Teal pulled away to look Trent in the eyes, ashamed of his actions, yet willing to hear his explanation. She knew Trent’s feelings toward other races because that was one thing he’d been open and honest about over the course of their relationship. Still, it pained her to know Trent would take place in the beating of a black kid, or any kid for that matter.
Trent winced at Violet’s words and turned to Teal. “They’d jumped me with four other guys the week before.” His words working like a salve, quelling the hurt in her heart.
Violet raised her haughty chin. “You see why I had to say something. I didn’t know what else to do. I love Harper, but she is so naïve.” With a heavy sigh, she continued, “So, she’d left to meet you and I sat here on pins and needles, scared out of my mind. When she came home, crying and afraid, I wanted to gut you.”
Teal cringed at the vehemence in her voice. “How did you find out the rumors and things said about Trent weren’t true?” Because Teal assumed Trent wouldn’t have been welcome for dinner if Violet still felt the same way.
Violet pointed to Poe. “Our relationship started just as I presume yours did.” She motioned between Teal and Trent. “There were rumors he’d raped a woman, and for heaven’s sake . . . the company he kept.” She gave Poe a withering glare.
The man went to his wife and pulled her into his arms.
She gave him a kiss and continued, “He defended Trent, saying he didn’t believe he was a racist. Had caught him ass-watching a few thick black women. Lookin’ at them as if he were interested.” A haunted look glazed her eyes. “I told him, the KKK be watching black women too, and those black women come up missing. Sometimes watching doesn’t mean anything good.”
Teal wasn’t sure that answered her question. “Then how were you convinced?”
Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Well, Poe came home and mentioned his run-in with you at the bar. What are the chances anyone in the KKK would be openly dating a black woman?”
Teal nodded, understanding her change in opinion. She peeked up at Trent, who was watching her. “But, when he and Harper were together . . . she loved him. Wouldn’t their relationship stand for his character?”
“She was naïve, I told you.” She shook her head. “Had thoughts of romantic notions that could never be. Anyone looking to do her harm could have taken advantage of her.”
Teal got it. They thought Harper too foolish as a child, but they were wrong. She’d been smart enough to walk away to keep Trent safe, as well as the fact that Teal knew that once his anger had subsided, Trent would have taken her back. The idea sickened Teal.
“So back to when she’d returned to your house,” Teal continued digging, “it was his tattoo that had her running, correct?” This is what Trent had revealed to her, but if Harper were from the South, she’d have seen those on plenty of men who weren’t racists. It was, in some ways, a Southern tradition. A silly one, seeing as the South had lost—not like you could get them to believe that.
Confusion again had Violet crinkling her forehead. “Tattoo?” She paused for a moment. “No, honey.” She motioned to the chairs. Sitting in Poe’s lap, she waited as Teal and Trent sat. “It was his anger.”
Teal had seen Trent when he was angry, and it was a sight. Perhaps Harper felt his anger was geared solely toward her, and not the pain and anger he’d found himself in.
Trent snatched up his bottle of beer and finished it in a few large gulps. Slamming the glass down on the table, he looked up and met the gazes of everyone at the table before he spoke. “That day, I was so angry, I could have killed. I knew the moment she sensed my rage, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to see it back then. In my head, it was all her fault.”
Teal was just about to cup Trent’s cheek to soothe him, when Violet’s words shocked the fuck out of her.
“And when you went to her school and called her a whore, and denied your son?”
Teal released his hand and sat back. “When the fuck did that happen?” Anger heated her skin as pain flared.
Trent turned to her, his eyes dark and full of shame. “I didn’t have the heart to tell you that I am the reason I am never allowed to see my son again.”
On the ride home, Teal didn’t speak. Even as she undressed and readied for bed, she kept her mouth closed. At this point, she was at a loss for words. Anger had fled, leaving behind disappointment. Teal lay in bed and listened as the shower turned off and the light switch clicked, drowning the room in darkness. The moon’s ambient glow illuminated Trent’s bare tan skin as he approached.
She sensed where this was going. Whenever Trent wanted to retreat within himself, he would try to fuck his way out of opening up. But Teal wouldn't allow it. Not tonight. As he crawled over her and hovered above, Teal’s resolve wavered. She too wanted to forget the night’s events and make love to Trent, but the secrecy and lies had to stop. She couldn't live like this; didn’t want another moment where an old friend brought up something about his past she didn’t know about.
Trent slowly pulled the covers from over her body, revealing her shirt. His eyes tracked over the Journey T-shirt she’d stolen from his closet. Reverently, he caressed her chest, his fingers making their way over the words. "What a journey it has been." Though his lips sat in a grim line, the second his dark eyes met hers, his gaze conveyed his anguish and fear. Reaching down, he hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties and started to pull them down.
Teal’s body warmed with his touch, just as it always did. She craved him, desired to feel something more than the betrayal threatening to drown her, but she couldn’t give in. She put her hand over his and when he met her eyes, she shook her head.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Trent nodded and rolled off her, dropping to his side.
Teal turned over to face him. “Can I tell you something?”
His eyes flashed to hers. “Yeah.” He didn’t sound the least bit happy to hear what she had to say, and she was sure that it would surprise him.
Teal had made up her mind about whether or not she would move to Kentucky with him, but she wasn’t going to broach the subject tonight. There were too many things to speak about first, and she was scared her decision would piss him off.
Lifting onto his broad chest, she ran her fingers through his soft, blond hair. Trent held a beauty she’d never seen in a man before. Well, at least not in the men she’d dated. She caressed his warm face, allowing her finger to slide over the stubble on his jaw. A thumb caressed his plump bottom lip and she chuckled when he nipped it.
Taking in the soft wrinkles around his eyes, his evenly tanned skin, and bright gaze, Teal fell breathless. Never had she imagined a man like this beneath her, or even in her life. She’d always believed men like this wouldn’t want her. How could she have been so naïve? She laughed inwardly at the thought. Harper at seventeen had more sense than Teal who was thirty-something.
“Baby?” Trent’s voice stole her from her thoughts. Concern lit his eyes and Teal offered him a soft smile. She wouldn’t allow her past worries to hurt what they now shared. Never again would she let her insecurities of weight or skin color affect her.
Threading her fingers together, she placed her chin on her hands, and settled back onto his chest. “When your shop was vandalized and you didn’t call me, I wasn’t angry.” He cocked a brow and she plucked his chest. Smiling down at him she added, “Well, that wasn’t the main emotion.” She gave him a rueful smile.
He ran a hand across her arm. “What did you feel?”
Gooseflesh broke out over her skin at his touch and his warm, sexy accent made her shiver. “I felt afraid and alone.” Trent’s hand froze for a brief second before he continued to stroke her. “I felt like those men could have come to your home looking for you, and I wouldn’t have known. I would have been a sitting duck, all because you wanted to protect me from words on a wall.”
Trent was silent. The sound of crickets outside his window filled the room. Teal wasn’t a damsel in d
istress, but even she knew that three large men against one short, chunky female were odds she couldn’t afford to take.
“And I’ve been afraid to fully commit to this relationship for a lot of reasons.” She paused, unsure of where to start. “Because of your past.” Quickly she added, “I know you can’t change what happened, but it still scares me. I worry of what I will uncover down the road, and tonight was a glaring sign that you don’t fully trust me.”
“Yes, I do—”
Teal gently pressed her fingers against his lips. “You think you do. But you worry I will cut tail and run if I find out the truth. But I won’t. Well, to be honest, maybe a few weeks ago, I would have . . . but today?” Teal saw the vulnerability he let no one else see, the fear and torment that had followed him home after years of running.
“Today, I want to know that I will come first. And I want you to know that you will come first. I know you think I can’t give you that because I won’t move here, but that is asking a lot of me, Trent. It is a petrifying move. I want to have you, and my job, and condo, but how can I when you have made it clear giving up your business and home aren’t things you are willing to do for—”
“I never said I wasn’t willing, Teal.” He shifted closer. “I said I didn’t think it was a wise idea, baby. I own this place, no mortgage. And I know you can find a good job here. We wouldn’t have to start from new.”
With a long-suffering sigh she amended, “Okay, you’re willing to move, but you’d rather not.”
He rolled her over. “I hate that you felt that way. I didn’t even think to call you because I am used to handling things on my own. It may take some time, but I can change that. I can put my trust in you—in us.”
Teal bit her lip. “What am I supposed to say when you are saying all the right things?”
“People in hell getting ice water tonight, huh?” They both laughed.
“Give me one reason, other than your job, that is keeping you in Vermont.” He watched her as she thought.
“Katie.” It was a bit of a weak reason. Though she loved Katie, she knew her friend would do what was right by her family, and if that meant leaving the state for Logan, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
“You can fly to see her whenever you want. Logan knows this place well, and he’d have no issue with her flying out,” he countered.
“True, but it has only been seven months, and we still have a long way to go.” It was the truth, there were those who could move fast in relationships, but Teal had never been the type. Still, she wanted to live with him, and felt insane for even considering it so early.
She laid back in his arms and closed her eyes. She needed sleep. And just as she closed her eyes, Trent spoke. In a voice so low, she went still and held her breath.
“I have three hundred thousand dollars in my savings account, and another eighty grand in a second account.” Her shock must have been evident, as he patted her bottom and sighed. “Yeah, I figured you’d like that. Besides, it might help take away the sting from the next thing I have to confess.” Trent was silent for a beat, perhaps to give Teal a minute to take everything in.
“When I was a teen, sometime after Harper left, I fought a black kid in the street and called him a nigger in front of a group of kids. I used a word I knew would hurt him. I didn’t mean it, but that doesn’t excuse my actions.”
Teal flinched at the word coming from his mouth. She’d never heard the word spoken by a person she loved.
Trent continued, “I guess Violet had been there. When I was young, I didn’t think before I spoke. I didn’t know the true meaning behind the words I so flippantly through around. Then I entered the military and was medically released when I got into a fight with some locals in Greece, suffering from a bat to the skull.”
She lifted up, but Trent gently forced her back down.
“I’m fine.” He rubbed her soothingly, even as her heartbeat sped up at his confessions. “I’m a strong man and I survived it, no need to panic.”
Teal forced her body to relax on his chest, easing her mind. She threw a leg over his, an arm over his stomach and relaxed into his hard body. Snuggled into the crook of his arm, she listened to his words and the steady rhythm of his heart.
“When I left, I was diagnosed with PTSD.” His statement was met with silence.
Her silence was not from shock or shame, but from compassion. When a person spoke of mental illness, there was no place for pity or placations. Teal knew, from working with those in prison, that listening was the best way to show support. She reached for his hand and squeezed. She could imagine how hard it would be for a man like Trent, so staunch and strong, to admit to what most would call an extreme weakness.
“I have certain episodes I’ve learned to hide, and others I can’t.”
“Like what?” she asked in a murmur. Teal understood how taboo the subject of PTSD was for many, and she didn’t want him to feel forced to speak about it.
He groaned and turned slightly, pressing her against the bed and his body. “For instance, remember when you picked me up from the airport for the wedding and I wouldn’t—”
“Sit up front?” She finished for him. “That pissed me off.”
“More than when I put the wine glasses on the frozen ground to make room for my ass?” He gave a light chuckle when she bit his chest. “Sitting in the passenger seat of any vehicle can cause me to regress. And then there was the moment I heard your crash outside of the cabin,” his arms tightened protectively around her, “I thought I’d woken up in a warzone.”
Teal moved her head in order to see his eyes. The glazed-over look told her he was in the past. “I’d reached for my gun, but it wasn’t there, and I panicked.” He laughed. “Me,” he thunked his chest, “a grown man, panicking.” Trent’s body stiffened, his unease evident.
She caressed his chest. “I’d panic if I thought I’d woken up in a warzone without my weapon, too.” His hands softly caressed up and down her side. Teal thought to steer the conversation away from PTSD. “Did you meet Logan before or after the military?”
Trent took a deep breath. “Ah, Logan. I met him before I joined up.” He shook his head. “I’d told him to hang with his own kind, and when he thought that meant whites only, I didn’t correct it.”
Teal asked, “What’d you really mean?”
“Hell, Logan got his ass kicked daily by the black kids. It was more that he was new, than he was white. That, and the fact he just took it. He was from a good home and had never gained an ounce of street smarts. I thought he’d do better off with kids from the nice side of the tracks. Fuck, I saw him walking home one day, all busted up and I knew I had to help him.”
Teal listened. She’d heard this story before, but that was back when Trent thought hiding his weakness from her made him stronger. “I saw myself in him. Let down by family, beaten up on by the world, and I told myself that I would save the kid.”
“Kid? You are only a few years older than him, baby.”
He smacked her bottom. “Yeah, but I’d seen so much more of the world, and I thought, if I couldn’t save myself, I could at least try to save Logan. I was young, dumb—”
“And full of come.” Her tinkle of laughter was cut off by a gasp, as Trent’s large hand landed sharply on her ass.
He flexed his pectorals, the muscles jumping in her hands. “Baby, you don’t want to know how full of come I was as a teen.”
Teal fixed him with a withering glare, before resting on his chest again.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he continued, “I thought I was saving the boy, but I brought him into a life he’s now trying to escape. I think about that shit sometimes.”
Teal played with Trent’s soft hair, twisting and bending the soft strands with her fingers. “Think about what?”
“If he’d never met me, maybe his life would have turned out better.”
Teal felt his intense heat as their eyes met. Leaning in, she placed a kiss on his chest. Teal believed at
this point, honesty was best. “Maybe. Maybe he would have settled down with some woman, or maybe those kids would have beaten him so bad he’d never be the same again.” His eyes flared with emotion at her truth. “But he sure as hell would’ve never met Katie.”
He gave her a quick nod, then placed his arm behind his head. The flood doors opened, and Trent continued with his confessions. One after another, they spilled from his lips, and Teal did nothing but listen. Accepting the fact Trent was never, nor would he ever be, perfect. But she learned that he could put his faith in her, and she in turn would do the same.
His confessions ranged from outright hilarious to concerning. His life as a child had been turbulent to say the least, but as Trent went silent after baring his soul to her, Teal’s apprehension lessened, her heart opened, and fear fled.
Trent’s breathing evened out, his hand on her back slowing as sleep claimed him. She softly rubbed his toned stomach, helping to sooth him to sleep, and just before she drifted off, she murmured, “I can’t think of a reason not to leave Vermont for you.”
The sound of Trent’s weight bench woke Teal from a peaceful slumber. The clang of metal reminded her she needed to hit the treadmill. Eating healthy and getting plenty of exercise had helped in lowering her blood pressure, which lessened the dizziness and headaches that had once plagued her.
She rolled over in Trent’s large bed, her body felt light and loose, rested and sated. Maybe she would get up and go for a jog. But the second her feet hit the floor, Teal knew she would do nothing other than make a quick cup of coffee, and sit on Trent’s back patio with Katie’s manuscript in hand.
Teal hopped in the shower and dressed in one of Trent’s shirts. Glancing at the clock, she realized they had more than five hours of alone time before company was set to come over— as Trent had changed their plans for the evening, by inviting Violet and Poe over for some barbeque and fireworks.
She made her way to Trent’s spare room, just as he sat down his weights. “God and heaven.” She gave him a playful smile. “You think you could bench press me too?” Trent darted up and pulled Teal into his arms. Making his way back to the bench, Teal struggled. “Dammit. Put me down, I was just joking.”
Indelible: Beneath His Ink (Teal and Trent Book 2) Page 10
