13. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
TEAGAN
It takes damn near twenty minutes to track Lane down, which is a lot considering I’m in a time crunch. I know she starts work around two o’clock based on our conversation yesterday, and after searching the locker rooms, stadium, and surrounding grounds, I finally find her in the laundry facility on the ground floor of Wyndham Hall after asking Mark where she might be.
I think of the question in his eyes and his raised brow at my inquiry and grimace.
I can only hope he doesn’t mention to Coach why I stopped by, but I find it hard to care as I step inside the murky basement and the clean scent of laundry detergent hits me in the nose.
I walk through the hall and down the stairs to ground level where I pass underneath an archway that leads to a large, well-lit space where I find Lane, standing at a wash basin wringing out uniforms by hand before slapping them into a large bin.
I clear my throat, and her head lifts.
Her eyes focus before her mouth parts, and several seconds pass before she asks, “What are you doing here?”
She lifts her chin as if preparing for my answer. Shoulders back, posture rigid, she’s the picture of cool indifference. Any fissures I might have formed in her walls last night have long since closed thanks to my ignorance.
I take a step forward, slowly, as if she’s a caged animal I’m afraid of spooking, and I wait until I’m only a couple feet away before I shove my hands in my pockets and swallow my nerves.
“I fucked up.” With a shrug, I add, “I’m sorry. You never gave me a reason to believe Sophie was anything but yours, and I absolutely hate that my assumptions might have made you feel any kind of way.”
“You saw what you wanted to see, Teagan. It’s fine. Just forget it.” She turns away from me, her tone dismissive, and I panic.
I’m not done, not even close.
“I didn’t just see what I wanted, Lane. I mean, yeah, looking back, it was dumb as fuck to assume, but it was an innocent mistake. You’re young, and I have sisters way younger than me, so I just thought . . .” I rake a hand through my hair with a growl, knowing I’m screwing this up. “The fact that Sophie’s yours has exactly zero to do with how I feel about you.”
She glances over at me, her brows arched. “But . . .?”
“No buts, Lane.” I step closer, wanting to reach out and touch her, to pull her arms away from where they’re crossed tightly against her chest. “I want you all the same.”
“Friends,” she chokes out. “You mean you want to be friends.”
Fuck.
“Right,” I say, nodding like an idiot now. “Friends.”
Lane sighs, staring at me long and hard for several beats before she nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” She tries for a smile but it falls flat. “I shouldn’t have gotten so upset with you, anyway. It was just . . .” She chews on her lip as if contemplating finishing her thought, and I want her to finish her sentence more than I want my next breath.
“Just . . .?”
“Nice. It was just nice, thinking that you knew and didn’t care. That you accepted me and Sophie and—” She bows her head, and the vulnerability in her voice grips my heart and squeezes.
Fuck, I’m in trouble with this girl.
“Lane.” I close the gap between us and tip her chin, so her eyes meet mine. “I don’t care. And I would’ve acted the same exact way had I known. Nothing changes now, I swear.”
She exhales, her smile wan. “If you say so.”
I do. I do fucking say so.
“Well, since we’ve established we’re still friends, I only have about forty minutes left, but I thought maybe we could hang out.”
“Hang out,” she repeats like she doesn’t know the meaning.
I nod. “Yeah. You know, two people who spend time together?”
“Teagan,” she shakes her head, “I’m working.”
“Right, I know. Maybe I can help?” I push my shoulders back and close the gap between us, nudging her out of the way where I take up wringing the uniforms in her place.
“You’re going to help me wash uniforms?”
“Sure. Why not?” I place one of the wrung jerseys in the rolling bin, then move onto the next.
“But . . .” Her eyes track my movements. “Why would you do that?”
I sigh and pause, so I can stare her in the eyes. “Because I want to see you. So I can spend time with you however I can get it, and since my schedule is fucking nuts, this is the only way I can.” I cock my head, staring at her stricken expression and wondering why the hell she’s so shocked I might want to get to know her. I vow to make her understand just how amazing she is, how special. “I told you this already. Friends, remember?” I choke out even though friendship isn’t the only thing I want.
“I guess I just thought . . .”
Since I discovered she has a daughter I’d want nothing more to do with her?
Well, she thought wrong.
I plunge my hands back into the mass of dripping uniforms and wring out another one, then glance down at her again with a grin. “Are you going to help, or . . .”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.” She shakes her head as if clearing it, then shifts toward the sink. “You really don’t have to do this,” she says, handling a pair of pants.
“I know. But I want to.” My arm brushes against hers and I feel a zip of energy beneath my skin I try to ignore.
We work like this, side by side, for several minutes before she clears her throat. “I think if we’re doing this, the whole friend thing,” she says, sounding a little nervous, “there’s something I need you to know and understand.” Her teeth sink into her lower lip, and it takes everything in me to focus on anything other than how soft they’d feel against my own.
“Well, maybe a couple things,” she adds.
I tear my gaze away and lean back against the wash bin, facing her. “I’m listening.”
“First, I need you to know I’m not a slut.”
The hell?
My eyes widen and I open my mouth to protest a world in which I’d ever think such a thing when she silences me with a finger to my lips. “I didn’t sleep around in high school. Not that I’m saying anyone who did is wrong or . . .” She sighs and her free hand clenches into a fist. “It’s just that I realize how young I was at the time, too young. And I shouldn’t have . . . but I believed in the fairy tale because I was young and awestruck and foolishly in love with someone I thought I knew. He never gave me a reason to doubt him.” Her throat bobs. “And I know it doesn’t matter, but I was only with him twice before . . .” she trails off and waves a hand, her cheeks red as tomato.
But it’s not her words that turn my stomach to knots; it’s that look. I know it well. I’ve seen it on my own sister. In the dark days and months after Brynn was assaulted, she wore her shame on her sleeve, baring it for the world to see, and it fucking killed me. Which is also how I know nothing I say will convince Lane otherwise. Her narrative to herself is the only one that counts because when you are your own worst critic, changing your mind is next to impossible.
That shit?healing?takes time.
The muscle in my jaw ticks, but I somehow find it in me to nod and ask, “And the second thing I need to know?”
She meets my eyes, the blue deepening to sapphire. “Don’t ask me about the father, because I won’t tell you. All you need to know is that he was a boy I met at one of my father’s summer camps and he moved away. And, yes, he knows about Sophie. I’m not the kind of person who would hide that from someone. It was his choice to walk away.”
She lifts her chin, continuing, “And I don’t regret her. Not ever. The only thing I regret is believing in him, trusting him to be there for us. So, I won’t apologize for having her when she’s one of the best parts of me.”
An ache blooms behind my ribs throbbing with an intensity I fear she can read in my face. “Okay.” My voice is a gravelly rasp as I say, “But now you’re going to listen to me.”
I step forward and she sucks in a breath as I place my hands on either side of the wash bin behind her, caging her in. But she doesn’t back down. Instead, she straightens, steeling her spine as her eyes lock with mine, and I fucking love that about her.
She’s the strongest, most vulnerable woman I’ve ever fucking met, with the exception of my sister. Which is why I’m beyond pissed that she could think, for even one second, she’s anything less than incredible.
Her breathing grows shallow, even more so when I lean just a little bit closer, my voice low, an ominous rasp in the otherwise quiet room.
“Not for one fucking second would I ever think anything poorly of you because you’re not a virgin. That’s fucking bullshit, Lane.” My brows rise. “You think I’m that much of a hypocrite? Because I’m not, and just because you wound up having to face the consequences of your actions, it sure as hell doesn’t make you any less than me. You don’t owe me or anyone a fucking explanation.”
My chest hovers above hers so close, I can feel the heat radiating from her skin. The space between us is palpable, almost painful.
“And second, how you can think that what you’ve done with Sophie at such a young age is nothing short of fucking courageous is beyond me. You’re incredible, Lane. I don’t need to know you any better to see that, and anyone that can’t is blind as a fucking bat.” My gaze drops to her mouth.
Fuck, I want so badly to taste her.
“But you’re wrong about one thing.”
Conflict flickers in the depths of her eyes before she pushes her shoulders back and scoffs. “One thing? I feel like you just gave me a list.”
My lips quirk. “Sophie isn’t the best part of you.” I shake my head. “She might be amazing, but you get to claim that title all on your own. Don’t dim your light just because you’re under some misguided notion you’re somehow tarnished now. Fuck that. And fuck regret. I’m sorry he, whoever he is, left you to handle this all on your own, but he’s an idiot. I don’t need his name to know that much. Just like I don’t need to know who he is to tell you I’m nothing like him.”
Her chest heaves with the force of her breath, her eyes dilating to midnight while she white-knuckles the wash bin behind her. It would take zero effort to dip my head and claim her mouth, to run my hands up her sides and bury them in her hair.
I burn for her, yearn to touch her.
But I won’t.
I refuse to follow my statements with anything that might prove to her I’m just another guy out to get something from her.
So, even though it takes monumental effort, I take a step back and drop my arms. “Sorry about the language.” I say, gripping the back of my neck. “I was just . . .”
“Trying to get the point across?” she asks, breathless.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Point taken.”