33. The Present
The Present
Carla
“You did what?”
I hold the phone away from my ear until the shrill sound of my mother’s voice stops. “I got a tattoo. It’s not that big a deal.”
“Carla, are you on drugs?”
I choke out a laugh. “What? Why would I be on drugs?”
“You’re not acting like yourself. They say the first sign of drug use is erratic behavior.”
“Who is they?”
“Don’t get snarky with me, young lady. Tell me the truth. What is going on with you?”
I blow a puff of air through my lips. “Mom, I swear I’m not on drugs. I just … I guess I’m trying to find myself, if that makes sense. I was with Joe for so long. I need to figure out how my life is going to be without him in it.”
“And how is your life going without him? Are you happy?”
I slump onto the counter, fingers making small circles on my temple. “I can’t gauge my happiness right now. But I can tell you that I’m doing okay. I’m working, going to school, and hanging out with my friends. Everything’s good here.”
“Good, baby. That’s all I can ask, I suppose. I know heartbreak is tough but you’re strong. You’ll get through it. You’ll see.”
I smile. “I know I will. I miss you, Mom.”
“I miss you too. We should start booking your trip home for the holidays.”
“I’m clocking out of work right now. We’ll talk about it soon.”
“All right. Love you, baby.”
“Love you.”
I end the call and toss my phone into my purse. When I step outside, Tanner’s Mustang roars into the parking lot.
I walk to the driver’s side and say, “If you’re looking for TJ, I haven’t seen him all day.”
He winces as he jerks his thumb toward the back seat. “I have him.”
I peer into the back of Tanner’s car and gasp at the heap of muscles and tattoos laid out across the back seat. “What happened?”
Tanner swings the door open and steps outside. “TJ called me and said he needed a ride. The address he gave me wasn’t in the best neighborhood. Two dudes carried him out looking like this.”
“What did they say?”
Tanner exhales and runs a hand through his hair. “He got jumped after a fight. Three against one.”
“Why the hell are you here? He needs a hospital.”
Tanner shakes his head. “TJ said he’d get into trouble if he goes to the hospital. He begged me not to. Said he didn’t want anyone to find out about this.”
“Let’s get him out. He might need stitches or have a concussion.” Or worse.
Tanner pushes his seat forward and pulls TJ out by his legs. The sounds of TJ’s agonizing groans claw at my chest. When Tanner slings TJ’s lifeless arm around his neck and hoists him out of the car, my stomach rolls and I cover my mouth with both hands.
Oh my God.
His face. The blood. So much blood. There isn’t enough light out here to tell where the source of it is. His clothes are torn and blood-stained. He looks like he was dragged down a gravel road from the back of a truck.
“Get the door.”
I tear my eyes from TJ’s red-streaked face and sprint to the door. Tanner carries him up the stairs to his apartment while I grab the first-aid kit from his office.
Tanner’s propping him up against the sink in the bathroom when I return. “Can you stand, buddy?”
TJ groans. “I’m fine.” He sways but remains upright without Tanner’s help. “Need to sleep this off.”
Illuminated under the bathroom bulbs, TJ’s face glistens like red stained glass. The eye that was swollen shut the other day looks even worse, puffier, with fresh bruises. The other eye is covered in blood from a cut above his brow. The gash on his top lip reopened, lip swollen to double its size.
My heart thrashes wildly against my chest. TJ’s hurt, and it goes so much deeper than what I can see. His terrorizing mental pain caused him to seek out physical pain. Sure, he got jumped, but I know part of him welcomes this—thinks he deserves it.
Will I ever be able to show him that he doesn’t?
“The last thing you need to do is sleep,” I say.
TJ lifts his chin, eyelids straining to peel open at the sound of my voice. “Carla.” He reaches a dirty hand out, brushing his fingertips against my cheek. “My Carla.”
Goosebumps break out across my skin, heat sizzling wherever he touches. Even beaten to a bloody pulp, the man is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
I look up to meet Tanner’s questioning gaze. “I can get him cleaned up. I’ll stay with him tonight. But he might need to go to the hospital.”
“No hospital,” TJ murmurs, still caressing my face. “Just you.”
“Are you sure you can take care of him?” Tanner asks. “I can stay if you need me to help.”
“I’ve got this.”
Tanner nods. “Keep me updated.”
“I will.”
After a deep breath, I open the first-aid kit and line up everything I’ll need on the counter.
“You’re not going to put peroxide on me, are you?”
I arch an eyebrow. “The big, tough fighter is afraid of a little burning?”
TJ chuckles but then winces, clutching his ribs.
Sobering immediately, I gather the hem of his shirt in my hands and lift. Another gasp leaves me when I’m hit with the sight of the deep-purple marks along his ribcage. Tiny rocks stick to parts of his skin atop red scrapes.
The image of TJ on the ground assaults my mind. Curled up in a ball, taking hit after hit, kick after kick, alone and helpless. It’s almost too much to bear. Shaking it from my thoughts, I try to keep my focus on the task before me.
“Let’s get you in the shower.” The water will wash away the blood smears and dirt, and I’ll be able to assess the severity of his wounds. I tug TJ’s shirt over his head, careful not to rub the cotton against his face, and lean into the tub to turn the water on.
When I turn back around, TJ’s struggling to push his shorts down, barely able to bend at the waist. I help them down the rest of the way, sucking in a breath as I peel off his boxers. Now’s not the time for sexy thoughts, Carla. Especially not when TJ’s gazing down at me, wearing a smirk on his bruised lips.
Once he’s undressed, I wrap my arm around his waist and help him under the hot stream. I’m fully dressed but I don’t stop to think about it. I lather a washcloth with soap and rub it in soft circles around TJ’s shoulders and back.
“Turn around,” I say, and scrub the blood and dirt from his chest.
“Too good, Carla. You’re too good.” TJ mumbles the entire time I clean him, each word penetrating my heart like an arrow. His fingers brush the wet hair out of my eyes, and sweep down to my lips. “I want you so bad.”
I lift onto my toes, letting him occupy himself with touching my face, knowing this next part is going to hurt. I dab the washcloth around the cut on his forehead, cringing when he grunts and grinds his teeth together.
I go as fast and as gingerly as I can, making note of the areas I’ll need to bandage once he’s dry. “Almost done.”
“Never want you to be done. I want to keep you forever.”
“They knocked your head pretty good, didn’t they?” I refuse to give in to the things he’s saying, no matter how badly I want to eat up every last word. Not now. Not yet.
I squirt shampoo into my hands and massage his scalp with my fingertips. His eyes close and he lets out a low groan. Tipping his head back, I rinse the suds from his hair.
One of his hands snakes around my waist while the other is splayed on the tile to hold himself up. He crushes me against his body, gaze heated and locked on mine. Steam and water and desire fill the space around us.
“TJ—”
“I don’t deserve you.”
A heavy sigh pushes from my mouth. “Come on. Let’s get you dried off.”
With a towel around his waist, I bandage the gash on his head and treat the scrapes on his ribs. His lip stopped bleeding, so I dab ointment on it and call it good. I help him step into his boxers next. When I’m all finished, he’s sitting up in bed holding an ice pack on his eye with another strapped around his torso.
“I really wish you’d let me take you to the hospital for an x-ray. Your ribs might be broken. You could have internal bleeding.”
“I’m fine,” he says.
“You’re not fine. Nothing about this is fine.”
“Stop pacing. You’re making me dizzy.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Oh, it’s my pacing that’s making you dizzy? You sure it’s not the concussion?”
A smirk forms on his lips, and it only infuriates me more. “So angry.” He pats the mattress beside him. “Lay with me.”
I keep my scowl in place, grateful that he can’t see my heart stretching toward him. “I need to clean up the bathroom and get out of these wet clothes.”
He pats the bed again. “Leave it. I need you.”
Looking at him lying there, so battered and broken, my resolve melts away. “Fine. Google said it’s safe to sleep after a concussion as long as you’re able to talk and your pupils aren’t dilated.”
“Told you I’m fine.”
“Yeah, well, it also said you could be dead by morning if you’re bleeding internally. So, hopefully I’ll see you when the sun comes up.” I yank one of his T-shirts over my head and slip into bed beside him.
He chuckles and then winces as I turn out the light.
The next morning,I’m woken by the scent of bacon wafting through TJ’s bedroom door. I sit up in his empty bed, digging the heel of my palm into my eye.
I don’t know what time it was when I finally let myself fall asleep last night. I’d stayed up, fighting my drooping eyelids, listening to TJ’s breaths while he slept.
I slink down the hallway and into the kitchen. Good Lord. TJ’s standing in front of the stove in nothing but his white boxer briefs. His hair is a disheveled mess. Blood is seeping through the gauze on his ribs. I rub my chest, the dull ache where my heart pounds at the mere sight of him.
As if he can feel the weight of my gaze, he turns around and slays me with a smile. His poor face is a torn-up mess, but his dimples break through. “Morning, gorgeous.”
I thrust a hand through the tangled mop on my head. His eyes flick to the hem of his shirt that’s riding up over my panties, and I fight to ignore the rush of blood that creeps into my cheeks.
“You should be in bed,” I say taking a seat at the table.
“Says the woman who stayed up to watch me sleep all night.” He deposits a plate in front of me. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. He even chopped up strawberries.
My eyebrows lift. “This smells an awful lot like an apology.”
“I was going more for the smell of gratitude.”
“You don’t have to thank me for taking care of you.” I stab a pancake with my fork and dig in. I didn’t get to eat dinner with everything that happened last night, and I’m starving.
“I do,” he says, easing himself into the seat next to me. “You didn’t have to stay here and do what you did. Not after the way I’ve been treating you these past two weeks.”
“The least you can do is tell me what happened.”
His chest rises and falls, and then his shoulders slump in defeat. “I’ve been fighting. It’s … something I do. When things get hard.”
My brows pinch together. “Fighting, like you’re picking fights in bars?”
“Underground fighting. Like I used to.”
“The illegal kind?”
“Yes. Last night, I won the fight. Made a couple hundred bucks. Then the loser and his friends jumped me on the way out. Stole the money.”
“Why are you doing this? It’s not like you need the money.”
“Sometimes, I get a craving. When I lose someone I care about, I want to shoot up or have a drink. It’s my trigger. At least that’s what my therapist calls it.” He breaks eye-contact, chin dropping so he doesn’t have to look at me. “I’m fucked up, Carla. I’ll always be fucked up. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”
“Who said anything about changing it?”
“I know you want to help me. Fix me. But you can’t.”
I drop my fork onto the table and level him with a look. “I’m here because you’re hurt and I’m worried about you. Because I care about you. I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re going through. I don’t have a clue what it’s like to be an addict. To live through the things you’ve endured. I can only imagine what it’s like, and it breaks my heart.
“You’re fucked up and that’s okay. We all are. Life fucks us all, one way or another. But that doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. You don’t have to punish and isolate yourself. You’ve lost so much, but you still have people here who are counting on you. Your clients need you. You inspire them to keep going. You’ve inspired me to keep going.”
He stares up at the ceiling, like he’s talking to the universe. “I’m tired of losing the people I care about. People I love. I get a tease of what it’s like, and then it’s ripped away from me. It’s a constant reminder that I don’t deserve any of it.”
“And why is that? Why don’t you deserve happiness and love?”
“Never have. I’m not destined for anything more than what I’ve got.”
“That so?” I wave my arm around his apartment. “Look around you. Look at the life you’ve built. You came from nothing. But you didn’t give up. As much as it pains me to say this, Kimmie gave up. Whatever she was going through, she decided to take the easy way out. That’s not you. You’re more than that. So much more.”
“What makes you such an expert?”
“Just calling it like I see it.” I cross my arms and narrow my eyes. “Maybe if you let people love you, you wouldn’t have to get punched in the face just to feel something other than pain.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Nobody wants this shit show.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Let me know how that works out for you.” My chair scrapes across the floor as I push away from the table and stand. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Carla, wait.” TJ follows me into his bedroom.
“Where are my clothes?”
“They were still wet. I threw them in the dryer.”
“Fine. I’m going home. I’ll see you later.” I swipe my phone off the nightstand and sling my purse over my shoulder.
“Carla,” he says, trailing behind me into the hallway.
I spin around, lifting my chin. “What?”
“You don’t have any pants on.”
I look down at my bare legs sticking out from underneath his oversized T-shirt. “Whatever.”
I stomp all the way to the front door and slip into the heels I’d kicked off last night. I know I look ridiculous, but I’m too agitated to care. My apartment is a quick ten minutes away.
Really hoping Mallory is still asleep.
I rip open the door and hesitate, glancing at TJ before I leave. “You’re so stubborn for such a smart man, you know that? It baffles me how blind you are when it comes to yourself.” I let it slam behind me.
Once I arrive at my apartment, I tiptoe quietly into the living room and shake out of my jacket.
“What on God’s green earth are you wearing?”
I jump at the sound of Mallory’s voice. She’s on the couch eating a bowl of cereal.
I point my index finger at her as a warning. “I had a really shitty night. I need you to save your commentary for another time. I’m taking a shower and then a nap before my shift starts later.”
Mallory’s bottom lip juts out. “Can I at least take a picture of your ensemble?”
“Do it and I will kill you.”
She holds up both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. No picture. Sheesh. I’m guessing you didn’t get laid judging by your crankiness.”
“You guessed correctly.” I fling my heels into my bedroom and trudge into the bathroom, twisting the knob in the shower all the way to hot.