“What are you saying?”
He sighs heavily. “I’m saying that I’m sorry. And I want the chance to make it up to you.” He pauses. “I’m not doing this because of the baby. I hate that you went through that alone, but I’m doing this because I can’t stay away from you. You make me feel hope when I’m around you and I’m a total dick when you’re not around.” I let out a little laugh. “You’re all I think about.” His eyes search mine. “Give me the chance to make it right. To show you that I can be better for you.”
Before I can answer, he looks away from me. His eyes land on the bottle of my pain pills that sit on my nightstand “Are you in pain?”
“It comes and goes,” I say truthfully.
He nods. “Your mother says that she has been trying to get you to come home with her.”
I sigh. “Did she tell you everything?”
“I hope so,” he says lifting my hand. And places a soft kiss on it. “Come home with me. Let me take care of you.”
“Oh, no, Tate. You don’t have time for that,” I say but my heart soars at the fact that he’s trying to help me.
“I won’t take no for an answer. Let me.”
I shake my head. “You don’t have to feel obligated to help me out,” I say then yawn. These meds make me sleepy.
He releases me and stands from my bed. “What are you doing?” I ask as he starts to look around my room.
“I’m looking for you a bag. I told you, I won’t be taking no for an answer.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TATE
I sit in my kitchen with a bottle of water in front of me. I’ve been staring at it for hours. I brought Missy home with me and led her to my bed. She was asleep before her head even hit the pillow. I turned off the light and made my way to the kitchen. I’m been sitting here for so long that my ass is numb and I still need a shower.
As soon as I pulled up to Tricia’s house she met me outside. Tears were running down her face and she was sobbing so hard it was hard to understand her. At first nothing about what she said made sense.
Missy in the hospital.
She needs surgery.
A baby.
Then she mentioned the one word that I was able to grasp. Vegas! I had not only took her virginity, I also hadn’t used a condom with her. I remember pulling one out of my wallet but don’t ever remember using it. But when Tricia said Vegas and baby I knew I hadn’t used it.
I tried to calm her down and tell her she had to have been confused. Missy couldn’t have had a baby. I had seen her since she started coming around once again for Sam’s wedding, and she wasn’t pregnant back then. That’s when she told me that Missy had lost it.
It all made perfect sense! That’s why she had disappeared on us. That’s why she was so depressed for weeks. I did that to her. I turned her world upside down for what? A one-night drunk fuck!
Then when she was in my bed last time I told her she had no idea what it was like to have haunting memories and nightmares. I personally gave her the biggest nightmare she will ever have. And she went through it alone.
Except she wasn’t alone. She had Braxton!
Tricia probably told me more than she should have because next time I see that little piece of shit I’m going to punch him so hard he’ll be in pain for days.
“What are you doing sitting in the dark?” Parker asks as he walks into the kitchen.
I look up at him and notice he’s in his uniform. He must have just gotten off work. I didn’t hear him come in. “Can I talk to you?” It comes out as a growl, and I want to punch myself for hiding behind the rage. Earlier, sitting in Missy’s room, she let me see her heartbreak and for the first time in years, I let mine show as well. Now I’m back to nothing but rage. That’s what I know best.
I’ve always been the secretive type of person but enough is enough. How much longer can I continue to go down this path? Hurting everyone in my wake. It needs to stop, and I’m the only one who can do that.
I never wanted children. Ever! I see what they can do to a family. I watch men and women use them like they are a fucking prize to be won. When all a child needs is love. All I ever wanted was to be loved and protected. My parents failed and so will I.
“Sure.” He sits down across from me and waits for me to say something.
I’ve become my mother’s husband in more ways than one. The one girl who I have felt differently about has suffered a tremendous loss and I abandoned her when I should have been there for her. I’ve learned over the years that you don’t have to use your hands in order to cause pain. Words can cut like a knife and actions can prove how heartless you are.
“Tate?” Parker speaks. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Missy was pregnant.” I say the words that I haven’t wanted to admit. I’ve always known myself to be a bastard but to admit it to a friend makes me feel pretty fucking small.
He continues to look at me with a straight face. “What do you mean was…?”
I run a hand over my unshaven face. “Our night in Vegas. I got her pregnant.”
His eyebrows raise to his hairline and he places his elbows on the table leaning over. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I snap. His face hardens, and I take a deep breath and lower my
voice. “Look,” I say. “I’m not good at this.” I gesture between us.
“Talking to your friends,” he says with a smirk, laughing at me on the inside.
I grunt in response. “Her mother called me today and told me everything.
She had a miscarriage.”
The smirk falls off of his face and his eyes soften. “I should have been there for her. I should have done something…” I say, getting angrier at myself and he cuts in.
“You’re here for her now.”
“You think that counts?” I snap. “You think she cares that I brought her home with me tonight and laid her in my bed? Hell, I’m afraid to even be around her. I should be in there holding her, apologizing until I’m blue in the face, but instead I’m hiding out in the kitchen in the dark.” I take in a few deep breaths trying to calm down.
“We have all been there, Tate,” he says before looking down at the table. “We all try to hide our true feelings so that others don’t see our fears, our weaknesses.”
I watch as he speaks as if he once lost something he loved. That maybe under all that is Parker is a soft guy who just wants the world to see him as a horny guy who hides behind his cocky smile and bad jokes.
He looks up and he looks at me. “Your fear is that she makes you feel more than you think you deserve. I know you had a bad past. But don’t allow that to ruin your future.”
Future? Can we have a future? Tricia said that she refuses to have surgery because she eventually wants to have children. I don’t want them. Where does that leave us? What about sex? Can sex cause her pain? Could the sex we had three nights ago be the cause of her pain? Will she even let me touch her? I don’t have to have sex. I can go without it. I choose to have it because it’s a release. A way to take my mind off the pain and allow myself to indulge in the ecstasy.
“How could she have even let me touch her?” I ask, thinking aloud.
“I told you she loved you. Love is strong enough to make you forget the bad and only think of the good.”
She had told me she loved me in her bedroom and I had that same feeling that she has given me before. Hope. And for the first time, I had welcomed that feeling.
Parker gets my attention as he speaks. “She sees the good in you, Tate. All you have to do is see it yourself.”
He stands up from the table and gives me one last look. “And of course you bringing her here means the world to her. Because, like I said, you’re here for her now. And to her, that counts as something.”
I sit here completely stunned that the man who named his cock The Hammer actually just made sense. I have been afraid of what she makes me feel and what she could make me want. Now more than ever, I know that she dese
rves better than me. But what if that better man can still be me?
***
I wake up from my sleep and rub my tired eyes. “Mom?” I ask, looking around my bedroom. I thought I heard her say something.
I sit in my bed and listen—maybe I imagined it.
“Stop,” comes a muffled cry.
I did hear something. But it didn’t sound like my mom! But who else would it be? I jump out of bed and yank my bedroom door open before I run down the hall.
“If you wake him up, I will beat his ass as well,” I hear a man snarl.
I skid into the living room and come to a stop. I stand there frozen as I watch him straddle a small figure. His hands are around her throat as she tries to fight him.
I start to yell for him to stop hurting my mother but it’s not her. It’s Missy! Her petite body is struggling. Her blond hair is covering the floor and her face is turning blue from lack of oxygen.
I reach over and grab the lamp sitting on the end table. I yank it so hard it pulls the plug out of the wall.
He never even sees me coming. I hit him until he falls to the floor beside her unconscious.
She cries out, as she takes in a breath, and I look down to her. Blood covers her face and shaking body. I fall to my knees and cradle her body to mine. “It’s okay. I got you,” I say, my body shaking as well from the adrenaline.
“Please. Don’t,” she sobs trying to push me away.
“What…?” I look in front of me to the man I just beat to death. But it’s not him. It’s me!
“Tate?” I feel a soft hand on my shoulder shake me.
I open my eyes and Missy pulls away from me quickly. “Sorry…”
“Did I hurt you?” I interrupt her, looking around at my darkened room, before my eyes land on her. My eyes roam over every bit of her looking for any markings that I may have made.
She shakes her head. “No,” she says softly.
I reach for her and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into me. She’s reluctant to hug me back and that’s okay. I understand what I put her through is going to take more than one night at my house.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say as I pull away and look into her beautiful blue eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asks, before nibbling on her bottom lip nervously.
“I am now,” I say pushing a piece of her blond hair behind her ear.
She nods before she pulls away from me and lies back down. “I dreamed I hurt you.” I don’t know what it is about her that makes me want to share my pain with her. I don’t want either one of us to hide the ugly anymore. Missy is stronger than I gave her credit for and to keep all of that in had to have destroyed a part of her. I destroyed a part of her, and it’s up to me to fix it.
I expect her eyes to widen, or for her to get up and leave, but instead she gives me a soft smile. “You would never hurt me.”
I place my hand on her flat stomach and her smile falls. “I did. I want you to know that I’m sorry.” I close my eyes and see that dream play again in my head. It’s my mind playing tricks on me.
My eyes open when I feel her hand on top of mine. “No one could have known what would happen from that one night, Tate. I never blamed you.” She says that now but she also told me that at one point she hated me. I can’t even begin to acknowledge all the emotions she must have felt.
“Why are you letting me off the hook? Why are you here with me?” I told her I wouldn’t take no for an answer, but in all honesty, I expected her to tell me to go to hell.
She licks her lips before she lets out a sigh. “I’m just as confused as you are,” she admits.
We lie there, staring at each other as time ticks by. My eyes roam over my t-shirt that she is wearing. I run my hand down her flat stomach, then her thigh, until I find the hem of it. I pull it up slowly. Once it exposes her flat stomach my eyes drop to her left side. I run my fingertips over the purple ink that covers it, in a really pretty cursive script. She didn’t have that back in Vegas.
Even though you’re no longer here with me. My love for you will always be.
I had never seen it before.
“Is this tattoo for the baby?” Just asking those words causes my chest to tighten. She wears her pain on her as I wear mine. I have more tattoos than I can count but I remember why I got each and every one of them. They remind me not to be weak—whereas hers reminds her that she was once strong.
“Yes,” she responds, placing her hand over her side, touching it. “I wish you could have been there. To see what I saw on the monitor.” She smiles softly and looks up to the ceiling as if remembering. “It was so surreal and yet terrifying all at once.” She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “I wanted to be able to look at something and remember that feeling—even if it was for only a moment. That I was part of a miracle,” she finishes with a sad smile.
Her words make my heart break. I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have held her, not Braxton. But I can’t help how those words make me feel more hope than I thought was possible. “Give me a chance,” I say, finally giving in. Letting the past go and wanting to be something better. Something more deserving—of her!
“A chance at what?”
“At you.”
She looks down to the sheets. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
I place my finger under her chin and lift it to where she has to look at me. “I do. And I will.” In all honesty, I don’t expect her to let me in right off the bat. I expect her to make me work for it, and work for it I will.
***
I walk out of the bathroom, freshly showered, to catch Missy lying in bed still wearing my t-shirt from last night with her eyes still closed. We stayed up most of the night just talking. She told me about when she quit college and hid out at Braxton’s place. How she deliberately stayed away from her parents and friends. Every word she spoke just made me more determined to prove myself to her.
And believe me when I say, I’ve never been more determined in my life!
I walk over to my tall dresser and drop the towel before I grab a pair of my boxers. I turn around to put them on and I stop dead in my tracks when I see her eyes now fully open and staring at my dick. It starts to harden as she stares at it with want. I can’t have sex with her when it will hurt her.
“Missy.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean for it to and her eyes snap up to mine.
“Yes?” she asks innocently. “I’m not allowed to stare?” she questions with a soft smile.
I shake my head and she huffs. I’m scared to death now that I’ll hurt her. I don’t know much about what having fibroids entails but I know it’s painful for her. I don’t know if having sex with her can make it worse.
I finish pulling my boxers on and then make my way over to the bed and crawl on top of her where I straddle her small body. “You can’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Her nails slowly glide up and down my back and I can’t imagine why I ever pushed her away. Her touch alone soothes my inner demons.
I run my thumb softly over her parted lips, trying not to lean down and kiss her, when someone knocks on my bedroom door. “Hey, man,” comes Parker’s voice. “Can I take your bike out for a ride?” he asks.
I can’t help but chuckle. He’s been drooling over my motorcycle for weeks now. “Yes,” I say. “The keys are in the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” he says excitedly and then I look down to her once again. “Where were we?” I ask.
“I think you were about to kiss me,” she says with a smile.
I lean down and place my lips on hers. She opens hers and allows my tongue to slide inside. I devour her mouth with mine. Her fingers rake down my back and she lifts her hips, letting me know she wants more than my tongue inside of her. I hate that I have to tell her no.
I growl in frustration into her mouth when I hear my phone ring. I pull away and see that it’s my sister. “I’ll call her back later,” I say pressing ignore. As soon
as I set it back down, it chimes signaling I have a text.
Sam: Dinner tonight at our house at 7.
I text back quickly.
Me: can’t. I have company.
Sam: So? Ditch her and come over.
I chuckle as I show the message to Missy. Her mouth falls open and she grabs the phone out of my hands. She starts typing and then hands me my phone back when she’s done.
Me: That hurt my feelings- Missy
I look down to her and she smiles. “I’m just playing with her,” she says and the phone rings once again. Sam lights up my screen.
“Fuck me!” I curse.
“Yes. Please,” Missy says grabbing my arms, trying to pull me back down on top of her.
“That is not going to happen,” I say before I press answer. She won’t give up. “Hello?”
“What…Why did you…Are you with Missy?” She finally finds the right words.
I chuckle. “Yes. We are lying in my bed. Would you like me to send you a picture for proof?” I ask jokingly.
“No,” she squeals thinking I would seriously do that to Missy. “But why in the hell are you with her?” she asks in a shocking tone.
“Are you calling about dinner?” I ask not answering her question.
“Well, yes. You can bring Missy if she wants to come as well,” she says as she starts to compose herself.
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