32. Shep
32
Shep
I don’t take a full breath until the game is over and I’m in the showers. Standing under the spray, I will my tight muscles to relax. The anxiety I had before this game was unreal. More than just my typical nerves, I couldn’t get past everything I’ve fucked up in the past few days.
Beau has never missed a big game and not having him here, knowing he was too pissed to stay, felt like some vital part of me was missing. Adding insult to injury, I was convinced I had irreparably damaged my relationship with Tessa. She’s come to mean so much to me since we started living together that contemplating losing her and having to go home to an empty apartment was too much to fucking bear. The brittle, edgy way I felt had me snapping at anyone who got too close all day and by the time the game started, I was a sweaty, shaking mess.
But Tessa got me through it. If she hadn’t shown up to the locker room when she did, I wouldn’t have made it out there. She appeared the moment I needed her. She caused quite a scene doing it, but she knew exactly how to help. There’s a calming quality to her presence and more than her friendship, I can’t lose the effect she has on me. I need it. I need her to keep my head on straight.
I called her my good luck charm on a whim, but it’s absolutely true. Having her up in the stands changed everything. Every time my anxiety threatened to eat me alive, I took one look at her and it was suddenly possible to breathe again. We played one hell of a game, but I’ll never tell my teammates the fight in me was completely due to a dark-haired beauty wearing my team colors.
Halfway through our last lineup, we tied the game 8-8. Not long after, we scored one more run and the crowd went wild, screaming and celebrating with us. The game was a close one, but there was no way I wasn't going to leave that field a winner, not after her promise. When I saw her cheering with my family, it was all worth it. The only thing missing was my little brother.
When we won, I wasn’t thinking about Sports Center coverage or the questions the press would ask. It was only her in my mind and how I could rush through the showers and press conference to get home to her.
The apartment is dark when I get home. It only took a few hours to get here, but it feels like days since I’ve seen Tessa. I’d like nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and celebrate my first win our style, with takeout on the coffee table.
A text comes through and I consider ignoring it, but chance has me looking down at the screen as I reach to get my keys.
Hey bro, saw the coverage. You killed it.
The text shouldn’t upset me, but it does. It’s the fact that Beau is a big enough person to still congratulate me even though he hates my guts right now. It would make sense if he never talked to me again, but he’s just not that person. I think on some level, he knows what Tessa means to me and I think that’s the only reason he’s sticking around.
As much as I want to walk in and kiss her senseless, I can’t. It doesn’t matter that I’m on top of the world or that I’ve just won my first major league game, I can’t take his girl. What we’ve done has done enough damage to last a lifetime and no matter how much my blood is screaming for her, it’s just plain wrong.
Intuition’s voice in my head is a little clearer now than it was after the club and every other time since. I could have saved everyone a little heartache by turning the volume up. My gut has been telling me all along that no good could come from us sleeping together, but I wanted her too badly. I know now that Beau and Tessa are meant for each other . I don’t want to get caught in the middle, but I can’t lose her either. I need to assure her that I’ll respect personal boundaries and be a gentleman if she stays.
She’s not in the living room or the kitchen. She’s not in her favorite spot on the balcony and I worry she’s not here until her bare feet come padding down the hallway.
“Hey,” she says simply. Her eyes are soft, like the pink and white striped pajamas she’s wearing and it reassures me in an instant to see her wearing them.
“Hey.” I take a seat at one of the stools around the island and stretch my neck. Tessa turns and rises on her toes to get a wine glass out of the cabinet, but she doesn’t quite reach.
“If you don’t move these to a lower shelf, Shep, I swear.”
From behind her, I grab two glasses and an unopened bottle, brushing along her arm as I hand them down to her. “That mean you’re staying?”
She searches around in the drawer for a bottle opener, looking as comfortable in my kitchen as she does anywhere. When she pours each of us a glass, she lifts hers in a toast and says, “You won the game, didn’t you?” I see the barest hint of a smirk.
We clink and take a sip. I lean back against the counter and she mirrors me on the other side. “I wouldn’t have without you.”
“What are friends for?” She tries to pass it off as insignificant, but her getting my ass out on that field meant something to me.
“Don’t do that,” I say with a shake of the head.
“What?”
“Act like you didn’t just save my career.”
She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Thank you,” I tell her quietly. Those two words encompass so much, but I think she understands.
In a way I’ve learned is uniquely Tessa, she asks, “Do you think Szechuan Palace is still open?” Her way of saying you’re welcome.
The night ended exactly how I wanted. When we finished off the mountain of Chinese food and the bottle of wine we opened in the kitchen, Tessa walked down the hall, saying, “sleepover,” over her shoulder. While she was getting her pillow, I changed into a t-shirt and joggers and now we’re lying in my bed talking as if this week never happened.
In bed, I’m scrolling on my phone, lying on my back. Tessa’s curled onto her side, facing me, but staring over my chest to the Houston skyline. Most of the time the curtains are pulled against the sun, but whenever she’s here, I leave them open because I know how much she likes the view.
“How the hell did you get past security?” I ask.
“Just lucky, I guess. There was no one down there but Ronnie.” We both chuckle at the mention of the poor security guard and Tessa jabs a finger at my chest. “I gave as good as I got.”
A laugh rumbles from me. “When Ray hears I had my girlfriend in the locker room, I’m never going to hear the end of it.”
She stiffens beside me but before I can ask her why, she looks up hesitantly. “Shep, has your mom talked to you about me?”
Damnit. My mom’s gotten to her the way she tried to get to me and with one look, I know what’s coming.
“I don’t like you because she suggested it, Tessa,” I explain.
“I wouldn’t blame you if it made sense. We make sense.”
“No!” I push up to my elbow. “I mean, we do make sense, but I wanted you for you. Not because of something she said.”
My mom had good enough sense to leave it alone right after Tessa left, but pretty soon she was calling and telling me that the perfect opportunity to date her had fallen in my lap and I’d be a fool to let it slip away. I love my mother, but she can be a real pain in the ass when she wants to be.
“It’s not that I don’t want you, Shep. I do. We could be so good together. But we’re such good…”
“Friends,” I finish. There’s not any bitterness behind the word, just plain honesty.
She smiles sadly. “I can’t get him out of my head.” She flips onto her back and I can see the frustration lining every move. “You and I make so much more sense. We think the same way, we practically finish each other’s sentences, and then tonight? Shep, I just wanted you to feel better. I would have given anything to take your fear away. I care about you.” She pauses and her eyes connect with mine. “But it’s not the same.”
I can’t handle the brittle sadness on her face so I pull her over until she’s lying in the crook of my arm. With her head on my chest, we breathe together in the silence.
“What if I don’t ever get over him?” She asks like a child would, like I should know all the answers and I wish to God I did. For both our sakes.
“I don’t know.”
I kiss the top of her head and we lay together for a long time, each of us comforted by the closeness of our bodies. I’m always going to wish it were more, but for now, it’s enough.
“He didn’t come after me,” she says in a small voice. “I thought he had when he walked in the door. Like in the movies when the guy races to the airport to confess his love before she gets on a plane.”
I quirk an eyebrow while trying to look down at her. “Did you just make a Ross and Rachel reference?”
“Maybe,” she laughs softly.
“Can I point out one flaw in your vision?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she says, sullen.
“Rachel never went to Paris, Tessa. You did.”
The lightheartedness of her joke evaporates. She lays on my chest and I stroke the back of her head as if I’ve done this hundreds of times before. It’s the most natural thing in the world to hold this girl. And even though I’ve made my decision, I’m not going to pursue her, I feel a twinge of pain that this is likely the last time I’ll get to touch her. Too bad it’s the most comforting hug I’ve ever had.
“Don’t tell me, you of all people, believe in happily ever after?” I try to make her smile but she takes it seriously.
“You know, I think I did.”
I look back at my phone, trying to hide from her assessing gaze. “He damn near broke his hand.”
“What?”
“Earlier, you said he didn’t care, but he almost broke his hand when he left.”
“How?”
“Punched the side of the building, I guess. Idiot didn’t care that bricks don’t have to fight back.”
“Why would he do that?”
I face her then, putting my phone on my chest. “Because he does care, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. He was pissed at the thought of us together. More than pissed. Mad enough that he’s going to have a hell of a time working with that hand come Monday.”
She huffs. “You’re crazy.”
“Believe what you want. All I’m saying is, he might not have come for you, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you.”
We’re quiet as she accepts what I’ve said. “He didn’t go to the hospital, did he?”
“I tried to make him. He insists it isn’t broken. ‘It looks worse than it is,’he said.” I pause, weighing whether or not to say the next thing on my mind. “You wanna know something crazy?” My eyes flick to hers over the pillow. “You know that day he kissed you in the grove?”
“The first time?”
“Yeah, but it was just the first time you saw him.”
“What do you mean?”
“You started swimming when you got home from UGA, right?” The day I watched them both comes back bright and clear to my mind. Beau still doesn’t know I was there all along and I hang on to that memory greedily.
“Yeah, so?”
“So, he’d been watching you since then.”
“What?” She says incredulously.
“Yeah, I know. I told him it was creepy, but he said you looked peaceful and you were never happy around him.”
She shakes her head against my shoulder. “No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did,” I say straight away. “He said he liked seeing you happy.”
“It’s just because we had a history of never getting along, Shep.”
“Fine. Here’s something else. You know how I asked you to the fair?”
“Yeah?” She asks warily.
“Beau made me.”
“Made you?”
“Yeah, he acted like he was going to die if I didn’t ask you to go. You know how dramatic he gets.”
“But why?”
“Because he knew you wouldn’t go with him. And he wasn’t about to go to the fair with anyone else. Not when he wanted you.”
“What if I had told you no?”
“Then I guess he’d have found some other way to get you there. He was relentless. Always has been when it comes to you.” I fold my hands over my stomach and say softly, “That’s how I know he’s not over you.”
When Tessa sighs, there’s pain in the sound. “Sometimes I wish I had stayed.”
“Selfishly, I’m glad you didn’t.” She graces me with a small, tight-lipped smile. “Think of how much you’ve accomplished in the last six months. You did everything you said you were going to.”
She nods and moves back to her own pillow. “You’re right,” she says, pulling the comforter over her, but I can tell by the set of her shoulders that it was the wrong thing to say. And she’s either too polite or too upset to call me out on it.