Tessa’s eyes opened in shock, and she stared at the wall. She didn’t turn over, but she did listen.
“I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you, Tessa, and the best and worst night of my life was when I finally got to hold you. It was the best because you were in my arms, and it was the worst because you were hurt.” He ran his hand up and down his jeaned thigh as he spoke. “Ever since then, I thought that I’d do anything to hold you like that again – but now I don’t give a crap if I never even lay eyes on you again. I’ll give up touching you, give up seeing you, if it means that you stop hurting yourself. If you get taken care of. If you live.”
Tears burned her eyes, and she took a shuddering breath.
“I just want you to live, baby. With me in your life, without me in your life. Talking to me or hating me… I don’t give a flying fuck. I just want you to be OK. To start to like yourself again, and to trust yourself again. I’ll get on with my life, and never touch or talk to you again, and I’ll fucking hate every second of it, but I’ll do it. I’ll do it if I know you’re safe. I’ll do it because I love you.”
The tears trickled down her cheeks, and she held in a sob.
“So you go on and hate me if you have to.” Curtis’ voice was so full of emotion now, he barely recognized it as his. “I’ll live with it, if it means that you’re gonna get well again with people who can help you. You hate me, and you get healthy.” He turned away from the bed, headed for the door. “I love you, baby. I love you, and I don’t care if you hate me for doing the right thing for you. I love you, and I’m taking care of you because you can’t take care of yourself right now. I love you so fucking much, and I’m gonna miss you… but I’ve already been missing you for months now. It’s like all the light and goodness just drained out of my life when you got lost in the dark, Tessa.”
He opened the door, lowered his head as he gathered up the courage to walk away from her forever. His final words to her were wrenched out of him, pulled from deep out of his shredded heart.
“That woman that I love – I know she’s still in there somewhere. I hope she comes back one day ‘cause she’s the most gorgeous, amazing, wonderful woman I’ve ever known. And I’m gonna love her until my dying day.”
With that, Curtis was gone.
Once the door had closed behind him, that was when Tessa finally turned over and spoke. Her voice was soft, totally broken.
“Curtis… don’t go.”
**
“I still don’t understand what you’re waiting for.” J.J. shook her head at Tessa, hard enough to make her red curls fly. “Call him.”
“I can’t,” Tessa said quietly. “I really messed it all up with him.”
“He loves you.” Jenna Jade’s green eyes – the exact same color as jade, actually – were impatient. “He said so. About ten damn times, and after you told him that you hated him.”
Tessa shrugged.
“What’s that mean?” J.J. mimicked the shrug. “Are you seriously acting like this is no big deal? Because, honey, I’ve been dating for twenty years, and no man has ever just declared himself like that to me.” She took a sip of bitter vending-machine coffee and considered. “I think that no man ever just lays it all out for a woman unless he’s got a ring in his pocket. And even then, most of them can barely get out the four basic words of ‘will you marry me’ without stumbling and stuttering. The fact that Curtis shot you through the heart without even touching you tells me that the man shook you up.”
Tessa shook her head.
“Christ on a cracker, Tessa,” J.J. said. “Would you stop with the shrugging and head-shaking and just talk to me? What’s going on with you?”
Tessa pulled her legs against her body defensively. “I – I’m not sure.”
J.J. regarded her friend and felt herself softening a bit. Tessa was all curled up in the eating disorder clinic bed, and she looked pale and exhausted. The tube was out of her arm now, which was good, and she was going home the next day, which was even better. But she wasn’t herself, not even close, and J.J. was worried that the second Tessa was left to her own devices, she’d hurt herself again. Time to back off a bit.
“Tessa.” J.J.’s voice was warm. “What do you think would happen if you talked to Curtis about all of this? What do you honestly think he’d say?”
Tessa dropped her eyes to the bed sheets. “I think he’d say that he made a mistake. That he – that he didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t know the man, granted, but he doesn’t strike me as the type that shoots his mouth off.”
Tessa was silent for a few seconds. “He’s not.”
“In fact,” J.J. said. “He doesn’t strike me as the type that says much of anything at all.”
“Uh, yeah. He’s kind of the strong, silent type.”
“Uh-huh. I figured. And when that type of guy says what’s on his mind, you’d damn well better pay attention and believe it, ‘cause what they have to say isn’t said lightly. Curtis isn’t dicking around with you, Tessa, and he told you what he did because it’s true.”
Tessa shrugged again, desperate to change the subject. “Maybe. But I have some things to deal with first.”
“Now that I agree with,” J.J. said, turning serious. After almost two decades of professional ballet dancing, she knew what an unhealthy relationship with food looked like, and although Tessa had been way better at hiding hers than most other girls, time had run out. There was no way she could have gone on the way that she had been, and J.J. was horrified at just how far it had gone, how bad it had gotten. And it had happened right in front of her goddamn eyes.
J.J. studied her friend with a cool, dispassionate eye, the way that she’d look at a stranger’s body. Yeah, OK, Tessa wasn’t a totally sickly-looking stick any more, that was for sure. At five foot seven and with a medium frame, her healthy body weight ranged from about one hundred and thirty-four pounds to maybe one hundred and forty-eight pounds. When she’d landed in the hospital just over a week before, hyperventilating and dehydrated, she’d been a terrifying one hundred and two pounds.
J.J. still recalled that first look at Tessa: she’d looked like a hollow-eyed shadow of her former self. J.J. had burst in to tears of shock and horror, and Tessa had just stared at her from the hospital bed, hostile and tense.
After twelve days in the hospital treatment clinic, paid for by her boss Jax, and under strict dietary supervision and with daily counselling sessions (both private and in a group) with a woman named Rianna, Tessa was now one hundred and twelve pounds. Far, far from where she needed to be to be properly healthy, but she was stronger now, and her humor and calm were returning.
It had all been close, J.J. knew – way too goddamn close – but Tessa had turned the corner now. She’d have to take it from here, but J.J. wasn’t leaving her on her own. And she suspected that if asked, Curtis would also be there for Tessa; now if only Tessa would ask him. Maybe not yet, but J.J. hoped she’d ask soon.
“You feel OK about going home tomorrow?” J.J. said now. “You want to come and stay with me for a while?”
“Oh. Oh, no.” Tessa gave her one of her gorgeous smiles, and J.J. relaxed marginally. “Rianna says that I need to start to figure out my own routines as soon as I can… healthy ones, this time. I can only do that if I’m in my own space, leading my normal life.”
“So you’re going back to work right away?” J.J. asked, not entirely sure that was a good idea.
“No.” Tessa ran her hands through her golden curls. “No, I need a week or so before I do that. I need to get my energy up and…” She paused.
“What?”
“And I need to go and apologize to everyone at Curves before I go back,” Tessa said quietly. “I – I made such a scene that last night I was there, and the things that I said…” She sighed. “What I said to Gabi and Mac and Curtis? It was – God. It was awf
ul.”
“They’ll understand, honey.”
“You think?”
“They love you,” J.J. said simply. “And part of loving someone is forgiving them.”
“You really think they’ll forgive me?”
“Tessa.” Jenna Jade’s jade-green eyes were sparkling with affection. “I can promise you, they’re dying to forgive you. I think it’s all they want to do, and they’re just waiting for you to ask.” She held Tessa’s hand. “So, ask for what you need, Tessa. Just ask. They’ll give it to you.”
Chapter Six
Jax came in to the kitchen and found Sarah sitting at the table drinking a cup of green tea. He dropped a quick kiss on her red curls, sat across from her.
“Hey, doll.” He nodded at the bridal magazines strewn around the big oak table. “So did you and your Mom find your dream dress today?”
“Not even close.”
Jax paused at the look on her face. “What happened?”
“Oh.” Sarah shrugged. “Turns out? I’m way too fat to go wedding dress shopping.”
“What?” Jax exploded. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Well, I didn’t know this until this morning, but the average wedding dress sample size is a ten.”
Jax stared at her. “I – don’t know what that means.”
“It means that I’m three sizes too big to try on wedding dresses in the store.” Sarah drank some more tea. “I’m a sixteen, Jax, not a ten.”
“OK,” he said slowly. “So… they had nothing in your size to try on?”
“Nope. We went to three places, and the biggest dress they had was a fourteen. And it was fugly, believe me. I’d have looked like Big Bird being attacked by a snowball.” She managed a smile now, regaining her good humor. “It had feathers.”
He grinned. “No!”
“Yes! Huge white feathers all over the skirt, all over the bodice, all down the sleeves.”
“Wow.”
“Right?” Sarah sighed. “I’m sure it’d look gorgeous on someone, but I’m not that someone. I’m not the feathers type, you know?”
“No way, baby. You need something with clean, strong lines, a bit tight in all the right places, with some sparkle to bring out your eyes.”
Touched, she gazed at him. “Is that how you see me coming down the aisle at you?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled now, a real smile. “Anyway. The saleswomen at the stores were really nice, really apologetic, but they all said that larger women usually diet before they start looking for their wedding dress. They lose enough weight to get in to the sample sizes, and that way they can see how the dress will look on.”
“So… wait.” Jax was trying to get his man brain around the murky, mystifying world of female fashion. “So… if you can’t get in to a size ten, then you can’t even try a dress on?”
“Oh, you can, kind of. They have extending clips, so you can leave the dress unzipped, and they hold the two sides together with the clips all the way up your back. But then you still have to try to squeeze your thighs and shoulders and ass in to a way-too-small dress, and that’s just demoralizing. Believe me, babe, no bride-to-be wants to stand there stuffed in to a dress like a sausage.”
“Christ.” After this whole thing with Tessa, Jax was good and done with the body shaming of women. “So, what’d you do? Just walk out?”
“Yeah. I mean, what choice did I have? I didn’t sign up for humiliation.”
“Wait. Someone humiliated you?”
“Well.” Sarah looked away. “I heard a few times that I should think about dropping some weight before my big day.”
“What?” Jax hollered again, and Sarah jumped. “You’re not doing that, are you?”
“No,” she said, indignant. “I like my body, Jax… and I know you do.”
“That’s for damn sure, baby,” he said, his voice a low growl. “I fucking love your body. Every single curvy inch of it.”
She blushed. “I mean, when we first got together, I was a bit insecure about it, but you got my head straight about that soon enough.”
“I damn well hope so,” he said, still angry. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of… not you, not Tessa, not anybody.”
“Yeah, well.” Sarah shook her head. “I can kind of see how Tessa got herself all messed up about this, Jax. The pressure, you know? The damn pressure to be thin. It’s so overwhelming sometimes.”
“You feel it?” he asked.
“Yeah. Of course I do. I have eyes, I can see who’s on magazine covers and who’s in ads. I can see who’s starring in movies and TV, and I work with computer software, so I know how Photoshop works. I can see what body type for women gets celebrated and lusted after and rewarded, and believe me, Jax, it’s not the size sixteen girl who can’t jam her ample ass in to a sample size ten wedding dress.”
“Sarah –” he began, a bit alarmed now.
“Hey, don’t worry,” she said gently. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in losing weight or doing anything extreme. I work out in the home gym downstairs a couple of times a week, I swim when I can, I eat well – though I never turn down a cinnamon bun – and all that’s good enough for me.”
He relaxed now, and gave her one of his slow, hot grins. “And I give you lots of exercise in other ways, Red. I can get your heart rate going, huh?”
She giggled. “You sure as hell do, Stud. Quite often, actually.” She looked more serious. “The truth is that my body’s strong now, Jax, and it’s almost fully recovered from what happened last year. I respect this body, you know? I’m not going to turn around and damage it, or deny it food, just to fit it in to some goddamn overpriced wedding dress.”
Jax nodded quietly. Yeah, God knows Sarah had fought like hell to recover from the beating that had left her in a coma. She’d had to relearn how to walk and how to work, and she still had dark gaps in her memory.
Mac had told her that the brain damage she’d suffered had been bad enough that she’d probably never remember everything that had been lost, but she’d made her peace with that. She was, quite simply, the most amazing woman that Jax had ever known, and the thought that she might have even one fucking second of feeling badly about herself enraged him.
“OK,” he said calmly. “So what do you want to do? You want to find some other places? Places with a range of sample sizes?”
“I could. Or… I could get my own dress made.”
Jax liked the sound of that. “Like custom-made?”
“Yeah. The thing is, that’s pretty expensive.”
“Aw, hell, baby. I don’t care about the money. You know that.”
“I know. But I do.”
“Well, don’t,” he said firmly. “Let’s get the perfect dress for you. Something that makes you feel sexy and beautiful when you agree to be my wife. Yeah?”
She had tears in her eyes, unable to believe – yet again – that she was actually going to marry this rough, gentle, incredible man in six months.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do exactly that.”
“Good.” He stood up. “And right now? Let’s go to bed. I want to see, and touch, and kiss every inch of your beautiful body.”
“Yeah?” Her breath was coming faster now. “Every inch?”
“Uh-huh. Though, to be fair, I’ll give some of your inches more attention than others.”
“Oh.” She took his extended hand, stood up. "Which of my inches will get most of your attention?”
“Your elbows,” Jax said solemnly. “You have the sexiest elbows I’ve ever seen, and I want to worship them.”
Sarah laughed, then gave a small shriek as he lifted her right up off her feet.
“Come on, baby,” he said as he carried her down the hall to their bedroom. “Let’s go. I have some inches to attend to.”
Aidan and Gabi were curled up on the sofa together. He was holding her close and tight; closer and tighter than he had in ages. He was waiting, though, waiting to see if she’d start to freak out and pull away.
Four months had passed since Gabi had been buried alive and left for dead, and in that four months, she’d had endless nightmares about being trapped in the dark and unable to breathe. Together, they’d worked through so much shit, it was amazing to contemplate: Gabi’s return to their bed to sleep next to Aidan, her return to work at Curves, her return to his arms for longer than ten seconds at a time.
Her biggest fear – the one that she was still struggling with almost hourly – was of being suffocated. It was this fear that made even Aidan’s careful embrace potentially triggering and terrifying; it was also the reason that they hadn’t made love in four months. Gabi was scared to death of losing her breath, and she was afraid of having Aidan pressing down on her. They’d talked about making love with Gabi on top, but she’d backed away from that. She was worried about having him hold her in place, even if she was the one mostly in control.
He’d resolved to wait, though. He’d fucking wait for as long as it took, and that was not up for discussion. So here he sat, holding Gabi close and tight, grateful to be able to do this at all. God knows, if he and King and King’s Men had been even ten minutes later getting to Gabi, he’d be alone on this sofa right now. Sex was no damn big deal, in the grand scheme of things.
Gabi felt a tremor of panic start, and she breathed deeply. Her therapist Francine had taught her some self-calming techniques, and she was getting better at using them. Under her clenched hands, Aidan’s body tensed up as he sensed what was happening.
“You alright, angel?” he asked her. “You need me to let go?”
“No.” She took in more air, felt her chest loosen a bit. “No, don’t let go yet.”
“OK. You let me know, now.”
She nodded, focused on her breath and her heart beat. It was working, she knew, and the panic moved to one side, carried right on past her. She took a shuddering breath, a bit stunned at being able to control her own fear, for the first time in what felt like a long, long time.
Secret Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 5) Page 6
