by Tina Reber
And just like that he frowned.
“Who am I kidding? I can’t go back on an open campus.” He tossed the sketch pad onto the table and moped back to his spot on the couch. I hated this. I hated seeing him so withdrawn. Even our sex life had taken a hit. His passion was gone.
It was time for something drastic. I hurried down the hall, hanging our little DO NOT DISTURB sign on the apartment door so Marie or Mike wouldn’t come in unexpectedly, and took off my clothes in the bedroom.
He at least gave me some attention with a questioning glance when I came back into the living room wearing nothing but my white bikini underwear. I grabbed the remote out of his hand, turned off the television, and straddled him.
“What are you doing?” He breathed out his question with a hint of admonishment, as if me being mostly naked and on his lap needed a reason or clarification.
“I want my Ryan back.”
His lips twisted into a frown, and then his expression rolled into what scarily resembled rejection.
“Talk to me.”
His hands slipped around my hips, tensed, and seemed to push back and up, raising me a smidgen off his crotch. “You had to get naked to talk to me?”
“I figured it was a good way to get your undivided attention. We should be on a beach somewhere having a grand time, making love, having fun, being young, enjoying life. You’ve been so closed down.
You don’t want to talk to me. You barely touch me anymore. It’s scaring me.”
His hands pushed my hips back, a definite sign of his unwillingness to further this conversation. I grasped his forearms, unwilling to let him push me aside.
Desperation clawed at my throat. “Please don’t push me away. Please. I can’t take it anymore.” His despondence was taking its toll on my heart.
He tried to squirm out from underneath me and just like that a new fissure cracked into my patchwork heart. “Ryan, don’t. Oh God, please don’t. You promised me!”
He resigned back into the couch. “What do you want?”
His momentary rejection unnerved me. I’d been down this road once before and I’d be damned if I was going to let history repeat itself. Fucking men giving me false hope and promises that they so easily yanked back when it was convenient. Well fuck that!
“You’re breaking my heart! Don’t you see that? Is that what you want? You want me off of you, pushing me away like that? Is that what you want?” I knew my voice had risen in volume but damn he was pissing me off.
“I just want to chill. That’s it. Is that so hard to understand?”
I glared at him for a moment, shocked at his harsh tone. “Fine. You want to chill, have at it.” I started to climb off his lap but his hands clamped my thighs.
“Where you going?”
“I’m getting off of you and going to live my life. You’re not chilling, you’re rotting away here, letting that shit in your head fester and eat you alive. You don’t want to talk to me, get it out and move forward, then you can sit here and continue to chill on your own. Let me know when you’re done.”
“Stop,” he groaned.
“Why? A second ago you were pushing me off of you.”
He studied me for bit, his eyes scrunched and pained with so much mental poison. “I’m sorry.”
I picked up one of his hands, curling it in my own and pressing it between my exposed breasts, pulling it as close to my heart as it could go. “Don’t be sorry, babe. Talk to me.”
He shook his head, fighting it, not able to find the courage or the words.
“Tell me,” I pleaded softly. He was tight-lipped and scowling. “You said once that a man should own up to his situation. You also said we’d always talk it out. You promised. Talk to me!”
Ryan was so forlorn. “I can’t shut it off. Can’t shake it.”
I placed soft kisses on his fingers, patiently waiting, trying to encourage him to go on.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he said softly but with so much conviction. His eyes drifted downward, landing on my stomach while he pondered. I let him take his time, glad he was at least touching me again.
“You would have been seven months pregnant by now.” His fingers drifted over my flat belly button.
“Oh, honey . . .” I breathed out my warning plea for him not to go there.
“I think about it all the time. I wonder if our daughter would have had our blue eyes or if our son would have taken on some of my traits. What their face might have looked like.”
I wished I could hush his sadness by kissing his skin. “We’ll have beautiful babies . . . when we’re meant to bring them into the world. I promise.”
He tapped the tip of his finger lightly on my tummy, seeming to disagree. “That was our first and I took that from you. My career”—he sneered as if the word was dirty—“took that from us.”
I tipped his chin up, aching from seeing him look so lost. “No. Stop, Ryan. Things happen for a reason.
Things that you have no control over. We would have managed, but we weren’t ready for a baby. We need to be strong together before we bring a child into this world. What happened to me—you can’t take that on your shoulders. You can’t. I won’t let you.”
Ryan disagreed again, stuck in something powerful. “There was so much blood when you lost the pregnancy. I thought you were dying on me.” He bit into his bottom lip while his eyes got watery.
“I’m here.” I nuzzled his hand. “I’m right here, baby.”
He stared at my thigh, tracing an invisible line with his fingertip. “Sometimes I forget how strong you are. Resilient may be a better word. Life keeps throwing you punches and no matter what, you keep getting back up.”
I laced our fingers together. “That’s because I have something worth fighting for. You. A promise of forever. You make me want to be stronger.”
He snorted and squirmed underneath me. “That’s because I’m doing such a bang-up job keeping you safe. What a great job I’ve done.”
I clutched his neck and pressed his shoulders back into the couch. “Stop it. Don’t say that. I have never felt as protected and cared for as I have by you.”
His head swayed, defeated.
“You’re letting them win.”
I combed my hands through his hair, tugging until I had his eyes back on me. I took his mouth with desperate longing, kissing him as if I could break the wicked spell that was pulling him under. “Fight with me,” I breathed on his lips, which seemed to refuse me passion. “Please, baby. I can’t do this without you. I need you. I need you.”
His jaw tensed as the pain he’d been holding in so tightly finally cracked. A soft sob slid up his throat.
“I’m so tired, Taryn,” he croaked, his voice stuttering from trying to keep it in check. But the hurt had nowhere else to go except out. “So tired. All I do is bring us pain.”
A tear slid down his cheek. And then another. I knew it was killing him to show me this much weakness but it all needed to be purged, excised from his system like a soul-sucking demon. Seeing him cry was my undoing. He’d finally succumbed to the pressure and that made me mad.
“No you do not! You are the love of my life and my best friend! No matter what life throws at us, we take the good with the bad, Ryan—the good with the bad. We roll with it because that’s how we roll.”
He pulled me down to his chest, clutching me as if he needed me to get his air back.
I held his head while he buried his face in my neck. “Oh, babe. We’ll get through this. Honey, you know how to fix this. You stopped taking your medicine.”
He frowned, sniffing. “I’m not taking shit, Tar. No pills.”
“Ryan, you’ve tossed your body into confusion. You can’t just suddenly stop taking them.”
“Pills to cope . . . What’s next? Pills to sleep? Pills to keep awake? That’s a sure way to die. You know how much I hate that shit, Tar!”
I held his face in my hands. “Ryan, look at me. I did a lot of research when t
he doctor put me on antidepressants after the accident. My situation was temporary. You’ve suffered from anxiety attacks for a long time, even before all of this. It’s when you stop taking them that your system gets out of whack.”
Resistance to that slipped over his face. “I don’t want to rely on drugs, Tar. I don’t.”
I wiped his cheeks with my thumbs, erasing the physical evidence of his stress. “Doesn’t matter. You need them. You need to regulate the serotonin. It’s not a sign of weakness, Ryan. And it doesn’t make you any less of a man. It’s a body imbalance, that’s all. There’s no shame in that.”
He closed his eyes. “I tried to work through it on my own but I feel like I can’t shake it. It’s like a never-ending loop. Seeing the disappointment on my father’s face when they put me in that squad car; I know it broke his heart. I did that to him. Me.” Ryan rubbed his palm over the center of his breast plate.
“It presses in on me, right here. Like I have an elephant sitting on my chest. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe.”
“I know, but we can change that. You don’t have an addictive bone in your body, Ryan. You need to take one little pill to regulate your body chemistry. That’s all.”
“Okay,” he whispered, conceding. “I’ll start taking them again. I can’t live like this.”
“I’ll make an appointment for you to see my doctor. We’ll get your smile back. I promise.”
It was Monday. We’d been back in Seaport for two weeks when my birth father called again. Ryan, Mike, Marie, and I were at Seaport’s Sandy Cove Beach enjoying the hot weather and gorgeous day. Ryan and Mike were tossing a football back and forth while from the comforts of our beach chairs Marie and I enjoyed the incredible sights of them shirtless and tan.
It was pure elation seeing Ryan smiling and having a great time. It was like he’d been totally rejuvenated. He was on new medication for hypothyroidism, and the differences were almost night and day.
I waved at Ryan to come over.
He opened the cooler lid, grabbed two bottles of ice-cold water, tossed one at Mike, and used the cooler as a seat. “What’s up?”
“I just talked to Joe.”
Ryan pushed his sunglasses up on his head, looking at me quizzically. “And?”
“He’d like us to come out to Lake Tahoe.”
He made that audible exhale noise, seeming none too pleased with that idea. “I don’t know.”
Okay, so he wasn’t even in the same ballpark with my enthusiasm. We had a silent standoff until Ryan said, “I’ve got to be honest. I’m not seeing the benefit here. The man hasn’t been in your life at all and I’m inclined to keep it that way.”
I was momentarily distracted watching Mike, who was holding his hand out for Marie. I felt my heart flutter just from the look he wore on his face. He tugged her up from her chair and, without saying a word, walked off with her as if she were a prize, holding her hand as he did. I couldn’t help but fall in love watching them enjoying each other, walking in the surf, bumping into each other, Marie gripping on to his muscular arm with both hands. Her beaming up at him and him beaming right back. It was like watching the best part of a love story.
“They make a great couple.”
Ryan glanced over his shoulder and then back to me. “They have what we have.” He smirked.
I smiled. “I know.”
He tossed his chin. “It’s a much better fit for both of them.”
I was so damn happy seeing their love blossoming, it was hard to contain it. “I agree.”
Ryan’s smile fell. “Back to this Joe business. Taryn, I want to trim all the variables off. Things are finally getting back on track for us and I’m not looking to add any crazy onto the pile. You want to meet him, we’ll set it up, but not without me being there. First sign of potential bullshit, I’m pulling you out and we’re on a plane.”
“I want to meet him.”
Ryan chewed on his bottom lip. “Did he come clean with his wife?”
“Yes. He said she was understanding about it and she and the girls want to meet me.”
Ryan nodded before putting me back under his scrutinizing gaze. “This really a road you want to go down?”
I knew he was just trying to shield me from further hurt. “Yes. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder. I need to put that part of me to rest, Ryan.”
He reluctantly agreed. “Okay, if that’s what you need, I’ll get our flights booked.”
I grinned at him. He didn’t need to utter the “I love you” words for me to know how much he did.
“Thank you, babe.”
He dropped his shades back down. “Pete going to be all right managing the bar while we’re gone?”
I reviewed my mental calendar. We had the Teen Choice Awards coming up, and then Ryan had to do some fittings in L.A. for the third Seaside film.
I nodded, quite confident that I’d made the right decision. He’d lost all of the bookings he had for the summer, having to sub out the work to another guy, so he was more than thankful for the job. “He’ll be just fine. He’s been helping me for a long time, so he knows what needs to be done.”
“Tammy seems happier, too.”
I recalled the talk she and I had the other day, ironing out some of our issues. She and Marie were still walking wide circles around each other to avoid confrontations, but for the most part, Marie was over it.
Having Mike tell her to get her ass in his bed every night, even though his bed was my guest bed, was helping to soften Tammy’s betrayal. “We’re going to try serving a limited menu in the pub. See how that works out before we go further. Maybe she’ll name a sandwich after you.”
Ryan rolled his eyes.
I glanced at my cell to see the time. “We’ve got to get going. We meet the builder in two hours.”
Ryan stood, straightened his dog tag necklace—the one with my name written on it so he could “keep me close to his heart at all times”—and tried to see where Mike and Marie had gotten to. “You okay with the addition we talked about?”
I watched Mike whirl Marie around in the surf, and wished Gary could see how much happier she was.
His callousness deserved a bit of retribution. “Is Mike?”
“My head of security needs a command center and I’m thinking I’d sleep better at night knowing your new guardian was conveniently located.”
As much as I loved that idea, he was presuming a lot. “She just took a course, Ryan. Who knows where that will take her.”
His wry grin told me he had info he wasn’t sharing.
“What do you know that I don’t?” I asked, grinning right back at him.
Ryan casually shrugged. “Let’s just say whatever it is we’ve got planned, you two ladies can’t do shit about it.” He held out his hand. “Come on. If you want to meet Joe, we’ve got to book a side trip to Lake Tahoe.”
Chapter 21
Unguarded
“Stop fidgeting. You look official,” I teased Marie while she tugged at her coat sleeves. Mike made her wear a plain black suit jacket and pants with a cream-colored blouse and sensible, low-heeled shoes for her first red carpet assignment in L.A. Even though she was nervous as hell she at least looked the part.
Mike had been working with her since she’d returned from the intensive training program, going over everything from limousine procedures to how to handle a physical altercation. He also schooled her on the different code words she’d need to use to communicate with him. It was actually quite interesting to learn all of the things Mike did behind the scenes to protect people.
He’d become such an integral part of our daily lives that sometimes it was hard to remember that he was “working” when he was with us. Half the time it felt as though he was hanging around because he and Ryan were best friends.
“I still think I could have been all kick-ass in a hot little dress,” Marie groaned. “You’re all gorgeous and I look like an uptight schoolteacher.”
“Remember the formation w
e practiced,” Mike muttered from the front seat of our chauffeured car, his subtle way of reminding her she was “working” and not here to be rocking hot with me. I knew he’d dressed her to blend in, not to stand out. Ryan and I had done quite a few “run-through” scenarios with them in my living room to the point where Mike had even shown us some self-defense techniques—should we ever need to protect ourselves. I could understand his reasoning that wearing a skirt would not be the smartest idea.
“You going to kneel on someone’s head?” I muttered to her, teasingly. Mike had shown her how to subdue someone to keep them immobile while we were being removed from a “threat.” Executed properly, an assailant might get a good crotch view or a “Vagina Crunch” as Marie and I called it.
Marie just rolled her eyes at me. “I’ve fired seven different guns over the last few weeks and I’ve got a pretty good aim. Watch it.”
I sneered back. “Don’t be overwhelmed by the camera flashes. Try to keep from looking at them or else you’ll be seeing spots the rest of the night. It’s almost like you’re temporarily blinded.”
We waited in a long line of cars snaking along the road that led to where all the celebrities were arriving at the massive Gibson Amphitheatre for the Nick Teen Choice Awards. It was Marie’s first assignment as my guard, working the detail under her new boss, Mike Murphy.
I had been wondering how the boss/boyfriend relationship would work, but so far things were going fairly smoothly. She was more than willing to take his orders, which I think just really turned him on. He’d bark a command and she’d immediately submit to his orders. Then he’d stand taller with that hint of secret smile lifting one corner of his mouth. He tried to be all badass but his little giveaway was just enough to be his downfall because Marie would play it for all it was worth.
Regardless of what Mike thought, Marie really had the upper hand in this relationship.
I saw her touch the hidden microphone in her ear. “Yes, okay. We’re green.”
Ryan leaned into me. “It’s like Spy vs. Spy, you know?”
