirt.”
“Are you serious?” He said as his mouth dropped open.
I nodded my head at him. “You all have to match,” I said as I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Either that or you convince these two to put one on.”
“No way man, I’m all sweaty, not till I shower,” Jacob deadpanned as he shoved a piece of bacon in his mouth.
Tobias just shook his head no. Liam sighed loudly and pulled his shirt off.
I placed Liam’s plate in front of him, “Ahh, now that’s better. What could be better than watching three half naked gorgeous men eating and loving the food I made,” I sighed as I made myself a plate.
“What are your plans today, sweetheart?” Tobias’s asked as I sat down next to him.
“First, you and I need to have a talk. Then I have to run by my parent’s house. Jannie called this morning and said the water heater went out.”
Jacob started laughing, “Maggie you can’t even figure out how to put the drain plug in the tub to take a bath, how the hell are you going to fix a water heater.”
I threw a piece of bacon at him, “Shut up your not funny.” Jacob’s bathroom had an old bear claw tub and the plug had to be put in on an angle to create a seal and I couldn’t figure out how to do it the first time I wanted to take a bath. Jacob spent an hour laughing at me.
“Where are your keys? I’ll go over and look after I’m done eating and taking a shower.”
I smiled at him. Jacob had become a good friend over the past couple of weeks. “They’re in my purse. Thank you.”
We all went back to eating breakfast and the boys cleared the plates of all food. Jacob took off to take a shower and head over to my parents’ house while Tobias and I did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.
Liam had put his shirt back on and grabbed one for Tobias to put on. After Jacob left Tobias and I had settled on the couch, Liam stood in the doorway to the hallway.
I grabbed Tobias’s hand and squeezed tightly. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you that day. It would have cleared things up so much faster.”
“It’s fine sweetheart. As long as you believe that it’s an old picture. As long as you know the truth now, we can get past this.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, “I do believe it. However, you now need to know something,” I hesitated and my eyes filled with tears.
“Tell me Schatz. Whatever it is we’ll figure it out together,” he said as he brushed his fingers down my cheeks wiping the tears away.
“I…” my lip trembled as I went to speak, “I…I…”
Tobias took my hand and wrapped his fingers around mine. Oh god, how was I going to tell him what I did? This is going to kill him. Hell, it was killing me and I knew it was killing Liam.
But this was my bed. I made the mess and now I have to deal with whatever the consequences were going to be. If that meant losing Tobias, then so be it. If that meant losing Liam, then it’s a road I’ll have to take.
Liam didn’t move or say anything. He just stood there leaning against the wall. I knew he wanted me to tell. It had to come from me not Liam. I understood that. But at this moment I wanted to take the easy way out and have Liam do it while I hid under the covers of the bed.
My mind started to wonder and I was spacing out, so when I felt Tobias’s fingers run down my face I didn’t even think about what I was saying and I just blurted it out, “Liam and I slept together.”
Tobias went stiff and his fingers tightened around mine so hard it hurt and tears sprang to my eyes. When I grabbed his wrist he let go of my hand but didn’t bother to move. He was staring straight at Liam with a look that could only lead to a beat down.
His hands clenched and unclenched into tight fist, he was squeezing them so tight that his knuckles were turning white.
When he finally spoke his voice was gravelly and even though his eyes never moved from Liam, I knew his words were directed at me, “Explain.”
So I explained. I told him about everything, how I showed up here and drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels in fifteen minutes, how Sarah sent Liam after me even though I told him to stay away, how I had a breakdown at four in the morning and how when Liam carried me upstairs after I passed out outside, I asked him to just hold me, how Liam hesitated and only did after I pulled him onto the bed.
I explained that we fell asleep and nothing had happened that night, but during the night things shifted while we were sleeping and we just woke up tangled around each other and in our morning post sleep haze slept together. Most importantly that it happened only that once and we both had decided to tell Tobias.
“We never even kissed,” I heard myself saying at the end of the explanation. And it’s true, besides when Liam licked my neck we never kissed.
Tobias picked my hand up and kissed my knuckles, my palm, my wrist and up my arm finally stopping on my lips, hovering above them, so close yet so far. “I’m sorry,” I whisper against his lips. “I’m sorry, I love you.”
He finally kissed me. A kiss that stole everything from me, a kiss that tells me that soon everything will be ok. A kiss that tells me he still loves me and he’s not letting me go. But all too soon he was pulling away. He placed on last kiss on my jaw and whispered “I love you so much Maggie,” then he stood.
I watched as he took a few steps toward Liam. He stood nose to nose with Liam. Liam knew whatever Tobias was going to dish out he had to take. For long minutes nothing happened, they just stared at each other, almost like a silent conversation was going on. Then Liam nodded.
Before I could even register what was going on, Tobias drew his arm back and flung it straight at Liam connecting with his nose. Liam fell to the ground with a thump covering his nose trying not to bleed all over Jacob’s floor.
“Tobias!” I screamed and jumped up from the couch.
“Maggie, its fine. It’s the least I deserve,” Liam said.
Tobias stepped back and grabbed my hand. He walked over towards the front door and pulled me along with him. He grabbed the keys to Liam’s Infiniti G60 off the table by the door and walked outside while still pulling me with him.
He stopped in front of the car and pulled me into his body. He buried his face in my neck and wrapped his arms around my waist. I didn’t even hesitate and wrapped my arms around his neck, holding on to him as tight as I could.
“I have to go to the stadium,” he finally said. I shook my head. “You will be back at the apartment tonight right.” I shook my head again. “Are you going to say anything?” he chuckled against my neck.
“I’m sorry Tobias. I love you so much.”
“Water under the bridge, Maggie, water under the bridge. We start new today. We trust each other again from this day forward. You come to me and talk before running away and I’ll come to you. We have to talk, not run from each other.”
“I know.”
He kissed me deep and hard again, showing me that he loves me, that what happened these last two weeks is behind us and we start new again now. Now. From this moment on it’s a fresh start.
“Go take care of your parent’s house and I’ll see you after the game.”
“Make sure you kick ass tonight. Your ERA is horrible this year,” I said with a smile on my face.
“You know my ERA?” he asked surprisingly.
“I’ve been following the whole team. Your ERA is lacking because you can’t concen
trate. I know it’s my fault, but now I expect you to concentrate. I also know Decker’s ERA is down. Sarah’s pregnancy is weighing on him heavily. Let him know I will be back at the apartment in a couple hours.”
He nodded at me. Wrapping his body around mine again we stood there holding each other. Waiting for time to just pass. I can feel the world correct itself in from all the mistakes of the past two weeks.
I can feel all the trouble melting away. Being in Tobias’s arms means being home. I knew at this moment that no matter what stood in the way in the future as long as I had Tobias, as long as we stood by each other everything would be fine.
Chapter 15
Two hours later Liam and I were putting the last of our stuff in the back of the Audi. After closing the trunk on the last bag we started walking down the street, my parent’s house was only two blocks away.
I had tried calling Jacob a few times but he wasn’t answering his phone. Liam said maybe he was just too busy trying to fix whatever was wrong with it to answer. I guess I could understand that, but it had been over three hours since he left and I would have thought that he would have called to let me know what was wrong at least.
As we got closer to my parents house I could feel the chills going up my spine. It was right across from Jon’s house. I’m hoping that Jon was still thinking I was in the city and just not showing my face because of the scandal with Tobias and Camilla.
I had gone out freely to walk around the neighborhood the past couple of weeks and could tell Jon hadn’t figure out I was at Jacob’s, that creepy feeling I got whenever he was around wasn’t there.
“It doesn’t look like he’s been home for a while,” I heard Liam say and noticed he was half pointing towards Jon’s house.
The grass was overgrown, gardens not weeded, piles of newspapers at the edge of the driveway and no lights on inside the house. Most importantly there were no cars in the driveway. I knew it should be a good sign, I knew that creepy feeling should be disappearing, but it wasn’t. It was still there reaching up my spine higher and higher.
As we walked up the driveway, I noticed the door had been propped open by one of the two tool boxes Jacob had left with. I didn’t think anything about it. He was expecting us and did have my keys and probably didn’t realize there was a spare hidden in one of those fake rocks in the front garden.
I stopped to straighten a picture that was hanging on the wall next to the basement door. Liam started laughing, “This isn’t even your house and you have to fix a crooked picture.”
I shoved at his shoulder as we started walking down the basement stairs.”Leave me alone and stop picking on me. Don’t make me have Tobias hit you again,” I laughed back.
As Liam’s foot hit the floor his head quickly whipped to the left and before he could say a word the butt of a rifle smacked into the side of his face with a sickening thud. I screamed and when I tried to scramble backwards up the stairs I fell onto my ass.
What the fuck was going on? Who the fuck just hit Liam? Oh god was it Jacob? Did Jacob really mean it when he said he would let me go? Did he mean it when he said he was going to move on with Jane? I thought they had seemed happy these past couple of weeks. Was it all an act?
Before I was even done screaming I was looking down the barrel of the riffle that just smashed into Liam’s head. I was still screaming when I looked up the barrel and right into the eyes of Jon.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said as he grabbed my arm.
As he drug me across the basement I fought every step of the way. I tried to get out of his grasp but his fingers dug into my skin.
“Let me go,” I screamed as I dug my nails into his skin.
He slammed me into the wall hard and it knocked the breath out of me for a minute. My eyes welled with tears and as I blinked through the blurriness I looked right into the angry evil eyes of Jon.
He was pressed against me. The hand that was once holding my arm was now squeezing my neck. The gun was pointed at Liam’s slumped body still lying at the bottom of the stairs. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to just punch Jon. But the weight of him on my body and the hand squeezing my neck was making it hard to do anything.
“Shut the fuck up and sit or I’ll put a fucking bullet in him,” his voice was so angry.
The venom that was cursing through his veins and coming out of his voice and eyes scared me to death. I was so scared of what he was going to do so I listened and slid down the wall into a sitting position. I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.
“You fucking move and I won’t think twice about shooting one of you,” he seethed through clenched teeth.
It was when he moved away and towards Liam’s body that I noticed on the wall across from me was Jacob with his arms tied to a pipe above his head. He cocked his head to the left and my eyes swung just a little further down the wall.
Leaning against the washing machine was a bloody Tristan Riggins. Holy fuck! I had my suspicion that Tristan was the guy renting my house but why did he use a different name on the lease? Where was his truck now? It was way too big to fit in the garage and I hadn’t noticed it on the streets.
Jon had really worked him over. His nose had obviously been broken, both his eyes were swollen and bruised, he had cuts on his cheeks and forehead. I could see the tiny winces in his face every time he took a breath and could only suspect that he had a few broken ribs.
Jon had completely lost it. What the fuck was going on with him? As I swung my head back towards the steps I noticed that he had dragged Liam over to the wall just down from Jacob and was tying him to another pipe.
I thought about running. He didn’t have the gun in his hand at the moment. It was close to him but I think I could get up the stairs before he got a shot off. Do I want to risk it? If I was able to escape what would happen to the boys? Not just Jacob and Liam but Tristan to. He was now mixed up in all this for no reason. He was just the unlucky one who rented my house and unknowingly moved in across the street from my stalker.
Oh god this was my entire fault. I never should have allowed Jon to get at me like he did after I found out he was married. I should have fought harder. I should have done something different. I shouldn’t have been so weak.
Jon finally turned and picked up his gun. He walked over to Jacob and shoved it into Jacob’s temple, “Is this where you’ve been for the past two weeks? Hiding at this little shit’s house?”
“Jon, please take the gun off him,” I whispered. “He did nothing wrong. He was just helping me.”
“I released that picture so you would turn to me. I wanted you to come to me when you felt betrayed. You love me so why wouldn’t you come to me?”
Fuck, it was Jon who released that picture! Did he really think that I would come running to him? Was he that delusional? Wait did he just say that I love him? I don’t love him. Why would he think that? Everything that I’ve done over the past year has proved that I don’t love him. How many restraining orders will it take to prove I don’t want him? How many times will I have to escape him for him to understand I don’t love him?
Tristan snorted from his corner, “Dude, she doesn’t fucking love you.”
As Jon spun towards him he pulled a pistol out of the waist band of his jeans and fired two shots at Tristan. The first one landed in the wall right next to his head and the second lodged in his shoulder.
I was screaming and scrambling across the floor, grabbing a towel from a laundry basket sitting in front of the washing machine. I was pressing it against the bullet wound and crying “What the fuck Jon!”
“I told you to shut your fucking mouth asshole,” he seethed at Tristan. “Don’t fucking touch him, let him fucking bleed to death,” he said to me as he tried to pull me away.
I pushed his arm off of me, “Have you lost your fucking mind. You just shot him for no reason. He’s fucking bleeding. And you better hope no one heard that and called the cops. Is that what you want, the fucking cops walking in
to this fucking mess, there’d be no way you’d walk away from this.”
He backed up and sat on the bottom of the steps pressing his hands into his temples, the gun still held tightly in his grip. He was saying something to himself under his breath and I couldn’t hear what it was.
I pressed the towel into Tristan’s shoulder and he winced. “I’m sorry,” I said as I gave him a small smile.
“All good doll face. I’ve had worse,” he said back through gritted teeth trying to assure me he was ok. “You never called,” he said with a small chuckle.
“You remember,” I whispered back. He nodded yes. “I’m sorry, I have a boyfriend, but trust me if I didn’t I would have called.”
“All good,” he smiled at me. “I’ve seen you on the news with him. Knew you had a stalker to from the news reports. Had I known it was right across the street, might have made me think twice about opening my door this morning.”
“He’s persistent, there’s nothing you could have done.” I tied the towel around his arm the tightest I could get it and turned to Jon, “Give me the fucking guns and we can walk out of here like nothing happened.”
He looked at me, his eyes not holding such and evil glint as they were before, now they just looked sad.
I crawled across the floor stopping in front of Jacob to make sure he was ok. When I moved on to Liam, Jon’s eyes followed me. As I wiped the blood away with my shirt, I could feel Liam start to move around. The wound wasn’t deep but I’m sure he’ll have a nasty headache when he wakes up, possibly even a concussion.
“Why Jon?” I asked as I sat in between Liam and Jacob.
He stared at me for the longest time. Not answering my question, just staring at me like I would all the sudden realize what was going through his head.
I wondered if I got up and took the gun from him would he let me. I wondered how much I could push his buttons before he would turn on me. Before he would hurt one of the boys more than he already had. Tristan was obviously worked over good before any of us even showed up, Jacob looked like Jon didn’t even touch him, I wonder how quickly he gave up and Liam was obviously suffering from a head injury.
