I tried. I used to be able to do that, you know. Not anymore, I guess.
“I shouldn't have started all that with you,” I said, hoping that was what she wanted to hear. It wasn't. I was fucking up again. Teagan looked away, out the window as her neighbor, that girl I almost slept with, climbed into the car next to us. They stared at each other for a few, agonizing seconds before the bitch flipped us off and peeled out of the parking lot in her ugly ass Prius.
When Teagan turned back to look at me, her lips were pursed and she was clearly pissed.
This day was not going to go well for me, was it?
“Never mind,” she stated, leaning back on Kai's leather seat and buckling her belt. I couldn't pull my eyes away from the spot where it crossed her breasts, squeezing her chest tight and making me feel like I was losing my mind. Boobs are cool, right. They're great, but they don't flip me on my lid like some virgin kid with a nudie mag. This is ridiculous. “Where are we going for coffee?”
“Never mind?” I asked, using my anger as a blanket. It was my definite go-to. Not a good choice, but an easy choice. “If you have something you want to say about last night, you should just say it.”
“I don't have anything to say, Tyce,” Teagan assured me, looking straight out the front windshield and refusing to meet my eyes. I studied her slim profile, her pert nose, the heart shaped curve of her jaw where it met her small ears. She was wearing Oregon State Beavers earrings, probably to piss me off. It was kind of funny actually. “Can we go now? I have a lot of homework to do tonight and you,” a pause that seemed to stretch on forever, “have a game tomorrow. Don't you have a physical therapist or a nutritionist or a personal masseuse or a world class ass kisser that you need to meet with before the game?”
“That's funny,” I said as I released the parking brake. “Really, Tea. It's nice to see you haven't lost your sense of humor. Nice earrings by the way.” For the briefest of seconds, her lips curved into a tight smile, but it dropped away just as quick. With the tension in the car between us, it was hard to imagine the passion that had coursed through my body last night. I might not have been touching her, but I felt something. Something I shouldn't have, granted, but it was so much better than this. “Do you want to talk about the pictures?”
Teagan snapped her gaze over to me, but she didn't move her head, just her eyes.
It struck me that this was the first time we'd seen each other in person since the park. Since I took her virginity. Since I left her alone at night at a crosswalk with blood between her thighs and my semen inside of her.
I punched the steering wheel, and her eyes got big. Huge. Like two fucking mossy moons, pale and green and flecked with silver. Eyes. Not something you usually notice about a person. Hell, I had a hard time even remembering what color Kai's eyes were when he wasn't around and they were blue as fuck. Teagan … four years without seeing her and I still dreamed about those fucking eyes.
“Tyce, are you … okay?”
“Are you?” I asked, putting my forehead in my hand and glancing over at Teagan. She just continued to stare at me, her mouth partially open, her brows raised. “Well, are you?”
“Why wouldn't I be okay?” she asked, but the question was riddled—riddled—with hidden emotions. I kept staring at her, the faint buzz of the radio barely audible over the whirring sound of air blasting from the heater. “And why are you so mad? What is there to be mad about?”
“I'm mad because you're not mad. I'm pissed because you're not pissed. Call me an asshole, a fucker, a dumbass, a pig. Say something, talk about it. You used to tell me everything, blurt what was on your mind at the most random times. And now, there's something seriously screwed up here that we need to talk about and you're being polite and quiet and … weird.”
“Weird?” she asked, her voice bursting from her mouth like the screech of some wild bird. That was better, though. Much better. As kids, we used to have these epic rows. Just epic. Sometimes we'd even hit each other, smack and push and shove. I needed to see that her spirit wasn't broken, that I hadn't broken it. “I wanted to talk to you, Tyce. I wanted to tell you how I was feeling, but you left too quick for me to get it out. So maybe I am being weird, okay? But you know why? Because that whole thing was weird.” She shoved her fingers through her hair, getting it all tangled up and mussy. I liked it so much better that way.
“What thing?” I asked. I knew. I was being a dick again.
“That thing in the park,” she gasped out, unbuckling her seatbelt and letting it whip back into place. I pressed lock on the doors. I was afraid she was going to get out and leave me with this nagging feeling of guilt and shame and longing and lust that was stirring up dust clouds inside my chest. It was the most horrible thing I'd ever felt, like I was fucking up so bad, irreparably bad. “Losing my virginity like that, with you. There. That way. You left. I was feeling things, Tyce.”
“What did you want me to do?” I was seriously asking that question, listening to the sudden burst of raindrops on the roof. I think Teagan took it the wrong way. She still wouldn't look at my eyes. My mouth, my forehead, my cheeks. All fair game. But not my eyes.
“Not sprint away from me. Talk to me. Talk to me right then. Not two weeks and five days later.”
I almost smiled at that.
“You've been counting?”
Teagan rolled her window down a bit and stuck her head out, closing her eyes against the drops of rain before tucking herself back into the car. She took a deep breath, staring down at the white and blue leggings she was wearing. They stuck to her shapely calves, her tight thighs, like a second skin. When I'd left, Teagan had been a cute girl, but she was definitely a woman now.
“You should've had some compassion, Tyce. Pretending not to know me, flirting me with like that, like I was some Ducks fan at a tailgate party.” She shook her head, took another deep breath. I stared at her, at her smudged makeup and I wondered if maybe I was the reason she'd been crying. God, I hoped not. I might not be able to give her what she wanted, but I sure as shit didn't want to make her cry. “And then … I waited a long time to lose my virginity, to have my first kiss.”
“I was your first kiss?” That was news to me. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I slept around with girls who knew what they were doing, not people like Teagan. Teagan needed a boyfriend, someone to hold her at night, give her the attention she deserved. I was screwing that up completely.
She ignored me, picking at the fabric of her leggings, focusing intently on the ratty old tennis shoes she was wearing. I desperately wanted to get her new ones. But I didn't have a job. And I didn't have any money, not really. Everything I needed, the school, the team, they gave it to me. But as a college athlete, I didn't get paid. Even more proof that I wasn't ready for a girlfriend, a lover, anybody at all really.
“It might not have been a big deal to you, Tyce, but you leaving, it screwed me up so bad. I'm still reeling over the idea that you're here, that we're sitting in a car together. I almost threw up when I saw you.”
“I panicked, too. That's why I pretended I didn't know you. I had no clue what to say.”
“So you … cupped your junk and asked me to sleep with you?”
She had a serious point. Maybe I was suffering from brain damage or something? A few too many tackles on the field I guess.
“I'm sorry,” I said, and I really meant it. No strings attached.
“Can we go to coffee now?” she whispered, and I nodded. A cup of java might not fix everything, but it sure as hell wouldn't hurt.
“I know we have a lot to talk about,” I said, leaning back in the red leather chair and gazing across the short space in front of me to Teagan. Between us, there was some weird coffee table thing that was half beanbag/half chessboard. The checkered wood was positioned on top of the black beanbag, and it wasn't very sturdy. Whenever I touched it, it moved. “And there are a dozen places we could start, but … I need to know what happened to Venus.”
Teagan reach
ed over to the coffee table/chessboard and grabbed her chocolate croissant. It was balanced on a white china plate, sliding around as she slopped it onto her lap. She really didn't want to talk about her mother.
I held my paper coffee cup with the compostable biodegradable faux plastic lid and enjoyed the warmth against my palm. It was storming like crazy outside right now, the wind chill driving icicles into my blood. I hoped it would clear up for the game tomorrow. Even sitting across from Teagan like this, I couldn't stop thinking about football.
“She died about six months ago,” Teagan said, staring down at her croissant. I really, really wanted her to look at me, but I guess she wasn't ready for that. Maybe she couldn't look at me without feeling my cock between her legs, wondering why I didn't stop when she asked me to stop. I'm such a stupid fucking asswad. “Good thing I was already eighteen when that happened,” she added. To somebody who wasn't from our town, it might seem like a cold statement. But there was only one place in Quaker Park where foster kids were sent. Trust me, I knew, I'd been there. It was the deepest level of hell.
I took a drink of my coffee, but it was bitter and wild. I needed cream and sugar lumped into mine, so sweet it sipped like freaking cake. I kept it clutched in my hand and watched as Teagan studied my shoes, a brand spanking new pair of black and gold Nikes. We were handed this stuff like it grew on trees. I felt bad wearing such nice shoes when Teagan's were practically falling apart at the seams. No matter what we talk about today, I'm getting her some goddamn cross trainers if I have to beat up Kai to get a loan.
“My mom got, uh, pneumonia,” Teagan said, and then she stopped talking. I watched her take a bite of her croissant. I figured she was planning on elaborating, but she just kept eating until there was nothing but crumbs.
“Pneumonia?” I asked, feeling my chest get tight.
“Yep,” Teagan said, reaching down and grabbing the coffee stained napkin from under her cup. “There was no exciting murder trial, no news worthy falls from Mount Everest, just … one day she got sick and then after that, she got sicker. I don't think she knew how bad it was, even towards the end.”
Bam.
Those green eyes snapped up to mine and grabbed hold fast and tight, hard. That crash of thunder and lightning I'd noticed before hit Teagan's face. Hate. There it was again. Hatred. For me. I didn't think she wanted to admit it, not even to herself, but it was there.
“She kept asking me if I could find you, bring you in to see her. Those last few days, the doctors kept telling me she was going to go in the night. And she didn't. She was waiting.” Teagan kept her gaze narrowed in on mine. “She was waiting for you.” A surge of anger in those words. “She went to jail for you. My mom was always fighting for you, Tyce, but I guess that didn't matter, did it?”
“I had to get out of there, Teagan!” I raised my voice; I yelled. Total dick move. I was freaking out a little inside, and I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't have any family. The closest I'd ever had was Teagan and her mom. Now Venus was dead, and I had to live with the fact that I ran away and never went back. I meant to, but as time passed, it just seemed weird. And I got scared, scared that if I showed my face there again, heard Teagan's voice, that I'd break and just give up, go back.
Teagan sat back suddenly and crossed her long legs at the knee. She might've been short, but she was perfectly proportioned, so sexy in those leggings, those sneakers, that plain white tee. Her makeup was still smudged, but she didn't need it, not with that face.
“I loved Venus, okay.” Deep breath. Just get it out and you can go. That's what I told myself. “And I loved you, too, Tea.” Her cheeks and neck flooded with color, but she wasn't looking at me anymore, staring at the old wood floors beneath our feet. I thought this building used to be an old train depot or a warehouse or something, I wasn't sure. “But what would've happened if I'd stayed in Quaker Park? I would've been a loser, a nothing. I was good at football, great. But nobody would've seen it there, nobody would've known.”
“So you left to play football. I get it, Tyce. I'm not an idiot, but why did you have to disappear in the middle of the night? Why didn't you visit? Call? Write? Email? Text? Jesus, you could've sent me a Tweet or a Facebook message. There are a million ways you could've told us you were okay, put a smile on my mom's face. I just don't get it.”
How do you look a girl in the eyes and tell her you loved her too much to be with her? Or maybe that you didn't love her enough to include her in your plans? I wasn't really sure. Even now, my feelings for Teagan were confusing and hard to sort out.
“If I'd stayed, we would've gotten married and had kids and lived in a shitty trailer by the cemetery.”
Teagan slammed her coffee down on the beanbag table, the paper cup crunching and splashing all over her wrist. It was lukewarm when we got it, so I didn't think she was burned, at least not physically, but I stood up to get some napkins like she was on fire.
When I came back and handed them to her, she snatched them away with chipped red nails.
“So you were doing me a favor? Protecting us both from a fate worse than death?” Teagan was shaking now, slapping at the coffee with the napkins while I stood there and fumed, too. I missed saying goodbye to Venus, screwed Teagan up by trying to save her. Or maybe my mistake was not walking away when I saw her at the park. I shouldn't have ever started talking to her again. “You were making sure we didn't fall in love by screwing my older friends, making them pity me, giving my mom the finger for all her sacrifices as you sprinted off into the sunset and draped your pathetic ass in green and gold?”
“What do you want me to say? I want a future. I don't have much of a past to fall back on, do I?” I waited for Teagan to respond, but she didn't, still leaning forward with her ruined coffee cup clutched in her hand. “I'm fucking sorry, Tea. I left because it was better for both of us. And maybe I was right? Look, you got out, didn't you?”
“I don't want to fight with you anymore,” Teagan said, proving that she really had grown up since I'd left. She was way more in control than I was. “I don't want to make that my life, Tyce. Fighting, screaming, arguing with you. That's all we do when we see each other now. I guess … I guess I know all I really need to know. You left to make a life for yourself. It was too hard to call or something stupid like that. Let's just walk out of here and go our separate ways, okay? Smile, wave, if we run into each other in the future.”
I felt empty at that statement, like I was getting mummified, having my brain ripped out through my nostrils and my heart shoved into a jar. Teagan was telling me exactly what I thought I wanted to hear and yet, I couldn't have been any less thrilled.
“You're right,” I said, sitting back down and pushing my coffee towards her. “We're in different places in our lives right now. It was good to see you again, though. Really.” Teagan lifted her head finally and looked me in the face without any sign of that red veined hatred pulsing behind her eyes. She studied my face, searched it thoroughly and then nodded. If we'd done this to start off with, before we'd kissed, slept together, whatever else, then it might've worked. At this point, I wasn't so sure.
“You don't have any diseases, do you?” Teagan choked out, making me raise an eyebrow. It actually took me a whole minute to figure out where she was coming from. Oh. Fuck. Condom. Or lack thereof. Jesus.
“No, no diseases,” I whispered. I had enough physicals to know that for sure.
“Good.” Her voice was hoarse as she continued to stare at me. “And I wanted you to know, I'll delete all the pictures and videos from my phone, so don't worry about it.” The reminder of last night sent a thrill through me, turned my cock to stone. Teagan saw, but she didn't say anything. What was there to say? It was hot, sure, but it was over now. “I'll be watching the game from my friend's living room tomorrow. Can't wait to see you crush the competition.”
She stood up and I followed suit, getting ready to drive her home.
“Thanks.” I smiled. “I'll wink at the camera for
you.” I got a tiny, half-smile in return. “Oh, and if you really don't want me to go back to the park, I'll stay away. I haven't been there since.” Since I fucked you and made you bleed. GODDAMN IT. I didn't want to think about that anymore.
“It's fine, really. It's a big park. Run there if you want. If we run into each other, maybe we could jog a mile or two together?” The thought made me more excited than it reasonably should. This whole cleansing thing wasn't exactly going the way I wanted it to. “Oh, and I have places to go around here. I'll call a cab when I'm ready to go home.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure, Tyce.”
Saturday, game day.
How exciting.
For everybody else that was; I wasn't watching. Instead, I had videos of the star quarterback jacking off and telling me how hot and wet I was, how he couldn't concentrate at practice because I was always in his head.
Guess that was all bullshit.
Today, the University of Oregon Ducks faced off against the Arizona State Sun Devils, and I couldn't have cared more or pretended that I cared less. I'd given Tyce an easy out in that conversation and he'd snatched it right up, looking ridiculously relieved, like I was an anchor strapped to his leg. He'd been beyond happy to cut me off.
My phone buzzed, but I ignored it. Melia was texting me nonstop, asking what time I was coming over. I'd already told her I wasn't.
“Are you okay?” Chelease asked, standing in the kitchen and clutching a wooden spoon in her hand. I think she was making cookies, but it didn't matter much to me. Food had once again turned to ash in my mouth, so I was kind of on a temporary fast. Come Monday, I'd pick myself up and eat three square meals a day. For now, I didn't give a crap.
“I'm good, thanks,” I lied as I tucked my legs up on the couch next to me and enjoyed the fact that Chelease didn't have a TV. I could've cracked open my computer or used my phone to watch Tyce, but I was sure a sports package cost more than I could afford. That is, if I was even interested in watching. “Why? Do I look mopey or something?”
Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 10
