by Chloe Walsh
“Careful, Thorn.” Noah’s words were laced with sarcasm as he glared down at me. “Keep chasing after me like this and I’m gonna start to think you care.”
“I do care!” I shot back, teeth chattering, as my whole body trembled. “You think I walked away and didn’t think about you?” I knew that’s what he thought. “Well you’re wrong. I did think about you. Every day. Dammit, Noah, I left because I loved you,” I admitted, voice breaking. “And the pain of your betrayal hurt me more than anything in my entire life.”
“I’m not doing this with you again,” he warned me.
Rain poured down on us, soaking our clothes, exposing my vulnerability and his. And when Noah turned to get into the car, I lost it. “Don’t go!” I strangled out, grabbing his forearm to stop him from climbing into his car – to stop him from leaving me.
“Give me one good reason to stay,” he roared, his big body trembling, as he gripped the car door with more force than needed.
Stay because I can’t bear the thought of losing you again.
Stay because I’m a fucking mess without you.
Stay because I’m never as alive as I am when I’m with you.
Stay because I need you in my life...
All of the reasons I had inside of me and I couldn’t speak a word. I couldn’t make my lips form them because I knew that If I admitted it out loud, if I verbalized the fact that I had been wrong about Noah, that I was to blame for my own broken heart and seven years of misery. Then I would be to blame for him being left in a prison cell alone to rot, and I was fairly certain that guilt would consume me.
I was in love with him before I knew the truth, and now, I felt like I was drowning in emotions.
But instead I just stood there like the stubborn coward I was, begging him with my eyes to not leave, feeling the ground disintegrate beneath my feet as he retreated from me.
“I thought so,” he growled, pulling his hand roughly away.
I stood motionless, with my hands wrapped around myself, as I watched Noah turn away from me and climb into the passenger seat. He slammed the door shut and stared straight ahead as the car pulled off.
“DAMN, THAT WAS PAINFUL TO WATCH,” Lucky said when we were back in my hotel suite. Grabbing an armful of beers and a bottle of tequila from the minibar, he dropped them down on the coffee table in the sitting room before going back for a couple of shot glasses. “What a fucking train wreck.” He let out a heavy sigh as he flipped the cap off with this lighter. “And her face when we drove away?” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen a woman wear devastation like that.”
“Let it go,” I warned him. Walking over to the couch, I sank down, bone tired and demoralized. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head in my hands. The image of Teagan’s tearstained face and her voice when she asked me to stay was haunting me. I didn’t need Lucky’s running fucking commentary. I’d experienced the devastation firsthand. “It’s over,” I added in a gruff tone. “Case closed.”
“You’ve got a serious case of denial, man. The worst I’ve seen.” Shrugging, Lucky took a slug of his beer from his bottle before settling down on the couch next to me. “Do you love her?”
Letting out a groan, I rubbed my face with the palm of my hand before grabbing my beer off the table and swigging it back. “You’ve met her – you’ve seen her in action. I’m not a masochist, dude. I don’t take pleasure in having strips torn off me. Of course I fucking love her.” Whether I still loved her or not didn’t change the facts. And the facts were Teagan and I couldn’t be in each other’s company without arguing.
Slamming the bottle back down on the table, I picked up the shot glass of tequila Lucky had poured out for me and tossed it back. “I can’t not love her,” I hissed, feeling the alcohol burn through me. “But I can’t trust her either,” I admitted gruffly. There was so much hurt still there, so much fucking water had gone under the bridge that I wasn’t sure if we would ever get past it.
“Why?” he straight-out asked me.
“Because –”
“Because she walked away?” he filled in for me. “And you’re afraid that if you let her back in she’ll do it again?”
“All right, Dr. Phil,” I grumbled sarcastically, feeling a little unnerved that Lucky had hit the nail on the head. “Give the psychoanalysis a break.”
“Messina, there’s a reason you took the fight against Bishop – and it’s the same reason you didn’t use protection. You know it and so do I,” he told me. “It’s because of her.”
Of course it was because of her.
Everything I had done since the age of seventeen was because of her – because to me, she was everything. That’s why it hurt so fucking much when I looked her in the eyes today, told her the truth, and was met with disbelief.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” I tossed out. “By this time next week I’ll be back on home soil and won’t have time to think about her.” I had a nationwide tour of North America with the MFA coming up. I was flying home in a couple of days and should be concentrating on that. I didn’t need the distraction and fucking upheaval in my life that came with loving that woman. I needed to put her in the past.
“You sure about that?” Lucky asked, unconvinced.
“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Slugging back the remainder of my beer, I nodded firmly, forcing myself to believe my own words even though deep down I knew it was my pride talking; the absolute fucking hurt and horror of having Teagan look me in the eyes and not believe me. “Once I’m back on the road she won’t even be on my radar.”
“What a fucking horrifying feeling that must be,” Lucky mused sadly. Shaking his head, he stood up and stretched his arms out. “To push the one person you’ve worked so hard to prove you are worthy of away.”
“What?” I asked, deadpan, with my bottle resting against my bottom lip.
“You love her, Noah,” Lucky shouted. “And the girl I met today loves you right back, man.” He threw his hand up in the air, clearly agitated. “Every move you’ve made since I’ve known you has been to get her back. To prove to her that you are worthy. Because in your mind she is it. And that fucking terrifies you. Be honest with yourself, man,” he said earnestly. “You are scared shitless that it’s not enough – that you aren’t not enough –”
“Of course I’m scared!” I roared. “She drives me crazy.” Flinging my beer bottle across the room, I jerked to my feet, agitated and fuming. “She is fucking crazy. I never know where I stand with her,” I snarled, chest heaving. “There isn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for that woman and the thought alone terrifies me.” I ran a hand roughly through my hair and hissed in frustration. “Thorn has the ability to bring me to my knees, Lucky. She is fucking lethal to me.”
“So fucking what,” he countered, not missing a beat. “Love is crazy. It’s insane, and that burning intensity you two share?” He shook his head. “That’s rare, man. That’s a once in a lifetime kind of deal.”
“Why do you even care?” I asked, furious. “What’s it to you?”
“Because you’re my brother, dipshit,” Lucky shot back just as furious. “You’re my fucking family, man, and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna sit back and watch you walk away from your future.”
“What do I do, man?” I choked out. “How do I fix this?”
“You do what you do best,” Lucky replied, patting my shoulder. “Fight.”
Lucky was right.
Teagan had been the focal point of my life since I was seventeen years old. I could lie and pretend to myself all I wanted but the truth was still there. And the truth was, Teagan Connolly was all I had ever wanted and I was fairly certain she was all I would ever want.
I needed to fight for this.
I needed to fight for us.
“DID YOU GET DRESSED without drying again, Teegs? You look like a drowned cat.”
Those were the first words that came out of Sean’s mouth when he opened his apartment door and noticed my ap
pearance.
In the heat of the moment and in the middle of my mental breakdown, Sean was the one person I could think of to go to. Hope was in America. I didn’t have any family. And Liam…well, Liam wasn’t an option anymore. “I can’t…breathe,” I gasped as I barreled into his arms and held onto him for dear life, crying hard and ugly. “I can’t…oh god, Sean…”
Raped.
Noah said he was raped.
Reese had raped him.
I believed him.
And I left him there to deal with it alone.
“Babe, come on. Calm down,” Sean coaxed as he walked us both into his apartment and set me on the couch.
Dragging the throw off the back of the couch, Sean wrapped it around my shoulders before heading into the kitchen only to return with a massive bar of chocolate in his hands.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry,” Sean mused, when my cries had turned to sniffling. Sinking down on the couch beside me, he pulled me onto his lap. “What happened?”
“Noah happened,” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut and burying my head in his chest. My mind flashed back to the scene I’d caused at the gym and a wailing noise tore through me. I was so ashamed. “I’ve screwed everything up, Sean.”
“Noah?” Sean asked, confused, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
“Messina,” I muttered, forgetting that Sean didn’t know the ins and outs of my tempestuous relationship with my ex.
His brows rose in surprise and he leaned back to look at my face. “As in the fighter?”
“As in my ex,” I admitted sheepishly.
His lips curled into a perfectly O as he gaped at me, unblinking. “Well I wasn’t expecting that,” he breathed, eyes burning with curiosity. “You mentioned you had an ex from America, but I didn’t realize you were talking about The Machine.”
“He wasn’t the machine when I knew him,” I whispered sadly. “He was just…Noah.”
Resting my head on his chest, I found myself confiding in Sean; filling him in on every dirty detail of my life starting from the night I watched my mother take her final breath in that car, to Liam breaking up with me when Uncle Max relocated us to Colorado.
I laid everything out there about my time at Thirteenth Street; the good, the bad, and the downright awful parts that made me look like a lunatic.
I told him about how I wrecked Noah’s car with the paint, the night that had sparked this crazed obsession, and every other moment that had followed.
The nights I spent at the Ring of Fire, watching Noah take on men twice his age.
I told him about Noah saving me from Gonzalez, and the numerous occasions he had protected me from George and JD Dennis, taking beatings to be with me.
My face heated when I told him about the night in the elevator.
I broke down when I explained about the night Max disowned me.
I disclosed every slither of crucial information that had led me to this moment, every single event in my life that had brought me to this point, grateful to get it off my chest, and Sean listened intently, never judging, never interrupting.
“And then he broke my door down so I slept with him before throwing him out,” I heard myself say and cringed. “But then I got mad because he left so I went to Frankie’s and caused a huge scene.” Groaning, I added, “I slapped him and he tried to drown me…and now I’m here.”
Sean let out a whistle. “And all of this happened in the space of twenty-four hours?”
“What can I say,” I mumbled, cheeks burning. “We had a lot to catch up on.”
Jumping to his feet, Sean went into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a pair of glasses in one hand and two bottles, one with vodka and the other with coke, stuffed under his arm.
“When I first saw you at my door, I thought chocolate and a Friends marathon would be enough to cheer you up.” Setting the glasses and bottles down on the coffee table in front of us, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of my head before pouring our drinks. “But now I’m thinking we need vodka to deal with this shit storm.”
“Why do you have to be gay, Sean?” I asked with a sigh, taking the glass he was holding out for me. “It’s not fair,” I grumbled, taking a sip of my vodka and coke. “You’re the perfect man.”
Sean chuckled. “You have no idea how many women at the salon ask me that question.” Settling down beside me, he clunked his glass against mine and sighed.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Sitting cross-legged on the couch, I plucked at a loose thread off the cushion on my lap and said, “to be this…devastated over a man I dated for two months in high-school?”
“Officially two months,” he corrected, pointing his finger in the air. “Unofficially a hell of a lot longer and deeper than that.”
“What if he can’t get past it?” I squeezed out. “I’ve been going over and over it, and if I were in his shoes, I don’t think I could.” Covering my face with my hands, I stifled a groan. “And just say that he can forgive me. What if it’s different now?” I whispered. “What if that fucked up, bloodlust chemistry between us fizzles out?”
“If you don’t try, you’re going to spend the rest of your life wondering and regretting,” he told me.
I knew he was right, but I was terrified.
I never wanted to feel the pain of having my heart broken by Noah Messina again, intentionally or not. I wasn’t sure I would survive that kind of aching twice in my lifetime.
“I’m nothing out of the ordinary, Sean,” I admitted. “And Noah? He lives in different world to us. Supermodels drop their knickers for him like they’re giving him his five fruits a day. There’s no way I can compete with that.”
“You don’t have to compete with anyone, Teagan. That’s what you don’t seem to get,” he said. “That man flew halfway across the world and landed on your doorstep.” Shaking his head, he sighed impatiently. “That doesn’t say end of the line to me.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No, Teagan, it doesn’t,” he shot back with an irritated tone. “It says the man is driven by desperation, devotion and love.” Slapping his hand down on my thigh, Sean squeezed and said, “he’s here. He’s hot and he’s fucking yours. So what are you going to do about it?”
I SPENT ALL DAY FRIDAY curled up in a ball on my bed ignoring phone calls from Liam and avoiding contact with the outside world, basically too ashamed to lift my head off my tear soaked pillow. I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. I didn’t have the appetite. Noah’s voice remained in my mind; his face the fore point of my every waking thought all day long and I couldn’t stop tormenting myself with the ugly truth.
Noah had done serious time in prison.
Because of me.
He broke his fucking bail.
Because of me.
Max had pressed charges on him.
Because of me.
He was at the quarry that night.
Because of me.
He gave up his own freedom to keep me safe.
Kyle Carter had been right all along. I hated the way that man was always freaking right. It was so infuriating. I should have listened to him. I should have listened to my heart and not my stupid pride. Look where pride had gotten me. Seven years of bitterness and regrets.
“I wanted to prove a point. I wanted to see if I could still get you on your back with your legs spread open, and it turns out I can. You were an itch I needed to scratch Teagan. That’s all.”
Pride and stubbornness kept me from running back to him – from throwing myself at his feet and begging for forgiveness. The hurt in his eyes haunted me. I saw it in those brown depths. I saw the pain I had caused when I questioned him. I also saw the truth.
To be honest I couldn’t understand why he had given me the time of day, let alone taken all my crap when I had let him down in the worst possible way. I was emotionally drained and feeling sorry for myself, and no amount of chocolate and alcohol stemmed the pain.
By Saturd
ay afternoon the depression had well and truly set in and so had the hunger. I made a pot noodle in the microwave and I ate it half raw, not bothering to cook it any longer. I didn’t deserve fully cooked meals anyway. When I finished my crunchy pot noodle I did something I hadn’t done in years.
Taking my guitar out of its case, I settled the strap on my shoulder and grabbed a pick. I hadn’t played since I was eighteen, I couldn’t bear to; but the moment my fingers touched the strings, I realized it was like riding a bike.
Allowing my fingers to glide over the strings, I closed my eyes and sang my own acoustic version of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, finger picking my way through the instrumentals, falling into the sweet melody.
Feeling every note right down in my core, meaning every lyric that spilled from my lips, I belted out the chorus at the top of my lungs, releasing with it all the unspoken words festering inside of me.
My front door flew inwards and I fell off the couch, mid song, taking the hit to my body in my bid to protect my guitar. “Jesus Christ,” I hissed as I lay on the flat of my back gaping up at Sean who was standing in the doorway of my apartment. “How’d you get in?”
“It was unlocked, babe,” Sean announced cheerfully as he sauntered into my apartment with a bunch of beauty products in his arms. Dropping what he was carrying on the kitchen countertop, he made his way over to me. “Nice voice by the way,” he added, taking my guitar from me and setting it back in its case. “I didn’t know you played.”
Climbing to my feet, I rubbed my hip that was stinging from breaking my fall. “I used to play,” I muttered, confused. “I was sure I locked that door.” In fact I was certain. Hope and I had many arguments over the years because I was so, and I quote, ‘anal’ about keeping the apartment secured. In my defense, Hope had never been kidnapped out of her sleep by a tattooed muscle head, or chased down by the mob. I reckoned my habits were well justified, which was why I was so surprised at myself for leaving the door unlocked last night.
“Stop delaying,” Sean said, shoving me down the hallway and into the bathroom. “Get your ass in that shower,” he ordered, flicking it on. “I’ll find something for you to wear.”