The Things I Never Said (Damage Control #0.5)

by Jo Raven

  THE THINGS I NEVER SAID

  (A short epilogue to MICAH)

  by Jo Raven

  Evangeline loves Micah, Micah loves Evangeline, and it seems like the perfect Summer—so why is he acting weird? Withdrawn, distant, not talking about whatever it is that’s bothering him. He won’t tell – and she won’t give up, not until she sees him smile again.

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  THE THINGS I NEVER SAID © Jo Raven 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Evangeline

  Summer is here, and it’s sticky hot. The park is full of people, children running and screaming in the trimmed grass, dogs barking at each other. There are families with their picnic spread on blankets, athletes jogging or rowing their canoes in the lake… and Micah.

  My boyfriend.

  I watch him sleep in the fading sunrays, lying on his back in the grass. He’s cast in gold, his hair and lashes glittering, his strong, bare arms made of molten bronze. He looks so relaxed like that, dressed in a black tank top and faded jeans. Relaxed, and gorgeous.

  God I love him… It scares me how much I love him.

  We’ve only been together two months, but we fought for it, tooth and nail. We survived my crazy ex-boyfriend’s stalking and attack on Micah and his friends and my family’s disapproval. My parents and overprotective brother thought Blake, my ex, was better for me than Micah who lived on the streets for a while and has no family. Boy was he wrong. Blake turned out to be a psycho, while Micah…

  Micah is the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s kind and strong, patient and protective. He looks out for me, does everything in his power to make me happy – and I am. From cuddling on the sofa to watch movies to cooking together, taking long walks and posing as he sketches me – and let’s not forget the hot sex, because, oh God, it’s really, really hot – he makes me smile day in and day out. Makes me feel safe. Makes me believe I can do anything I put my mind into. Makes me love him.

  And yet…

  He’s been acting a bit weird lately, tense and worried-like, his blue eyes going dark when he thinks I’m not looking. When confronted, he shrugs it off, says it’s nothing.

  It makes my heart ache to think there could be something, anything wrong between us. What if I am blind to the problem, blinded by my love for him? What if he’s having second thoughts? What if he’s about to break my heart? I know so many broken-hearted girls. I just never thought I could be one of them.

  Something my friend Cassie told me about Micah a couple of months back haunts me.

  “He’s too gorgeous to be a keeper.”

  He is gorgeous, that much is true. His body is lithe and muscular, his arms bulging with muscles where they rest in the grass. His lips are soft, his jaw square, his lashes thick and long. My gaze returns to his lips. I want to touch them, run my fingertip over them. I want to kiss him awake, see the moment his dazed look melts away only to be replaced by something darker and full of desire.

  But I hold back and just watch his chest rise and fall, his fingers curl and uncurl, his eyes move under his lids as he dreams.

  What is he dreaming of? He never tells. Sometimes I find him in the shower, hands braced on the wall, head bowed. Sometimes he wakes me up and enters me fast and hard, a storm in his eyes. And sometimes he lies there shaking, and the only thing he has admitted to me so far is that his past wasn’t kind to him. That being an orphan, he got the short end of the stick, and his time in group homes and foster homes wasn’t good.

  Has to be the understatement of the year. And I wish…

  “Ev?”

  He’s awake, blue glinting under his golden lashes. His voice is raspy from the cough that was plaguing him until recently. It’s all but gone now, the last reminder of his struggle with Legionnaire’s disease which he caught in one of the group homes where he lived before I met him.

  He’s drifting off again. Despite being better, he hasn’t been sleeping so well lately.

  Why am I thinking of the past now? It’s tranquil here, with the blue of the lake, the green of the grass and Micah’s gold. He’s with me, and he loves me. I should stop doubting. I should accept happiness.

  Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just scared we’ll end up like my mom and dad, sleeping in the same bed and yet worlds apart, nothing in common, no affection and no desire.

  Not that Micah and I live together. He hasn’t asked me to move in with him, and I haven’t offered. I’m scared of so many stupid things…

  “Ev… you okay?” Micah reaches for me, and I take his hand, tangle my fingers with his. He turns onto his side, sprawled so gracefully on the lawn, a beautiful statue, eyes heavy-lidded with sleep.

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “I’m okay.”

  He says nothing, only tugs me closer. I tug back, and the corners of his mouth lift in a faint smile. His fingers tighten around mine and he pulls me to him slowly, inexorably. It was like this from the start, from the first moment I saw him: he’s a flame, and I’m caught in his glow.

  I lean back, try to resist.

  A sudden sharp tug, and I’m falling on top of him. He rolls, hauling me up so that I’m fully pressed to his body, our noses almost touching, my breasts crushed to his muscled chest.

  He chuckles softly at my wide-eyed expression. “Hey there, beautiful.”

  And I’m caught again – this time by the sound of his laughter. I love that deep, throaty sound. It makes me want to smile, and at the same time turns me on, a magical thing.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” I gasp when his hands move down to my ass and squeeze. “Micah…”

  “Yeah?” He winks at me, and I gasp again as he hardens quickly against my belly. “What’s up? Well, apart from the obvious.”

  I laugh, and he silences me with a long, deep kiss. Caught by surprise, ensnared body and soul, I moan when his tongue slips into my mouth and strokes mine. Sparks fly down my spine and my eyes fall closed. The world fades like every time I am with him, my universe shrinking to my desire for him, the need to feel him deep inside me.

  So I kiss him back, planting my hands on his broad shoulders and taking my time to taste him, his all-male spice exploding on my tongue. Delicious. I drag my lips over his, our tongues tangling. His hands slide under my short summer dress to my waist, his hips roll up—

  A dog barks nearby, startling me. Sounds rush back in, and the world returns into focus.

  “Shit.” I break the kiss and push up, breathing hard.

  He moans, blinks dazedly as I climb off him and tug my dress back down. “What?”

  A mother with her little daughter glare at me and I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle nervous laughter.

  “Oh my God. I think we put up quite a show,” I hiss. “The whole park is staring at us.”

  “Fuck them.”

  I giggle as I turn toward him, realizing a moment later that his voice is strangely cold. He’s lying there, propped up on his elbows, and his blue gaze is distant. His brows are drawn together in a dark frown, even as his chest rises and falls sharply and his arousal is clearly outlined in the material of his jeans.

  “What’s wrong?” I whisper.

  “I want to kiss my girl in
public, like everyone else. Am I not good enough to be here? Maybe I have ‘scum’ written on my forehead? Is it too much to ask—?”

  Before I can process what he’s saying, he scrambles up to his feet and storms away.

  What the hell happened? I just gape at his broad back as he strides away, too stunned to react. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s the most patient, good-natured person I know. This rant, this lashing out…

  This lashing out means something is seriously wrong. It’s not my imagination. Something is troubling Micah, and I’m going to find out what it is and fix it.

  Grabbing my bag, I scramble up and run after him, and yeah, everyone in the park is definitely looking at us now.

  But Micah is right: fuck them. He is the only person in the world that counts right now and he’s angry.

  And if I’m not wrong, that means he’s in pain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MICAH

  The air is turning cooler as I stride through the park. The sun is setting over the buildings, blinding me with its dying light, and I keep going, blind and deaf, burning inside.

  What the fuck’s wrong with me? Why did I start spouting stupid stuff like that, instead… instead of the things I really need to say – to her.

  I’m chicken-shit. Too scared to believe she’ll stay with me, that she won’t up and leave one day soon. I mean, why the hell is she with me? Does she realize…

  Probably not. Thing is, she knows my name, knows I never met my parents, but apart from that, she knows nothing about me. She doesn’t really know who I am. Doesn’t know about my past. My wounds. She can’t see where my anger comes from. Will she still want me when she knows? Won’t it drive her away?

  Can I survive that?

  Dammit. I want her in my bed, in my apartment. In my life. I want to wake up to her smile every morning, but how can I work up the nerve to ask her to move in with me when she doesn’t know me?

  And if she wants to know more about me? I’m fucking dying to tell her, get it off my chest, and yet would do anything in my power to avoid it.

  Hey, Ev, do you know what my life was like before I met you? What I had to do to survive? What gives me nightmares at night?

  Christ. I slow down, kick at a loose stone and shove my hands into my pockets. This is driving me fucking nuts.

  “Micah!” Ev is behind me, and damn, I hate it that she saw me at my worst.

  Not my worst. No, definitely not my worst. Just the worst she’s ever seen me in, and how fucked up is that, that a little rant against the unfairness of this fucking world can shock her?

  She’s no princess, but compared to me… Compared to me she’s a queen.

  But she’s seen the streets, my mind counters. She works with homeless teenagers. She knows how bad things can be.

  Can she? How different is it, meeting abused boys and girls you don’t really know and finding out that your boyfriend…

  Fuck.

  I force my feet to a stop. Taking a calming breath, I turn to face her. Her features are pinched with worry, her eyes a bit too bright.

  Jesus, I’m hurting her, the one person I never want to hurt.

  I chew on the inside of my cheek, roll my shoulders. “Sorry about that,” I say, sorry about all the things that are tearing me up inside and spilling into my life.

  Into your life.

  She shakes her head, pouts a little, a crinkle forming between her copper brows. Damn, she’s adorable when she does that. Whatever she does. If she leaves me…

  “Take me home?” she says and I nod, a band of steel squeezing around my chest, cutting off my air.

  Yeah, asshole, you hurt her. Of course you did.

  Dammit, I can’t stand it. I’ll tell her. Fucking ask her. Do anything to fix this. Ruining things is all I’ve ever been good at, and this relationship thing… Never knew how to do it, how to see beyond myself, beyond my survival.

  Now it’s swim or die, and I’ll do my best to swim. I’ll fight for the right to be with Ev.

  Because, hell, I can’t live without her.

  ***

  The ride back is quiet. The small apartment Ev shares with another girl, Kayla, is north, quite far from the one I share with Seth.

  Fuck, I don’t want to drop her off. I want her in my room, on my bed.

  Get your shit together, Micah, and say what you wanna say.

  “Hey, Ev…” I stall at the traffic lights, clench my hands on the wheel. “Wanna come to my place tonight?”

  She doesn’t reply, and when I shoot her a quick sideways look, I find her worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

  So sexy.

  But she hasn’t said yes, and the tension returns to my shoulders. “Ev?”

  “What’s going on with you?” she asks, and her soft voice isn’t helping. If she yelled at me, and I lost it, and we got into a fight, it might be easier to say all those things that have been banging around inside my head for weeks now.

  “I just want to go home with you. Fuck, I just…” My teeth are gritting. What’s this – this emotion that’s hitting me like a truckload of bricks, crushing me? “Please, Ev.”

  Her small mouth presses into a tight line, and her eyes are still tight around the corners. It makes me jittery. I’m not good at gauging people’s reactions.

  All I know is, in the past, when I upset people around me, it ended bad.

  My stomach twists as I wait for her to say something, even if it’s just to tell me to fuck off, to tell me I screwed up and she needs time, or some other bullshit like that.

  I haven’t found myself in this downward spiral of fear in a long while.

  “Ev…” Her name comes out mangled and I force my jaw to unclench. “I’m—”

  “Let me call Kayla,” she cuts in, her voice still soft, “tell her I won’t be home tonight.”

  A sigh of relief escapes me, and I nod, my voice gone.

  Home. I want my home to be her home. I want us to be a home.

  Fucking hell. If only I could be content with what I have… God knows it’s more than I’ve ever had before. She makes me greedy for more. More pleasure. More happiness. More everything.

  Ask too much and you’ll fall, my mind warns, a seductive, dark whisper. You want to be happy like everyone else? What makes you think you deserve that? What makes you think this isn’t an illusion, a trick to make you trip and fall again? Watch your back. That’s what saved your life all these years. Don’t you know yet that when things seem to go right, boy, you’re already off the rails and accelerating?

  “Fuck…” I shake my head, trying to dispel the thought, and Ev gives me a narrowed-eyed look as she calls her roomie and lets her know about tonight.

  Great, now I look like a lunatic, twitching and muttering to myself.

  Never wanted a girl so much before, with every fiber of my being. Didn’t know it would turn my world upside down.

  “Micah. Hey.” She has put a hand on my arm, and I didn’t even notice. A spark of amusement lights up her pretty eyes and gives me hope. “All set. Let’s go.”

  Hope is all I have left, so I nod.

  She loves me, doesn’t she? I will open myself to her and hope. She saved me once without knowing who I was. Gotta hope she’ll do it again once she knows the rest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EVANGELINE

  Something’s going on, I’m sure of it, and my heart is pounding in my ears. Struggling to keep my expression blank, to hide my fear, I lean back in my seat and let Micah drive us to his apartment. He’s acting so out of character, it has to be something serious.

  Then again… I’ve known him for all of two months. How do I decide what out of character is for him?

  I bet it has to do with the past he won’t tell me about. Why else would he avoid the topic every time I ask? Although doubting him makes me feel like a horrible person, I can’t help wondering. About his childhood. About the foster families and group homes where he lived.

  It never ceases to am
aze me that he can laugh and love, that he is capable of feeling so much without ever having had a real family to call his own. Without the affection and acceptance that comes with it.

  Sometimes I sense the reason he doesn’t want to talk about it all is that he’s embarrassed. I couldn’t care less about what went before, except it seems to be hurting him, like a thorn lodged deep in his flesh, infected, festering.

  And, to be honest, deep inside of me, I’m scared shitless that he will decide he can’t do it. That he can’t go on living like nothing happened, that this brave, solid front he’s putting up is just that: a façade, and that he’s about to shatter behind it, go to pieces.

  Since I started working with the mom of Asher Devlin’s girlfriend at the National Runaway Safeline, I’ve heard horror stories about kids growing up in appalling conditions and about the terrible psychological scars they end up with. I wish I’d been there for him back then to keep him safe from harm, to surround him with love. All I want…

  If only I could shush the voice of doubt that tells me I’m not seeing the real Micah, but a facet of him. That he may wake up tomorrow and say he can’t love me. I imagine things and assume things, but truth is, I don’t really know anything about him – whereas he knows everything about me.

  I sigh. All I want is to be with him, but what if it isn’t enough for him?

  ***

  “Seth not in?” I ask as Micah unlocks the door and flips on the lights, illuminating the small living room. Seth is his roommate, a nice guy all around, except I’d like us to be alone, to get Micah to talk.

  He shakes his head, snags my hand and pulls me inside, closing the door behind us.

  Good.

  Yet I’m worried. I fully expect him to drag me to the sofa, sit me down and tell me something awful – like, I don’t think I can do this anymore, Ev. We’re done, Ev. I don’t really love you.

  God.

  But instead, he backs me up against the door, grabs both my hands and slides them up until they are pressed over my head, against the polished wood. As my chest rises in a shallow, shocked breath, he presses his muscled body to me and crashes his mouth to mine, his tongue slipping between my parted lips.