The One You Fight For

by Roni Loren

  Taryn had been crying, too, and she smiled through shiny eyes at him, wiping at his cheeks and then kissing him gently. “Just be you. I happen to really like that guy. Even with his cheesy inspirational quotes.”

  He smiled, some of his brain coming back online. She was giving him an out, a way to gracefully step away from the sobbing mess he’d just become. He probably should joke back, but the truth slipped out instead. He pulled her against him and sat his chin on her head. “I adore you.”

  She melted in his hold. “Shaw?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “After dinner, can we run by the guitar store?” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

  He leaned back and looked down at her. “The guitar store?”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “Yeah. It’s time I try to write that song. Just for me.” She wet her lips. “I think it’s time we both take back what’s been stolen.”

  He stared down at her, so many scary feelings running through him that he was sweating. But for the first time in his adult life, he let himself feel everything fully and didn’t feel guilty about it. “I agree. Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  Taryn’s phone buzzed in her pocket as she scanned the acoustic guitar selection at the local music store. She pulled the phone from her back pocket and frowned when she saw the message appear. Her parents inviting her to dinner.

  She hadn’t stopped by their house since starting the preparations for the fund-raiser. Her life had gotten too busy. No, that wasn’t the only reason. She’d also been spending almost every night at Shaw’s place in the city. Driving to Long Acre just to grab dinner with her parents was too much of a hassle. A thread of guilt tried to wind its way through her, but she tamped it down. She was an adult who had a life. She loved seeing her parents, but they had to accept that she wouldn’t always be visiting weekly and texting them each night. Right?

  “Everything all right?” Shaw asked from his spot in front of the music books.

  “Yeah, it’s just my mom inviting me to dinner. She said she misses me and is worried I’ve been so quiet.”

  Shaw set down the sheet music he’d been looking at and turned to her. “Are you going to go?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He frowned. “Baby, if you want to go, you should go. Don’t worry about me.”

  “That’s the crappy thing,” she admitted. “I don’t want to go. I love them, but I feel like every conversation revolves around my research and program. I haven’t told them yet that I went on leave from my job. I’m not in the mood to go into it and answer all their questions. And I don’t want to explain where I’ve been or who I’ve been spending time with.”

  “Right,” Shaw said softly. “That would get complicated.”

  She sighed. “It’s just been kind of nice breaking away a little, living my own life. Which I know sounds ridiculous for someone my age to say but…”

  “It doesn’t sound ridiculous. They’ve put a lot of pressure on you to be that involved. You have the right to some breathing room. I know you worry about them, but they’re grown-ups, too.”

  Her phone dinged again.

  Mom: I had a bad nightmare last night. I dreamt someone was trying to kidnap you. Are you being careful on campus at night? I know you’ve been working late.

  Taryn groaned, guilt edging back in. “I should probably go.”

  Shaw stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders, a dimpled smile on his face. “I thought we were both working on not giving in to ‘shoulds.’ Tonight, you wanted to buy a guitar, eat some Indian food, and then have ridiculously amazing sex with yours truly. If that’s the plan you want, you should stick with it. Your parents are fine. If you’re not up to it, they can survive without seeing you for dinner.”

  She stared at him, his charm hard to resist. She knew he’d have no problem with her going to her parents’ house if that was what she wanted to do, but he knew she didn’t. She shook her head and laughed. “You’re a bad influence.”

  “That’s the best kind.”

  She stepped back and texted her mom.

  I’m sorry. Working late tonight. Yes, I’m being safe. I’ll stop by soon. Love you.

  She looked up and smiled. “Done.”

  “Good. Now let’s get you something to play with, rock star.”

  “I thought I was playing with you,” she teased.

  He grinned and pecked her on the lips. “Later. That is most definitely on the agenda.”

  He grabbed her hand and led her to the other wall with the fancier guitars. She tried too many to count, playing songs and laughing with Shaw when she forgot the notes.

  They’d had a long, emotional day, but when she fell into bed with him that night, she wasn’t thinking of his confession or that she had to write a song. She wasn’t thinking about all the work still to be done or if her parents were angry at her for not coming over. All she could think was that finally, finally, she felt…happy.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  Shaw checked the time as he maneuvered his vacuum into his bedroom to get the place cleaned up. Taryn had said she was going to be working until five and then planned to head over. He’d seen her at work this week, but she hadn’t been over to his place in a few days because she was wrapping up the final details of the big event with her friends. But tonight they were going to celebrate, so he wanted the place to look nice. After weeks of hectic planning, Taryn had managed to get fifteen area high schools to sign up for the fund-raiser. Each school was offering two athletes—one girl and one boy—to represent their school. She’d also worked in a best friends/pairs event.

  Shaw couldn’t believe all that Taryn and her friends had accomplished in such a short time, but he knew it was mainly because Taryn had worked her ass off. She’d been at the gym every day. She’d made calls and had given her pitch hundreds of times. The woman was something to behold when she was doing her thing.

  He had tried to help with what he could behind the scenes, but this was her show. Instead of getting in her way, he’d made sure she remembered to eat, take breaks, get her workouts in, and come over to his place for some relaxation in between. She’d spent more nights at his place than her own. Partly because it was easier than having her make the hour commute home every night, but really, he flat-out just loved having her there.

  Even when they were tired and just shared a meal and watched something on TV together, it felt like breathing rare air. He’d been flying solo for so long that this was downright foreign. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so…at ease. Even before everything had happened with Joseph, his life had always been at full speed. Endless training and practice. Traveling to competitions. Filtering everything through the frame of how it would affect his performance. What he ate. How he slept. Even whether or not he had sex if he was close to a competition. Then after the shooting, all of that had been swept away, leaving behind just chaos and grief—both in his world and in his head. He’d never felt truly calm or comfortable in any one place or time since.

  But with Taryn around, the jagged edges inside him were smoothing out. She made him laugh. She didn’t let him take himself too seriously. And she kept him on his toes. Then, at night when they crawled into bed, he lost himself completely to the sweet oblivion of her touch, her words, her body. She’d become a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

  It was dangerous territory to tread in.

  He tried not to think about it, tried to just be in the moment and enjoy it. He’d learned long ago how fleeting good moments were. Reality had a bad way of crashing a perfectly good party. They were on a fantastic ride, but that train ultimately had nowhere to go but dead ends. He was leaving before the end of the year. And even if he changed that plan and figured out a way to stay, he’d still be living under a false name. He’d still be who he was.

 
Taryn deserved more than that. She couldn’t introduce him to her family. She couldn’t tell her friends who he was. He would blow up her life and risk her relationships. There was no path forward for them. Plus, if word got out they were together, the media would pounce on it and milk it for every sensational ounce.

  His stomach turned.

  He was letting this go too far, getting too selfish. No matter how good it felt to have Taryn in his life, the risk was always there, pressing at the back of his mind like a bad headache. He could ruin the calm, successful life she’d worked so hard for. Or, at the very least, make a living hell out of it again. He could not—would not—do that to her.

  They needed to talk. Soon. He needed to tell her about his plan and when he’d be leaving. Go forth with eyes wide open. Because if this kept on like it was, he could do something really terrible. He could forget this had an end and fall in love with her.

  Maybe he already had.

  Shoving the thought away, he flipped on the vacuum and pushed it forward with more force than necessary. He couldn’t go there.

  He stepped around the bed, putting vacuum lines in the carpet in a methodical way. The sound and the motion soothed his frayed nerves. He started to make a list in his head to get his mind on anything else. He wanted to clean a few more things and then jump in the shower since he hadn’t rinsed off after work today. He and Taryn could go out, or they could pick up some steaks and borrow Rivers’s grill.

  A loud crackling sound broke Shaw from his train of thought. The vacuum was trying to suck up something too big. He switched off the power and squatted down. He was famous for sucking up random socks that had fallen under the bed. But when he flipped the machine over and looked, he saw the culprit immediately and smirked. A condom wrapper.

  Not a surprise. He should probably buy stock in the company that made them, based on how quickly he and Taryn went through them. But this wrapper was a different color from the brand they’d recently been using. He frowned and pulled it out of the vacuum’s roller. Half of it was gone, but he could still read the label.

  It took him a second to realize it was from the box they’d found that first night when Taryn had dug through his drawer. He smiled at the memory of her teasing him about his lube and then her true cheer of victory when she’d found the condoms. He loved that about her, her complete lack of awkwardness or shyness about sex. She was a straight talker. Maybe it was the psychologist in her, but she had no qualms about telling him what she liked and wanted and what she didn’t. Shaw flipped the wrapper over, trying to remember when he’d even bought that box, but then his eyes caught on the small stamped writing at the bottom of the wrapper.

  Exp. November—

  Shaw blinked, trying to adjust his vision. Surely, that said November 2019. But when he looked again, his stomach dipped.

  2016.

  Sixteen. Not nineteen. It wasn’t just expired, it was almost two and a half years past that date.

  2016. 2016. Years. Past.

  Oh shit.

  His mind rushed back to that first night. Taryn leaning over and smiling at him. She had told him the condoms were good. They’d used the rest of the box over the next few weeks. She was always cautious about protection with him. But…hell. The vision was clear in his head now, her smiling. She hadn’t had her glasses on. She’d misread it. Then they’d just assumed the condoms were okay every other time they’d plucked one from the economy-size box.

  Shaw sat down on the edge of the bed, his heartbeat thumping behind his eyeballs and his mouth dry. Expired. Okay. He didn’t need to panic. There were no diseases to worry about. He’d been tested since Deidra. And he didn’t recall any problems with the condoms. None had fallen apart. But had he looked closely every time? Could any have had a tear?

  He felt sick.

  Flashbacks to Deidra raced through his head. The unexpected pregnancy. The panic. Then the acceptance that he was going to be a father. Then the utter, annihilating grief when he found out the baby was gone.

  He could not get anyone pregnant.

  He definitely could not get Taryn pregnant.

  Suddenly, the specter of their shared past, always looming in the background, became a full-out monster, snapping its jaws and threatening to consume him in one big chomp. He put his head in his hands and tried to get ahold of his runaway thoughts. He didn’t need to freak out yet. The condoms had probably worked. He and Taryn hadn’t had issues with them. Expiration didn’t necessarily mean completely ineffective.

  Everything was probably fine.

  Please, God, let everything be fine.

  * * *

  Taryn headed up to Shaw’s apartment and stretched her neck as she climbed the stairs. After so many hours sitting at that desk and making phone calls, she felt as if her spine had fused to her shoulder blades. She’d almost been tempted to work out for a few minutes after to loosen things up. Almost. The gym had become a mental respite for her, but she was still a little sore from a full obstacle workout two nights ago.

  She’d crossed the rolling cylinder with no help from the trapeze during the last session without falling or peeing herself with nerves. A win by all accounts. Her body was feeling stronger and more solid with each passing week. If she had to do the costume race again, she would make it to the end without gasping for breath. That felt like a victory.

  She needed one badly because the songwriting attempts had been like falling into the foam pit over and over again. She’d spent hours plucking out notes on her guitar and trying to find something that inspired her. Nothing had come together. The vein of creativity she used to tap when she was a kid wasn’t there. Or maybe it had never really been there. Her songs in high school had been performed for an audience of one—Nia. And it wasn’t like her sister was going to tell her that her songs sucked.

  Maybe she couldn’t write. End of story.

  She’d tell the group and Shaw soon. Right now, she just wanted to forget it all. The fund-raiser was ready to go. She’d celebrate that milestone tonight and not think about the rest. She wanted a nice, relaxing evening with Shaw.

  That feeling of happy anticipation filled her as she reached Shaw’s apartment and knocked. He opened the door, and an automatic smile curved her lips. “Hey there, handsome.”

  “Hey.” Shaw’s hair was damp from a shower, which was normal after a workday, but the drawn expression on his face was new.

  Her smile faltered as he opened the door wider and let her walk inside. She waited until he closed it before speaking. “Is everything okay?”

  He turned around and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He didn’t look her in the eye. “Probably.”

  Her brows lifted. “Probably?” Her mind jumped to all the worst-case scenarios. Someone had found out who he was. The press knew. He was leaving. Click-click-click like dominos falling in her head, but she forced herself to slow down. “What’s going on?”

  Finally, he looked at her, lines creasing his forehead. He let out a breath. “I was going to wait until after dinner to talk, but I’m not sure I can.”

  “Talk?” A new bee of anxiety buzzed around her. “About what?”

  A talk didn’t sound like news had leaked out. It sounded more personal. Maybe this was going to be it—the talk she’d been expecting. The talk where he realized they’d moved too fast and that things had gotten too intense. She didn’t know why she was anticipating such a talk, but somehow she’d known from the beginning it would come at some point. They were a temporary thing for each other. A respite with a time limit.

  She’d prepared herself for that, but still she found herself bracing for his answer.

  Shaw reached out and took her hand, leading her to the couch. They both sat, facing each other. “Taryn, everything is probably fine, and I don’t want to freak you out, but I also can’t not tell you this.”

  She frowned. “What are
you talking about?”

  Shaw licked his lips, looking more nervous than she’d ever seen him, and pulled something from his pocket. At first, she had this bizarre thought that he was proposing, but her brain quickly gave her a Girl, please reality check. Propose? She wasn’t sure what to be more what the fuck about—the fact that she’d thought a proposal was an actual possibility with this man or that part of her had thrilled at the thought.

  That hopeless romantic inside her needed to take a seat in the corner and think about her life choices because she was getting delusional.

  But when Taryn looked down at what was in his hand, her confusion deepened. Not a ring. Obviously. But a condom wrapper. She raised her gaze for an explanation.

  “Taryn, this is from the box you found in my drawer that first night. I found it when I was cleaning.”

  “Okay…” she said, still not tracking. “You found a condom wrapper. Not a surprising discovery.”

  He wet his lips. “It’s over two years expired. We read the date wrong.”

  “We…” Her stomach muscles tightened, and she looked down at the wrapper again, taking it from his hands. She held it up, reading the date. November 2016. “Crap.” He’d said we but she knew who’d really read it wrong—her and her faulty eyesight. “Damn. I’m sorry. Guess we got lucky they held up, huh? How many of these did we use?”

  She lifted her gaze to him, finding his worried. “I didn’t keep track, but…enough. So, everything’s good, then?”

  She felt an awkward smile jump to her lips. “Uh, yeah, sure. What do you mean?”

  He released a breath and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “I mean, I was looking back at the dates. I don’t know how many we used or when we finished the box, but I feel like it’s been at least a month and we haven’t…paused for anything, so I was worried that maybe one didn’t hold up. But are you on a pill or something or the shot or…”