Twenty-five
Teagan
The sunlight burns my eyes when I finally wake up. Did I sleep in? A frantic peek at my phone shows it’s just past eight o’clock.
I didn’t expect to be this worn out after last night. I also didn’t plan for last night to be that . . . eventful. Luckily, I did plan for the guys to need some recovery time. We have another two hours before we have to be anywhere.
Rolling over, I find Heath at the other side of the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The sheets hang low on his hips, showing off most of why I tolerate him. I want to run my tongue over every ridge of his scrumptious six-pack and the deep seam of his chest, but more than that, I want to know why he’s lying next to me.
“Why are you in the bed?” I ask.
He looks my way. His dark hair hangs in his face, the natural waves loose with the lack of product. “After what I did to you last night, I think I deserve more than a cot.” He smirks. “Want to fit in round four?”
I give him the side-eye. Sitting up, I realize I’m naked. I never sleep naked, but our third time around was a bit of a surprise. After our second go, I had enough wherewithal to wrap whatever remained of my blowout after he had been fully intent on making me sweat it out like Beyoncé. But then he bent me over the mattress and took me again, hard , leaving me brainless and without the energy to dress or make sure he stuck to the agreement and stayed out of the fucking bed. He’s so annoying. Sexy as fuck, but so, so annoying.
Even if I wasn’t sore and exhausted from lack of sleep, I wasn’t going to let him break another rule. “You need to shower and get out of here before the guys get up.”
“Is that a no, or . . . ?” He rolls closer and gives me that sexy look that makes my brain stop braining or whatever.
I stare him down, not wanting to tell him no or give him the benefit of a yes. “My bonnet really does it for you, huh?”
“Not gonna lie, it kind of does.” His tongue traces his bottom lip while his smile widens. “I probably should have worn one too.”
“I wasn’t going to say it, but . . .” I reach over and brush his hair into his face. He laughs and lies back to run his fingers through it. “Get up.”
“Oh, I’m up.” He glances down, making me do the same, finding the tent he’s pitching beneath the thin sheet.
“You need to stop,” I say. “You’re breaking so many rules right now.”
“Oh yeah? Which ones?”
“No sleepovers, no pillow talk—”
“This isn’t a sleepover. You knew what you signed up for when you agreed to share a room.”
“I expected to save money, not share a bed. Sleepover or not, this is still pillow talk.”
He chuckles. “We’re talking while we’re on pillows. It’s not pillow talk.”
“That’s literally the same thing.”
“Okay, then let’s stop talking.” He crawls closer and peers down at me with a conniving grin.
I sigh with frustration. “I’m too tired for your shit right now, Heath.”
“Too tired? Who said you had to do anything?” He reaches down and takes me by the back of my knee, pulling it up. His hand slides up and down my thigh, sending tingles across my skin and a rush of warmth to my core. “I got this.”
I consider giving in until someone bangs on the door. “Teags!”
Heath and I look at each other with the same face. Shit .
We fly out of the bed. While I rip off my bonnet and put on a robe, he gathers his clothes and other items from the floor and runs into the bathroom. The lock clicks behind him, and I open the door.
Brett’s and Ryan’s stupid faces peer at me. They are in last night’s clothes, their eyes bloodshot and glassy, both looking panicked. Goddamn it, Brett . I know whatever drama comes next is his fault. “What the hell did you do?”
“Ritchie and Heath are gone,” Brett says.
He means Ritchie is gone but I won’t correct him. “What do you mean by ‘gone’?”
“Gone as in they’re not here and we can’t reach them.”
I press my palm to my forehead. “Not again.”
Heath’s dumb ass knocks something over in the bathroom, making it crash loudly on the floor. I pretend I don’t hear it, but it makes no difference. “Do you have someone else in there?” Brett asks, looking past me in various directions.
“Priorities much?” I say with a glare. “Let me get ready and I’ll meet you in your room. Keep calling them.” I shut the door in their faces and lean back against it. Listening to their voices trail away, I sigh. “They’re gone.”
The bathroom lock clicks and Heath slides the door open. He’s still naked, and seems to have no intention of changing that. It takes everything I have not to look down when he leans his arms on the door frame. “I should have answered my phone, I guess.”
“You think?”
He laughs and walks back to the bed, not acknowledging how lucky he is our tweaked-out friends didn’t consider why someone else is staying in the random room number he gave them.
“Do you have any idea where Ritchie could be?”
I can see the gears in his mind slowly start to turn. “I think I might.”
~
“Tell me why Ritchie is at the fucking airport,” I say to Heath when I return from my investigation. “Actually, don’t. That would make what I’m about to do premeditated rather than a crime of passion.”
The hotel manager was happy to be an accomplice, letting me know they called Ritchie a cab just like Heath suspected. Back in the guys’ suite, Ryan and Brett pace in the next room, pretending they aren’t tweaking out.
“He’s having issues with Gigi again. I told him he should talk to her, not fly his ass back to New York.” Before I can tell him to handle it, he offers. “Let me call him. Maybe he’ll answer if he doesn’t see your name pop up.”
“Thank you.” I trust him to speak Ritchie’s language better than I can. He walks away while spewing angry words at a quieter volume than I can manage right now.
In the living space, I avert my eyes from the remnants of a white substance powdered on the coffee table, entertainment I’m certain Brett procured last night without my knowledge. One of the many problems with him is that he knows too many people and has too much money. Whatever he wants, he gets, and when he parties, he parties with very few restrictions—legal or otherwise. Judging by Heath’s angry whispers, Ritchie is probably in the same condition, but at least he got a hold of him.
The dank air of spoiled fuckboy shenanigans is enough to choke me. I open the balcony doors, inhaling gulps of fresh air to calm my blood pressure. Ryan appears from nowhere, looking a damn mess. His sunken eyes are wide with fear and a lack of sleep.
“Oh my god. What’s wrong with you now?”
He looks at me and his brow furrows. “I’m freaking out, Teags.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“Ritchie just made me think—”
“Don’t let Ritchie make you think about anything. He doesn’t even think for himself.”
“But . . .” he says in a quivering voice. “I’m starting to think that, maybe, like, what if—”
“Oh my god, spit it out!”
He looks me in the eyes. His are wet with tears. I sigh, knowing this is about to be melodramatic as hell. “How can you know for sure?” he asks.
This is like talking to a fucking toddler. “Know what for sure?”
“How do you know you’re with the right person? Like, you look around at all these happy couples who are breaking up, couples married for twenty years getting a divorce. It’s like you can be madly in love one minute and then suddenly your relationship is crumbling. How?” He fidgets while he breathes away tears. “Is it better to be alone than to waste your time with someone who will make you never want to be in love again? To let someone ruin you for everyone else?”
He’s not asking a hypothetical. He’s asking because that’s what he thinks happened to me .
He reads my thoughts on my face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, you definitely did.”
He goes back to his bullshit. “But, I mean. You seemed so happy. And now you’re—”
“Bitter and broken?” I finish for him.
“No! I mean, whatever happened, happened, and now you think you don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone , even if—”
I raise a hand to keep him from finishing his sentence. “Please stop before I push you off this balcony.” I wish I was kidding. “If you want to have a cold-footed freak-out, go ahead, but leave me out of it.”
“But how do you know if you’re with the wrong person?”
With a deep breath, I let the memories peek into my thoughts. “You can’t know that,” I tell him truthfully. A flicker of emotion twists in my stomach and grips my throat, but I shake it off. “You can love everything about someone, then life shows up and changes them in ways you can’t predict. If you get married and five years from now everything falls apart, that’s not time wasted, it’s time you spent trying to be happy. That’s all life really is. Trying to be happy while surviving the bullshit.”
His brow crumples. “Really?”
I stare at him, fighting the angry tears I’ve cried too many times. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“Teags.” He comes closer and wraps me in a hug. “What would I do without you?”
I wish I could find out, I answer in my head. Still annoyed, I return his unsolicited embrace with a few pats on the back. He leans away and looks at me for a moment, his hand finding my cheek. Not knowing where that hand has been, I try to pull it away. It doesn’t work.
“How do I . . . how do I know it’s not you?” he asks.
“What’s not me?”
He gives me a pitiful look. His other hand joins his first, holding my face between them. His thumbs trace my cheekbones while I can feel how ugly the grimace on my face looks. “How do I know you’re not the one?”
My brow scrunches with confusion. “Huh?”
“I love you, Teagan. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” he says. “Thinking about getting married is freaking me out, and I think maybe it’s because I’m not marrying you.”
What?
I stare at him, trying to hold it in, but I fail. The laugh I’m fighting comes out of my nose. I cover my mouth with a hand, but it bursts out. My head falls back as I cackle.
I have to hold on to him in fear of falling over. I laugh until my abs hurt and my eyes are watering. “You think you want to be with me? You think I’d ever want to be with you? Oh my god, I’m gonna pee my pants.” I cackle again, gripping my stomach when it cramps. “Ryan, you cannot be serious. You must be high out of your damn mind.”
His eyes stay wide while he contemplates my words. “Oh. I think you’re right.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I wipe my eyes while my cheeks and stomach ache. As fucked up as he must be for that to ever cross his mind, at least he made me laugh. “Come on, you can sober up over breakfast.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” Ryan says.
“You weren’t thinking. Go drink some water.”
Ryan stumbles away to join Brett when Heath wanders back, his conversation done.
“The cab is bringing him back,” he says, his tone lackluster. The humor evaporates.
“Good. Thank you.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it.” He tosses his eyes at Ryan, then walks away, scrubbing his hands over his face with an exasperated exhale.
Same .
~
The second we land at LaGuardia, reality creeps back in, and with it, my feelings. Heath is immediately on his phone again, his thumbs flying over the keys. The post-Vegas grovel text, I’m sure. He left his good mood back at the hotel. In the seat between us, Ryan is still asleep, his beanie pulled down over his eyes, his expensive headphones on, blasting his shitty EDM mix. I won’t wake him until we reach the gate. Less time to talk to him after the awkwardness of before.
He threw me. Geeked or not, he reminded me why I don’t leave my heart open anymore. I no longer have the desire to let someone get close to me again.
When you’re a kid, you think nothing can hurt you if you build your walls thick enough. Then you let someone in. No matter how deeply you love someone, there is always the chance of life showing up out of nowhere, crumbling every wall you’ve built, leaving you broken and raw. When the damage is too great, there is no point in trying to put the pieces back together. You move on and start anew, letting the shell of the person you were before lie beneath the rubble.
My eyes lift to Heath. Our contract is perfect. It keeps it black-and-white, clearly delineated, emotionless. There’s no chance of gray if we stick to it.
“Back to business, I see,” I say to him. He doesn’t look at me, but rather continues to scowl at his phone. “When do you plan to confront her?”
He finally looks up at me with a surprised expression. “Confront her?”
“Confront her. Tell her. Whatever you want to call it.” He looks even more confused than before. I don’t know why I give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his mental capabilities. He thinks with his dick. “How long do you think you can go before she cares about you spending your evenings with her and your nights with someone else?”
It finally clicks with him. He looks away and shakes his head. “You’re talking about Shelley. Again. I’m getting real sick of having to tell you she isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Yet.”
He closes his eyes with an angry inhale. “I don’t have time for this right now, Teags.”
“Chill. I’m not trying to scold you. I just think it’s best to be open with her. And with me,” I try to reassure him. “If you’re considering more with her, tell me. I just don’t want any more surprises this summer. That’s all.”
His vexation burns into anger. He leans in to whisper, his glare intent and threatening. “I am not fucking Shelley. I do not plan to fuck Shelley. But if you’d like that to change, keep this shit up.”
I rear back with surprise. “Excuse me?” The seat belt sign dings and the clacking sound of unbuckling interrupts me. I hadn’t noticed us arriving at the gate. “I said everything is fine, Heath. I just want you to talk to me if—”
“There is nothing I want to talk to you about.” The anger on his face is drastically out of context. “Fucking drop it.”
Now I’m bothered. “Okay, so what you’re doing right now is the definition of fuckshit. Don’t come at me because you’re in your feelings.”
“Teagan. Respectfully, you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about right now, so how about you shut the hell up.”
My jaw drops.
“Why can’t you guys go more than a day without fighting?” Ryan says in a gravelly voice. Caught up in whatever that just was, I didn’t notice he’d woken up. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Yeah, you’re one to talk,” I snip, still riled up.
I look back up and see Heath pushing past people on his way down the aisle. He’s gone.
I expected this weekend to be fucked, but not when it came to Heath. He’s pissed at me, and I don’t know why. To think I could be the one to fracture my contract’s integrity bothers me to the core. If he’s right—if I’m the one pushing things too far, crossing the lines set forth in our agreement—he has every right to call it. And if he does, then what? I don’t have space for the unpredictable right now. So maybe it’s best if I give him space.
I taste blood before I realize my finger is in my mouth.