Chapter 31 #2
He was broken. Pathetic. I never in my life thought I’d see Devlin brought this low. No matter what I’d thought of him, he was always full of life. Drive. Purpose. And now he was like an empty shell, and I didn’t think it was because of my fists.
Conrad stepped out of his grip, and Devlin’s hand smacked the concrete. He groaned and wheezed as he rolled his dirty face into the floor.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Conrad said, and I was surprised at how much those words relieved me.
“My men will drive you out of the city and to a hospital. You’ll get treatment, and then you’ll leave the state.
You will never return. I have eyes everywhere, Devlin, and if I see your face, I’ll kill you.
This is not mercy. This is a warning. I want you to live like this, empty and aching.
That’s a better punishment than a bullet between the eyes. ”
The howl that tore from Devlin’s throat echoed in the dank space, full of pain and torment that made me clench my jaw.
Conrad’s body jerked, but he stepped back just as a few of his men clambered down the stairs.
They picked up Devlin’s body, but only then did he fall silent, body limp.
Maybe he passed out, or maybe he’d gone catatonic.
I didn’t look at him as they carried him away. I never wanted to look at him again.
Conrad dropped the gun, and it clattered to the ground. He turned and took one stumbling step toward me. Another. “Tav,” he whispered.
I surged forward, arms out, and caught him before he could hit the floor.
Conrad
Hands touched me. Reverent. Soft. In the far distance, too far to belong to the ones that touched me, a female voice was speaking. “…if he runs a fever, call me immediately. The wounds need checked frequently for signs of infection...”
A deep voice answered her, and then they grew more distant until they couldn’t be heard.
Not from here, in whatever room I was in.
I lay on a familiar softness, and the blankets beneath my hands were my own.
I smelled home, and even though I couldn’t seem to open my eyes just yet, I knew I was in my bedroom.
There was a buzzing sound near me that I couldn’t solidify or grasp onto just yet.
I felt floaty. Not in my body. My skin was loose. I sought to fight through the haze. This was why I didn’t drink a lot or do drugs. I hated not knowing what was going on.
The hands were still touching me, and so was something else, something soft, that drifted from my hair down my temples to the corners of each eye. Kisses. Soft, barely there kisses.
And then I realized the buzzing was a voice, just a murmur.
“…you’ll be okay. She said so, and although she’s an orgasm tyrant, she’s right.
You only hire the best, Con. So you just have to sleep, and your body will heal.
She made sure to mention you’ll take longer than I did, since you’re older, which I thought was a low blow while you were still unconscious. ”
Tav kept talking, sometimes speaking full sentences and other times nonsense as his lips traveled over my face.
The skin was tight, and a little hot. So sore.
But each kiss seemed to soothe the sharpest of pains.
I tried to move my lips, or open my eyes, or even twitch a finger, but the floaty feeling was too powerful, and the cloud descended until I went back under.
I clawed my way through the cloudy haze again to the dull buzz of what sounded like the TV.
Fingers combed through my hair as my eyes remained too heavy to open.
The bed shook as Tav laughed. “So every day, she wakes up and doesn’t remember him.
So he has to work all day to get her through all the memories.
Only to do it all over again the next day.
Damn. That’s love, Con.” His fingers stilled for a minute.
“I think you’d do that for me. I’d do it for you.
If you wake up and don’t remember me, I’d get you to want me again. Every day.”
Had he spoken to me the entire time I was unconscious? Lips touched the side of my head. “I just heard the dryer beep. Gonna go get the laundry and be right back. I’ll pause the movie so we don’t miss anything.”
His weight left the bed, and I could hear his padded footsteps leave the bedroom to head toward the laundry room.
I finally peeled my eyes open, although only one obeyed. The other stayed stubbornly shut, and I decided not to worry about it for now. The lights were dim in the room, just a table lamp and the moonlight. How long had I been out?
Footsteps returned, and Tav dropped something on the floor with a loud thud.
He sank down on the edge of the bed, not yet noticing my state of wakefulness.
Probably didn’t help I could only open one eye.
I tried to say his name, but only air came out as he bent down, picked up a towel and began to fold it.
Of course, he folded it like an insane person, starting with lengthwise.
Then he seemed to do a combination of rolling and folding before plopping it down on the bed in what seemed like a rumpled bundle.
He stared at it for a minute before shrugging and picking up another towel.
Fuck, he was infuriatingly endearing.
I tried again, and this time a semblance of sound came out. “Tav.”
He jerked, nearly toppling off the bed before whirling around, two-toned eyes blinking owlishly.
“Holy shit,” he whispered before scrambling up the bed to my side.
The mattress jolted, and pain streaked up my side.
I gasped, and he went very still, on all fours with one hand still in the air.
Guilt streaked his features. “Shit, sorry.”
The pain stole my breath away, and for one terrifying second, I thought I was going to suffocate, but then the sharpness receded to a dull ache, and I could inhale again.
“Con,” he moved much more fluidly to my side now, like the athlete he was, and knelt there. “D-Do you remember me?”
“Said your name, didn’t I?” I was reduced to less than full sentences. My throat was on fire, my tongue was too big for my mouth, and my lips had to be twice their normal size.
A beeping came from somewhere near us. A phone. Tav reached for it and turned off the sound before hovering over me. Gentle fingers prodded at a particularly painful spot on my ribs. “That was my alarm to check your bandages.”
He tugged the blankets down to my knees and touched my thigh. I closed my eye, unwilling to remember the feel of the knife slicing through the muscle while Devlin raged.
Devlin. I wasn’t going to think about him now. I knew Nik would have a report on him, but that was a worry for another day where I didn’t feel like dying.
I flailed my hand, feeling ungrounded, uncertain, panicked.
Tav grabbed it immediately, lacing our fingers together, and brought my hand up to his mouth.
He ran my knuckles back and forth over his lips, kissing my fingers, my palm, and then sliding down to my wrist before he tickled my pulse with the tip of his tongue.
“How bad do I look?” I asked him.
He leaned his cheek on the back of my hand and held it there. “Pretty bad.”
“Am I ugly?”
“Hideous.”
“I won’t hold it against you if you want to leave and find someone else.”
“Good, I was looking for an out.”
My throat felt tight, and not from pain, but from an overwhelming sense that despite my current state, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
Nowhere but here with Tav. My eyes burned, and I was thankful that with all the injuries, he might not be able to tell if a few tears leaked out. “I was going to tell you,” I said.
“I know. I saw the cinnamon rolls.”
That clog was a full-on jam in my throat, and I just managed to get out the next two words on a harsh rasp. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes were soft as he shook his head. “No more sorries.”
“I have said very little sorries to you.”
“And those were enough. In the future, I only want sorries when you burn dinner or don’t wipe down the treadmill after you sweat all over it or forget duck sauce when we get Chinese takeout.”
“Boring sorries, then.”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “I want really fucking boring sorries.” He dropped our hands into his lap and stared down at them as he fiddled with my fingers. His Adam’s apple bobbed and his jaw shifted. When his head lifted, his eyes were wet and red-rimmed. “I missed you.”
My breath hitched in my chest. “Me too.”
“What do you need? How are you feeling?”
“Like I was beaten and stabbed by my childhood best friend.”
Tav sucked in a breath. “Con.”
“Did he hit anything vital?”
Tav chewed on his bottom lip. “You’re alive and here instead of a hospital, so no.”
“He knew though,” I said. “He knew how to hit something vital. And he didn’t.”
Tav nodded tightly. “Yeah.”
For once, I couldn’t read Tav’s expression, maybe because my vision wasn’t great, or maybe because he’d gotten better at regulating himself. “D-do you think I should have...” My chest tightened.
“No,” Tav’s face immediately crumpled, and he shifted closer to me so I could see his face better. “No, Con.”
“What do you think I was going to say?”
“You were going to ask if I thought you should have killed him.”
I tried to squint, but I didn’t think I achieved any level of glare. “It’s getting irritating how well you can read me.”
A massive grin split his face and made his dimples pop. “Good.” Then his smile faded as his fingers played with my hair. “I thought for a long time that I wanted him dead. But in that basement, watching you stand over him… I didn’t want you to kill him. Was this always your plan?”
“I thought I’d kill him. That had been my plan. And it wasn’t that I couldn’t. I just didn’t think it was the right thing to do. Devlin… he will suffer.”
“How so?”
My throat hurt, but I gave Tav a summary of the conversations I had with Devlin, how his seduction turned quickly to anger, and how he made me pay for the rejection, for not being who he wanted.
“You were right,” I said at last. “He wanted a version of me that didn’t exist.” I eyed him. “Are you going to say I told you so?”
He shook his head. “No. I understand why you needed to hear the truth from Devlin.”
I swallowed. “He wanted more from me than I could give him. Total domination. He wanted me to hurt him.”
Tav’s eyes went misty. “That’s not you, Con. That could never be you.”
“Maybe he’ll find that, someone who can be what he wanted.”
“Maybe,” Tav whispered.
He touched our foreheads together, and his lips brushed mine. “You finally let go of all the guilt?”
I was in too much pain to reach inside myself and feel around. “I don’t know. Most of it, I think.”
“Ninety percent?”
“Maybe seventy-five.”
Tav pulled back with a scoff and a smirk. “We’ll get you there.”
We fell into silence. My head pounded, and my eyelid began to droop. I didn’t want to sleep anymore though. I wanted to stay with Tav, safe and warm in my bed. “I’m sorry you had to go back there.”
Tav’s shoulders heaved as his gaze traveled to the window at the far wall.
“I remembered it, but I didn’t really feel it.
Who I was five years ago… I barely recognize him.
When I went down those stairs and saw you, that was my only focus.
” His jaw shifted, and his eyes returned to mine.
“In that moment, I thought it was harder seeing you like that than having it done to me.”
“That can’t be true.”
He shrugged. “Did you like watching me get pummeled in the face?”
Even now, I could hear the echoes of his screams. A shudder left me trembling. “I don’t want to think about that.”
He smiled sadly. “See?”
“He told me he broke you.” Tav’s fingers tightened in mine. “And all I could think about was how sad Devlin was. He had no idea you weren’t broken, not at all. That you were stronger than ever. I think that was what got me through.”
Tav’s lips parted, and then he slid down to his side next to me, knees touching the outside of my thigh as he gripped my hand in both of his big mitts. It was the only part of my body that didn’t hurt.
I rolled my head to face him. “He told me he’d break me too. And I think he could have, maybe, but I also knew you’d put me back together, right?”
Tav smiled, his lips fluttering over my knuckles. “Just like you fixed me. I’d do the same to you.” He tugged up the blankets around me and tucked me in. “Now rest. I can tell you’re fading, and you need to heal.”
I couldn’t smile, not really, but I felt the smile inside. “Then put on another movie. And don’t bother folding the towels. I think they’ll be less wrinkled if you just leave them in the basket.”
He looked at me for a minute before his nose wrinkled. “Fuck off, Con.”
And inside, I laughed.