by J. L. Beck
This same man had saved my life right when I needed him. Not only that, but he was connected to Devon just as I was. He was the boss to the one man I loved more than life. My Father’s past and my own almost lined up exactly. He had endured a similar fate as I losing my mom.
“I just…” I stumbled over my words again. The door opened behind my father, but I didn’t even notice the person walking in. My mind was trying to work around the shit storm that had been placed in front of me. My life wasn’t just an out of this world mess; it was borderline insane and it had its own universe.
“I know it’s hard to believe. Hell, I can hardly wrap my mind around it, but I feel it and that makes it enough for me to believe it.” He smiled deeply, the joyous look taking ages off his appearance. “I thought you would’ve been,” he scratched his head, “I don’t know... off at college by now, or at least have a husband and some kids of your own running around. Finding you in the middle of an undercover sting operation was the last place I could have ever imagined running into you.” His face said it all. He wasn’t happy to have been rescuing his daughter from a gangster.
“I am…” My mouth felt dry and my eyes began to water.
I had lost so much.
My mother. Jamie. School.
In the same instance, I had gained so much.
Devon. My father. And, hopefully, a new life.
“I was going to school. I mean… I was just having a hard time, and then everything happened, and I needed money so I just took a leave absence,” I corrected myself.
“When are you planning to go back and where the hell is your mother? Shouldn’t she still be taking care of you? At the very least, watching over you to help keep you out of trouble? I mean, I ain’t got much experience with being a parent, but I’m positive the work doesn’t end when you turn eighteen.”
He hadn’t a clue what being a parent was, but he still understood. He knew the love and effort that went into it. I knew that much just from talking to him. I loved my mother for the singular reason she gave me life, but that was as far as it ever went. She wasn’t supportive of me or of anything that I had done. Once I started dating Jamie, she reminded me of it every day. Eventually, it became too much for both of us.
“She’s gone. I don’t know where she is, and I haven’t seen her in over a year. She kicked me out when we got into a really bad argument. We weren’t able to fix our problems so there was no need to keep in touch.” His eyes grew as wide as saucers as his fist landed hard against the table. It was evident he was mad about my mom being a less than stellar parent.
“You mean to tell me, she just left you without a care in the world as to what you would do with yourself?” He gritted out as his jaw ticked.
“She did, but it’s okay. I’m okay without her, and I have been. She didn’t do anything but make my life that much harder to get through. If you ask me, it was for the better.” Apparently, my admission didn’t soothe him as I had hoped it would because he still looked as if he wanted to Hulk-slam someone through the floor.
I understood his anger though. He had lost his right to be a father to me, and the one parent I did have slacked at it. That sort of thing makes you wish you could go back in time and redo the past, make everything right, not just for yourself but for your child also.
He loved me, and when I look into the eyes that replicated mine, I could see if he had been given the chance to raise me, he would’ve cared for me far greater than my mother ever had.
“Just… try to calm down. It’s over. The past is the past, and there isn’t anything we can do about it now. The only thing we can do is to move forward and live in the present... maybe get to know each other.” I tried to reassure him and let him know that no matter how weird this was, I did want him in my life, but from the look on his face, I could tell what my mother had done to both of us was pushing him into a very dark place.
“I’m sorry, and I hope one day you can forgive me for my part in all of this. Getting to know each other would be one of the best things to happen to me in years, but right now, I need—I need fucking air. I have to clear my mind,” he said as he pushed the chair he sat in away from the table. It scraped across the floor loudly and then the door slammed in my face just like my life had that night Jamie left. It all came crashing down all at once, and I was barely staying afloat in the madness.
“Well, this is interesting.” Alzerro’s voice flowed into my mind, breaking my train of thought. I hadn’t realized it was he who had entered the room earlier during my conversation with Frank. I turned my attention to him. His face was smug, but there was also something else there. A caring, nurturing nature maybe. It didn’t seem like something he would often show or even a trait he would have. He reminded me of a man who was far from a law abiding citizen.
“You learn something new every day.” I didn’t want to talk about this with someone I hardly knew. I didn’t even want to acknowledge it at this point. I was overdue for a glass of wine and a good book. Only then could I pull myself from my disarrayed life for a moment.
“I would agree with that.” Of course, he would. His single sentences and lurking eyes were annoying the hell out of me. What did he want?
“What do you want? I know you aren’t in here to actually discuss what you happened to hear.” Even if he was, I wasn’t going to talk about it any further.
“Do you know who I am?” He didn’t really ask. It was more of you-don’t-know-who-I-am kind of thing.
“An FBI agent? Or are you the man who likes to throw women onto desks and threaten them with knives? Wait... I got it. You’re Devon’s best friend, his partner, and from what he has told me, you are somebody’s husband and dad. By the sounds of it, you got the entire white picket fence and two point five kids thing going for you. Living the American dream much?” I didn’t want to be a judgmental bitch, but I felt the claws coming out. After what he had done to me back at the Casino, he deserved whatever I could give him.
“You have no idea who I really am. No idea what I have done to others. I was once a monster and I could take someone out with a snap of my fingers. I’m no longer that person and I haven’t been for a very long time. That ‘somebody’ who allowed me to be their husband was once in a position a lot like yours. She stormed into my life hell bent on doing what she wanted to. She fucked with my head and made me realize just how wrong I had been living my life. Because of me, she lost a lot of people she cared about, but through it all, she never gave up on me. I was the last fucker on Earth to think I deserved her love, but somehow, she made me feel worthy of it. Her love held us together like glue, and when that wasn’t enough, I held us together.”
He pushed off the wall, crossing the room, his footsteps echoing against the floor. I kept my mouth shut not wanting to say anything that would set him off.
“I know you’re hurting right now. I know you’re mad and you probably can’t see through the fucked up mess your life has become, but you have to know there is always a calm after the storm. You just made it through yours—the calm is coming.”
My lips twitched, wanting to smile. This big, bad man was talking to me as if he were my therapist. Without even knowing me, he had me figured out. How could that be? Was I that easy to read?
“I don’t know how I feel. Everything I have felt in the past twenty-four hours is spiraling around inside of me and I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my shit. I’ve already lost so much and I put myself into a situation I should have never been in the first place. So, yea, I’m hurting, but I’m also frustrated, irritated, and mad. I’m mad at my mother, at every man I have ever known, and I feel like my life is one big bruise that will never heal.” I had just confessed all the things that were running through my mind. I had unleashed a river, and the dam that protected all the madness was on the verge of collapsing.
“I have been here, right where you are. I know what it feels like to walk around mad with so much anger brewing inside of you that you can’t see which
way is up or down. You only see red and, eventually, you will drown in your own self-pity. My wife, Bree went through the same thing. I watched her walk down a dark road just like the one you are on, just like the one I was on. I won’t let you stay there in that place you are in, and I definitely will not let you leave here—at least not like this.”
Panic seized me. They couldn’t keep me here. For what? Because I was angry? I was allowed to be angry if I wanted to be angry.
“What do you mean you will not let me leave here? I am not staying here. I have no reason to.” I was on the defense, and I refused to be bullied into something. I wouldn’t stay. I couldn’t. Not after everything that had happened. And especially not knowing what the future held.
“Your very reason to stay here is just in the room across the hall. He’s beating himself up over all of this, which he should be, with all the shit he did wrong, but that’s not the point. The point is—he risked a lot of fucking shit for you. His job, his reputation, his life. Hell, my life.”
Was this man on drugs? I knew the obligations Devon had. I knew that what he risked was everything, but it wasn’t just for me. He didn’t come here just for me.
“Does that mean anything to you?” His voice had an angry undertone to it, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn’t care. This man had no idea what Devon and I had gone through in the past and that a future between us was obsolete.
“It means more than you will ever know, but it doesn’t change shit. He told me we couldn’t be together. You can’t make someone stay when all they want to do is leave. I know that more than anyone, and I’m not willing to put myself through that misery all over again.” I dug my nails into my hands to stop myself from crying. Thinking about Devon leaving again hurt more than anything.
It was like a recovering alcoholic being put in front of an endless supply of booze. Devon was my one endless addiction and when tempted with a taste of him, you had better believe I was taking a sip.
“He’s a male. We have a tendency to think we know what’s best when in reality we don’t. He wants you. He loves you, and I refuse to let you leave without fixing this.” I could see the fierceness in Zerro’s eyes. The need to not give up. He was begging me with those honey orbs not to give up on his friend. He cared for Devon just as much as I did. He wanted to see him happy. There was even a little piece of him that wanted to see both of us happy.
“I want to but it’s not what he wants. I need him to want this. To want me. To want us,” I said as my heart threatened to shatter with every word.
Zerro’s hands flew into the air dramatically. “Who cares what he wants. What he wants is you—even if he thinks he’s doing something fucking poetic by giving you up, which, by the way—he isn’t. None of it matters. Nothing he wants matters because if it did… If it did, you wouldn’t be here. In the big scheme of things, you’re the one thing he cares about. The one person. You’re his reason for breathing. Every time I saw him look at you, I knew. He looks at you the way I look at my wife. Remember, only a man who has been there knows.”
For some reason, what Zerro said hit me. Devon had always tried to be the good guy. He didn’t want to drag me into this mess, but he hadn’t realized I was already there. I had been there the entire time. If I gave up now, it would be my fault. I would be just like my mother. A quitter. The tears that would come would be because I didn’t try hard enough, and when I ended up unhappy years from now, I would have to look in the mirror every day and know it was because of me.
“I—” I didn’t get to finish because Zerro’s eyes sucked me in.
“I don’t want to hear you say you can’t. I know it and you know it as well...you can and you will. If you don’t try and you lose him, you will be the one to blame. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t be the reason for your own unhappiness. Fight and if you feel like you aren’t getting through to him…fight some more. Sometimes our toughest battles keep us from something we want only because we choose not to fight.” Zerro spoke with his own personal knowledge. In his eyes, I could see the turmoil that had once ruled his life.
I didn’t say another word, or even think about saying no. I couldn’t. Not when he was right, and I was just looking at my fears. Isn’t that what I wanted? Love? If I didn’t fight for it, it wasn’t worth it. I deserved a slice of happiness and that’s exactly what Devon was to me.
He was my battle.
He was my fight, and I would go to war if it meant making him see that for us—not being together was no longer an option. I would give us both the time we needed to think everything over, but if he didn’t come to me, then I would go after him. This time, I wasn’t letting him walk away. I would fight. For myself, for him, and for our future. He was my own personal dream and there was no way I wouldn’t try to turn us into a reality.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Devon
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes it puts you through the wringer. Sometimes you fuck up—no, you almost always fuck up, but isn’t that what makes your journey even better? What makes it beautiful? My journey with Tegan was anything but easy, but it was worth it. It was worth it because, to her, I meant the world, and to me, she was my world.
When I thought back on everything I had ever done, I knew I would regret not taking a chance on us, on her. She was my chance.
My chance at love.
My chance at redemption.
My chance to give us both everything we never had growing up.
I couldn’t walk away from my chance again.
After leaving the station, we were escorted to the same hotel. I don’t know how I managed to stay away for a full day, but I did. I wanted to wait a couple of days, give us both the time we needed to think, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to see her.
I knew what I was going to tell her, and after contemplating it over and over again, I knew if I didn’t do it today, I never would.
The numbers stared back at me as I raised my fist to knock on the door.
Room 203.
My knuckles beat against the wood as I stood there awkwardly waiting for her to answer. If she answered.
I had caught wind of the news that Frank was her father. My boss, the father of the woman I loved. It was so fucked up, even more so because, when I made the choice to leave Tegan, it was based on Frank’s words. He told me if I had someone, leaving now would be easier than leaving later.
Frank was unable to find Teg or her mother. His exact words were that somehow, the bitch had managed to stay off the grid for years taking jobs that paid under the table. When it came time for Tegan to start school, I figured he had stopped looking. The look on his face when he told me he basically gave up was one I had seen more times than not. It was a look that mirrored my own. A look of regret. Looks like Frank and me were alike in more ways than one. Two regretful fuckers seeking forgiveness.
“Who... who is it?” she asked in a groggy voice.
“It’s me. Let me in,” I responded, the vulnerability of what I was feeling evident in my voice.
“Devon…” Her voice was full of sleep as the sound of her unlocking the door met my ears, right before she swung it open. She had small bags under her eyes and wrinkles formed on her forehead as she openly yawned in my face. Gliding my eyes over her body, I noticed the little boy shorts and cami that she had on. Fuck, she was adorable. No, she was beyond adorable. Far more than I could’ve ever asked for.
“Can I come in?” I asked, holding back my smile. She hesitated briefly before stepping back and allowing me to come in. I was a bundle of nerves as I slipped through the door, an uneasiness flowing through me rapidly. I wasn’t sure what she would say. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she kicked me right out of the fucking room.
“What’s going on?” I could hear the fear in her voice. Her vocal cords tight and her words rushed. She was just as nervous as I was if not more. We both had been through so much, tormented by the demons of our past. But that’s exactly what it was—the past. Word
s wouldn’t do what I needed to say justice. In all honesty, no amount of words could even begin to express what I felt for this woman. There was no way one could possibly come up with enough words to cover our history. Words were just that... words. They were spoken, but who was to say what was being said was true? Tegan and I had hurt each other back and forth so many times with our words.
What I needed to do was touch, to feel, to erase every hurtful thing I had ever said to her. To make her see there was more than ‘I love you’ that needed to be said. I needed to worship her and the ground she walked on.
Without even thinking about it, I stepped into her space. I took notice of the way her eyes grew big with curiosity and the small gasp that left her lips as they parted. I took her in for who she was, for what she was. Everything.
Bringing my hands up to her face, I cupped her cheeks in my palms and brought my face toward hers. Her eyelashes fluttered closed just as my mouth pressed against hers. The softness of her lips against mine seemed to stop time. There was no FBI, there was no past, and there was no pain. For this moment in time, there were only us, just her and I. Breathing, kissing—becoming one with one another.
Her lips didn’t move against mine for what seemed to be the longest second in my life, and then something snapped in her as the air around her changed. Her teeth bit into my bottom lip and I smiled to myself. She was devouring me like I was a cool glass of water that she hadn’t tasted in months and I was. For her, I was the first rain after a long drought. A wilted flower that had finally been watered and brought back to life.
“Please tell me you came to stay… Please tell me all this means you want us. That this is the end of the past and the start of something else. Please tell me, because if not… if not, I can’t do this,” she pleaded, her lips still against mine.
Our lips and my hands on her were the only things touching. It was the most intimate thing in the world because I couldn’t have felt more connected to her than in that moment. It was as if the air around us was connected to an unwavering current.