Chapter 4
“So that’s it?You’re just going to throw in the towel and let him win?” Sin steps out of the shadows like the fucking ghost he is. He might have recently become one of my best friends, but he’s still a creepy motherfucker.
“No—I don’t know—Maybe. I’m not sure what I can do to get her back. Don’t you think some things can be too broken to ever be fixed?”
He levels me with his black-eyed stare. “If I thought that, I’d have offed myself years ago. What you need to ask yourself is, do you still love her?”
That I don’t need time to think about to answer. “I’ve never stopped. Even when I was mad at her, I loved her.”
“Then you better pull your head out of your ass, or you’re going to lose her,” he advises.
“The only problem is, I’m not sure how to win her back,” I admit.
“Well, I can guarantee you that running away isn’t going to do it.”
“Thanks for the insight, Captain Obvious. Do you have anything that can actually help me?” I snap.
Sin shrugs. “Don’t let your pride get in the way. In fact lay it at her feet.”
It sounds simple, but baring yourself like that is harder than it sounds. I realize that at no point in our relationship have I ever allowed myself to be truly and completely vulnerable with Tessa. While I did share parts of myself I’ve never shared with someone else, I always held back a little. There was a part of me that was always waiting for her to leave me like everyone else, so when she ended up pushing me away to protect me I couldn’t let it go.
I’ve punished her for two years and she has no idea why, not really. She thinks it’s just about breaking up with me because her dad forced her to. I know she was only trying to protect me. Most people would forgive someone for that, even appreciate it. It made me angry because she didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on. If she can’t trust me, why should I trust her?
I spend the night wallowing in self-pity, time I should be spending trying to win back Tessa. Something I come to regret over the next three days. Every time I try to speak to her she avoids me. At first it’s subtle, but by the third day she just gets up and leaves the room when I enter.
As usual everyone has congregated at Sin and Raven’s house. There’s a game on the flat screen, which ordinarily I’d be glued to, but I’m tracking Tessa’s movements instead. She’s been artfully dodging me all day, and I’m looking for a chance to talk to her. So far every time I get close to her she slips past me.
Finally, I manage to corner her in the kitchen. With her back against the wall, I maneuver her into the walk-in pantry. Her eyes are spitting fire as I close the door behind me effectively locking her in here with me.
“Quit manhandling me you big oaf,” she snaps, and slaps my hands off her shoulders.
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d stop avoiding me,” I say with a bit more bite in my tone than I intended.
“What more is there to say, Ford? You said we’re fated, but all we do is hurt each other. I’m tired of hurting. I’ve had more than enough pain, especially the last few months. It’s time for us to let go.”
She still hasn’t told me what happened when Jesse held her captive. I’m not even sure how long he had her. My imagination is working overtime to fill in the details, but I hope I’m wrong. He was a sick fuck, and I’m glad he’s dead, I just wish he died slower and more painfully.
“When are you going to tell me what happened?” I ask her.
She wraps her arms around herself. “I can’t, not with this. I’m not saying this to hurt you, but you’ve turned on me before. This is too raw, and if you use this against me I won’t just break, I’ll shatter.”
“Tess,” I start and reach for her. She flinches, and I drop my hands. “Vixen, tell me what I need to do to prove to you that you’re safe with me. What do I need to do to show you that I want us to be together? I’ll do anything.”
She swallows. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do. You say you love me, but your love hurts. But if you really love me, then let me go.”
Tessa slips under my arm and out the door. I have to stand there for a minute and think about what she said. Maybe she’s right. I know I love her, but my love for her is selfish. It’s about how I feel, what I want, and for once I need to think about what’s best for Tessa. I just hope in the end that turns out to be me.
* * *
I tryto rejoin the others and watch the game like I haven’t had an earth-shaking revelation moments ago. Tessa, however, doesn’t come into the living room with the others.
After a few minutes, Shane elbows me in the side. “Are you planning on watching the game, or the hallway to see when Tessa is coming out with her overnight bag?”
My head whips around quickly enough to give me a sharp pain in the side of my neck. “Why would she need an overnight bag?”
Sin, Raven, and Jen squirm in their seats. Everyone knows something I don’t, and they’re all trying hard not to be the one to tell me what she’s up to. They’re all saved from that fate moments later when she does walk down the hall with a small canvas duffle bag.
She bites her lip when she sees all of us watching her. “I know we all spend a freakish amount of time together, but I promise you’ll be fine for a couple of days without me.”
Sin looks over at me, and back at her. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s why everyone’s gawking at you,” he grumbles.
Tessa takes a few steps back. “I know that we’ve had issues in the past, but I thought we’d gotten past all of that. Look, if everyone is uncomfortable having me around, I can find somewhere else to stay. I’m only here until the end of the semester anyway, and then I’m gone. If you guys want, I can make myself scarce until then.”
I can’t let her walk out of here thinking everyone wants her to leave, that I want her to leave. Jumping up out of my seat, I rush over to her. Her reaction doesn’t register right away, not until Sin leaps over the back of the couch and gets in between us. He puts his hand on my chest and pushes me back.
“You’re freaking her out,” he tells me.
I look back at Tessa, and her back is against the wall. Her arms are wrapped around herself, and she’s shaking. Sin is right, she’s terrified, and I did this to her. He turns to Tess, and tries to comfort her. He holds his hands in front of him. “I’m not going to touch you. What can I do to help you feel safe?”
Her teeth chatter while she shakes. “I—n…n…need—Benji,” she stutters.
My heart sinks. If ever there was a sign that I need to let her go, this seems like a billboard.
Of course, being the perfect motherfucker that he is he chooses this moment to knock on the door. Sin lets him in, and the only thing I can do is stand by and watch Bennett do everything for her I’ve never been able to.
“Shh, baby doll,” he whispers to her as he wraps his arms around her. Him she’ll let touch her. “I’m here. You’re safe with me. What can I do to make you feel that way right now?”
Tessa snuggles close to him and lays her head against his chest. The familiarity between them screams love. I can’t tell if they’re in love but they definitely love each other. “I wish you could just take me home,” she says muffled against his chest.
He strokes her hair, something I used to love to do when she was mine. “How about I take you back to my suite? You can get some rest and then we can get some dinner.”
“I’d like that,” she says softly.
This is the real Tessa, not the girl I’ve painted her out to be, not the brazen girl who walked the halls of Ocean Bluff High, and not even the bold girl she tries to be around us. I’ve always wanted to be the man who held her up while she found herself. But I went and fucked that up, and now someone else has stepped into that role.
Bennett grabs her bag off the ground and takes her hand. I watch him pause, and he smiles at her. It takes me a second to catch on that he’s noticed she’s wearing his ring. Tessa looks over her shoulder at me, and there’s a sad smile on her face. It’s then that I know if I don’t do something drastic she’s going to say yes to him.
He leads her out the door, and I have no choice but to let her go to a hotel with another man. To say I’d rather let Shane kick me in the nuts wouldn’t be an understatement, but I don’t have a choice. Sin closes the door behind them, and everyone turns to glare at me.
There’s a painfully long and very awkward silence before Sin finally speaks up. “As your newly appointed best friend.”
Raven clears her throat. “Uhm, husband dearest. He’s my best friend. I called him first, so I get to keep him.”
“Is this like an ‘I licked it so I get to have it’ thing? Because if that’s the case, technically, I get to keep him,” Jen says.
I cringe and take a few steps back. If I thought the silence was awkward, this is worse.
“Woman, we agreed we’d never talk about you dating Ford,” Shane complains.
Jen shakes her head. “Nope. You agreed with yourself. I never said any such thing. In fact, I believe I said that I love you honey, but I do plan to occasionally look back fondly on my time with Ford, because while I don’t love him, he’s got certain talents that a girl can’t help but admire.”
Sin points at Raven. “If you add anything to this conversation?—”
“Can we all stop having this conversation?” I beg while rubbing my temples. “Honestly, the ‘Ford is a manwhore’ shit has gotten beyond old. I don’t want to be known as the town slut anymore. What I want is to know how to get Tessa back.”
They all look at me like I’ve asked them to tell me that I can bring a loved one back from the dead or something. Sin continues what he started to say before, “Like I was going to say before I was interrupted, I think you need to consider what is best for Tessa here. I don’t have the facts, I don’t think any of us do, but I think it’s clear some bad shit happened to her recently and that Jesse is responsible. I’m starting to think she wasn’t helping him voluntarily.”
Shane, Jen, and I share a look. We haven’t told the others what she told us before. I realize I have to now. “She didn’t go to Jesse. He had her abducted from Seattle. Tracy and Lydia got into some trouble. Jesse thought he could use Tracy to get to me and through me to you and Raven. When he realized that wasn’t going to work, he thought he could use her to do the same with Tessa. He had no idea how far our relationship had fallen apart. She didn’t tell us what happened, only that they had her for three days.”
“She had rope burns on her wrists,” Jen blurts out.
Sin and Lucien share a look. One that promises pain and death, only Jesse is already dead thanks to Sin goading Raven and Lucien’s dad into killing him a few months ago. He might be dead, but I think Tessa is still fighting his ghost. All of our enemies are gone, but her battle is far from over.
And even if my friends think I should let her go, my fight for her will go on, because I can’t let her go. I might not be as good for her as he is. In the past we were toxic together. And I know that to say I need her is selfish. That means there’s only one thing I can do. I need to become the man who does deserve her. I have to work to become good enough for her. It’s time for me to show her that she’s always been good enough for me, and that I will move mountains for her. The first step is for me to lay down my pride.
I need to work fast though, because there’s a white knight fighting dragons for her, and while what she needs is someone to slay her demons, I’m very, very far behind.