She was a grown woman, possibly even the mother of my child; I wasn’t going to make demands on her, though everything inside of me balked at her going so far away, even if it was only to Dallas.
“Take care of yourself, and call me every night. Deal?” I lifted a brow.
“Deal.”
“And take this.” I handed her the book.
She finally looked down at it and then grabbed her stomach, cringing. “You meant business when you came over here, Tor.”
I chuckled. “Damn straight I did. And next time, no secrets, Jamie.”
Her lips twisted. “I’m scared.”
“Me too.” I pulled her into me and kissed the top of her head. “Me too.”
Chapter Eight
Jamie
Lying in my bed the next night, exhaustion crept over me like thousands of insect feelers. I closed my eyes and debated whom to call first.
All day I’d been at the conference, smiling, handing out my business cards to prospective client after client, interviewing a few potentials to add to my editorial line up crew, but in the back of my mind one thought kept hammering away at me.
I wanted to talk to Tor.
Last night it’d been all I could do to let him leave my apartment. I hadn’t wanted him there at all in the beginning, but thanks to Zoe always being such a freaking busybody he’d been there and the second he was I realized not only was it not so bad, but that for the past week I’d been a mess of fears and worries until he’d held me.
Until he’d whispered that he’d be there.
More and more my gut was telling me the impossible was happening, and though I was still terrified, I no longer felt so alone in this, either.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I picked up my cell and called Ms. Romero. The hospital was supposed to be discharging Angel tomorrow. He was finally stable enough to go home, which was definitely a good thing.
“Hola?” She gave her automatic response. “Jamie, is that you?” she asked, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Yeah.” I plopped the pillows behind my back. My sides were aching today, had been for the past few hours.
My fingers froze at the sudden realization that eventually she was going to discover the truth of Tor and me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I plastered on a fake smile, hoping that maybe it would help my nerves not to sound through the line.
“Is Angel asleep? I know you guys pack up tomorrow, so I’d like to just say goodnight to him if he’s there.”
“Oh, Marianna didn’t tell you?”
My brows shot up. “Tell me what?”
“They released us early this afternoon. He’s home now, lying in bed. Grumpy as ever, but you know.” She laughed. “At least he’s home.”
My heart ached from the yearning evident in her words. The unspoken words that he was home and safe and she’d try her damndest to make sure he stayed that way this time. I wished it was true, wished I could believe it, but I no longer did.
“Can I talk with him?” This time there was no hiding the glumness from my tone.
“Mija, are you okay?”
My throat squeezed as tears clogged it up. I was far from all right, but none of this was her burden to bear. “I’m just tired is all.”
There was a long pause. “Okay, well, here he is.”
I toed the large stack of manuscript samples I’d printed out today. It wasn’t good for the trees, but it was the best way for me to make solid edits. Maybe out of this pile of twenty potential clients I could impress at least half and make them long-term patrons.
“Hey.” Angel’s sleep-roughened voice snapped me from my daze. “Why aren’t you here?”
I frowned. “Angel, you know I’m trying to build my business, I told you last week I’d be gone. But I come back Sunday night.”
“Well excuse me for being in a fucking coma and not remembering shit,” he snarled.
Lips thinning, I was ready to snap at him. Ready to remind him that that coma was his own damn fault, that he’d freaking answered me back with an okay when I told him where I’d be, and that the mere fact that he expected me to always be at his beck and call made me want to run even further away.
I took several deep breaths through my nose, body shaking from the jolt of adrenaline his words had caused.
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—my head hurts like a mother. But it’s not your fault. Do you forgive me?”
I banged my head against the headboard. “Yes,” I gritted out, hating myself the instant I said it.
It was always like this between us. Him snapping, saying or doing something hurtful, me just blithely accepting it and moving on for the sake of his recovery. I growled.
“No. No, actually I’m not okay. I’m so sick and tired of being your GD doormat.” I pounded the comforter, shifting the papers I’d taken such care to arrange in proper order. “I’m glad you’re okay, but you don’t get to fucking talk like that to me, ever.”
There was such a long pause that I was sure he’d dropped the phone. Angel had developed a type of bipolar disorder from his first head trauma. Super highs coupled with bouts of super lows. It was why I tiptoed around him as I did, why I constantly walked on eggshells, because I never wanted to bring on one of his moods. But the past few years it was getting harder and harder for me to curb my tongue.
“Jamie,” his voice sounded so small, “I love you. I’m sorry I’m so hard to handle. I’m so sorry. I try, Jamie—” His words shuddered.
And I knew he was crying, doing the silent sobbing that’d always broken my heart and made me take him back. My jaw trembled, the tears already too close to the surface inside of me because of my own damn problems came crashing down. I didn’t know what to say.
He sniffed and blew his nose before whispering, “My head is killing me. Doctors won’t give me the hard stuff because of my addictions,” he sighed. “I miss you so bad. I need you home with me, Jams.”
He’d been found in a car with another woman, full of coke, and doing God only knew what. What kind of self worth did I have if I took him back? But on the flipside, what kind of person was I if I just walked away when he’d literally crashed and burned and left his already depleted family to pick up the pieces on their own?
As much as the guilt wanted me to tell him that I’d take him back, I had much bigger problems. Problems neither he nor his family could help me out with. For once in my life I needed to be selfish and think of me first.
“I don’t know, Angel. I’ve got so much going on in my life right now, things are…” I said, squeezing my eyes shut, “…complicated.”
I shifted on the bed and a lance of pain ripped through my middle. Grunting, I grabbed hold of my stomach. But as quickly as the pain came it was gone, leaving me shaken and sweaty from shock, but feeling fine.
Was that a normal part of pregnancy? I didn’t remember ever hearing woman talk about stomach pains, though of course most of my friends were a long ways from having children. I had brought that book Tor had given me; I could read it after I got off the phone to see if maybe there was something about it there.
I couldn’t believe how thoughtful he’d been to do it. It made a smile tug at my lips to think of that big guy walking into a bookshop to buy it.
“Hey you,” Angel’s soft voice filtered through my ear.
I jerked back to the present.
“What?”
“I feel like you should be asking me questions, demanding to know who she was.” Angel exhaled wearily.
I don’t know, maybe I should have been. That’s what people did when they cared enough, right? If they loved or hated, they wanted to know. But not even from the moment that Marianna had left me that message had it ever once crossed my mind to go digging deeper. I was just numb about it all.
“Why aren’t you asking, baby?”
I curled my nose. I didn’t want him calling me baby anymore. I almost couldn’t believe how quickly I was ready to let him go, but when I thought about it, this wasn’t really quick at all. Each hurt had caused a tiny fissure that compounded and compounded. Growing bigger and bigger until the fissure had turned into a crack and the crack into a fracture that was now so deep it made it easy to want to walk away.
“Because it doesn’t matter. That’s why.” I sighed. “Look, I promised to call Zoe before bed. I’ve got to go.”
“Okay.” His breaths echoed between us. “Will you come see me when you get back?”
“Yeah.” My heart clenched and I ran my fingers over my belly.
“I’m going to fight for you, Jamie. I know that now. This time, this is it.”
He said those same words too often. There did come a point when words literally meant nothing anymore.
“What makes this time any different than the last one? You’ve done this to me before.”
He growled and I could hear his breathing grow hard. “I was in that car with that girl because you’d left me, because I was broken.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so dramatic. I’d left you a year ago. Yeah, we talked, because I’d still like to consider you my friend, but don’t try to pass that lame ass excuse off on me and make me think that one morning you woke up with the epiphany that I’d left—”
“That’s exactly what happened!” he snarled. “My brain isn’t right, you know that. I can’t handle these demons all the time, but if you think I ever stopped loving you, you’re wrong. I always knew those girls weren’t you.”
“Fuck you, Angel!” I snapped. “So you screw their lights out but deep down you wub me so much that it pains you. That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”
I was huffing like I’d run a marathon, I was so angry. Every time I let him do this to me. Every single damn time. I was a pathetic person to just keep hanging in there.
He was calm when he spoke next. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. When the darkness comes I don’t want it touching you. So I leave. I run away and find someone who doesn’t matter. Because I hate myself so much. But you are always going to be the one for me and I am going to get myself straight, Jams.”
Once I would have died to hear those words. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Mama told me you were at the hospital every day—people don’t do that unless there is still love there. The boy you knew in high school, he’s still in me, Jamie, and I swear to God I want him back. But I don’t think I can do it without you. I love you.”
I didn’t tell him I loved him, even after he repeated it again. But I did say goodbye, and somewhere inside me the words felt final.
I did dial Zoe next, but she wasn’t home. After leaving a message I hung up, and with a stomach full of butterflies I dialed the one number I’d wanted to call from the beginning. Tor picked up on the second ring.
“Eskelde?” His softly accented voice washed over me, causing my lashes to flutter and my toes to curl.
“What does that word mean?” I had to know, the way he always said it, how it made me feel, I had to know.
The sounds of drums and strings played in the background. I’d obviously caught him during band practice. I smiled, wondering if he was wearing the sexy horned helmet again.
“My beloved one,” he finally answered.
I exhaled slowly. That should scare me so much. “How long, Tor? How long have you felt like this about me?”
On my worst days I was blunt, but being on the phone made it easier to ask questions that I’d been dying to ask since the night we’d had sex.
“Years, Jamie.”
I laughed, feeling aglow inside. Happy and effervescent, not like I had when I’d been on the phone with Angel. Guilt tried to worm in, but I refused to let it.
“So you’ve been pining after me for years, hmm? Interesting.”
His chuckle was like dark chocolate, rich and velvety. “I never said I was pining, woman. Don’t paint a picture of me I could never hope to live up to.”
I stuck out my tongue. “Boo. I don’t like that answer.”
I heard his smile, and it warmed my heart. “I’ve always tried to get you to notice me.”
“Really?” I crossed my legs. “I never even realized.”
“Then you’re not very observant.”
“Jeez, your insults warm the cockles of my heart, seriously.”
He snorted and I giggled. This was fun. I knew we were totally doing this thing all backward—in a perfect world I would have met him, fallen in love, had sex, then had the baby. Not the other way around, but in any direction this thing choose to happen, I was going to follow wherever it led.
I strummed my belly.
“Jamie, if you’d ever even given me half a chance I would have pursued much harder, but—”
I sighed and pulled open the pack of gum on the bedside table. The taste of mint flooded my tongue. “Angel was always in the way,” I finished for him.
“I suppose, yes.”
“I’m sorry for that.” I kicked the sheets down, scooting under them and shutting off the lamp, casting the room into a blanket of darkness. If I closed my eyes I could almost pretend he was here in the room with me.
The edits would have to wait until tomorrow. Rolling onto my side, I breathed a sigh when the pressure helped relieve the constant dull throb in my lower back.
“You couldn’t have known,” he whispered.
Hugging a pillow to my breast, I shook my head. “I wish I had. Is that weird? You feel so real to me, comfortable. We barely know each other.” I snort-laughed.
“Then know me now. Ask me anything.”
I grinned. “I hear the music behind you—are you sure I’m not interrupting?”
“You are. But I don’t care, they’ll just have to go on without me right now because in this moment, you’re far more important.”
My belly tickled, and I bit the edge of my lip so hard I was sure it would bleed. What I was feeling now was full-on crush mode. That warm puppy love phase where things were beautiful and perfect, but life had taught me this wouldn’t last.
There’d be rough, choppy waters ahead. But for now, it felt so good to not be there.
“Tor?”
“Yes?”
“Is this real?”
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was asking him, mainly because that one question enveloped about twenty more. What I wanted to know was that he wasn’t going to bail on me, that it was okay for me to share and let him into my life. That no matter what the outcome was with Angel’s family when they found out what I’d done, that he’d be there for me. For us. I was willing to try again, but only if I knew he was too.
“Eskelde, I’ve only been waiting for the day that you would let me in. This is very real, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t think I’m a very nice person. I’m moody, and Zoe tells me I get really catty when I’m hungry. I don’t believe her, but she’s not the only one to tell me that. I like to read at night in bed. And sometimes I let the laundry pile up. I hate cleaning bathrooms.”
He laughed. “I could give you a list of my flaws, but I’m afraid I’d run you off. Just know I’m not perfect either. Don’t expect it out of me. All I can offer you is my sincere truth, if I’m not happy, I’ll tell you, and I hope you would do the same for me. But I like to play music until I fall asleep, or sometimes I sketch in charcoal and leave dust on the sheets. I don’t mind cooking but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I’ll clean toilets, but I don’t dust. Ever.”
Placing my fist in my mouth so as not to wake up the neighboring rooms with my cackling, I gave a muffled chortle. “That sounds pretty perfect to me.” I nibbled on the corner of my lip. “I saw a thundercloud in
the sky this afternoon. It made me think of you.”
He sighed. “I miss you.”
“Me too. It’s crazy, but I really do. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Tor. I’m not very good at depending on others not to disappoint me. The only one who never has is Zo. But I promise, I’m going to try, we don’t really have a choice now, do we?”
“No. We don’t. Have you read the book?”
I patted the thick book on the stand next to me. “I meant to, but I’m so tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open today.”
“Please don’t overdo it, okay? I worry about you, especially when I’m not there to help.”
Wiggling my toes together, I squeezed the pillow harder. Imagining for a second it was him. Wishing like hell that it was.
“You should go to sleep, my heart. Call me tomorrow, okay?”
My heart…
Wow, if I wasn’t already halfway toward being infatuated with him that would definitely have done it. I kept waiting for his ugly to show, kept waiting for prince charming to turn into the warty frog, because I was spiraling so fast and so hard the fall would be terrifying alone.
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. I was just disentangling myself from a messy, horrible relationship, walking into a new one was such a stupid idea. But because of the kid, I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.
I had momentarily thought of an abortion when the stick had shown pregnant. The abortion pill, telling a doctor to just cut it out—it’d all flashed through my head in quick succession. Mainly because the fear had consumed me. But as quickly as it’d come over me, I’d just as quickly discarded it. I didn’t think I could ever actually go through with lying down on a table and letting a doctor cut into me. So I’d also considered adoption, but now with Tor things were changing again.
I wasn’t sure I was ready for any of this, but I was beyond the point of having a lot of options left me.
Rockers After Dark: 6 Book Bundle of Sexy Musicians Page 66
