Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Tanner stalked down the sidewalk. He figured he looked pissed off because people kept crossing the street to get away from him.
It was near midnight, and he scowled at every bar and dance club that he passed, thinking of all the happy people inside. It wasn’t that he was jealous they had what he didn’t. He was angry at himself for not being like them. For not being the person he’d been six months ago.
He couldn’t believe he’d been such an ass tonight in front of Faith. And he’d been a jerk to Noah, who didn’t remotely deserve it.
The guy had asked for his permission to go out with Faith, and Tanner had given it. The stupid double date hadn’t been his idea, but he could’ve put a stop to it. Instead, he’d ruined everyone’s night.
He’d acted like some twenty-year-old, testosterone-addled bully.
He’d already apologized to Myra as she drove him away from the restaurant. She had assured him it was no big deal, though he didn’t see how that could be true. She didn’t even know his excuse. Not that he intended to excuse his behavior by shifting the blame.
Tanner was well aware that mental illness was no weakness. If anyone had dared suggest that about one of his fellow veterans, he’d have vigorously listed all the arguments to the contrary. But somehow, when it came to his own problems, he couldn’t speak up.
All he knew was, he’d needed to get out of Myra’s car before they’d gone a mile. He’d asked her to pull over, and then he’d walked down to the beachside path to pound the pavement.
Questions had peppered him with every step.
What was he supposed to say to Noah and Faith?
What was he supposed to do if they actually liked each other? If he had to see his best friend with the girl he kept fantasizing about?
The walking had helped, as it usually did.
By the time he turned down his street, he was breathing easier. He didn’t feel a deep scowl furrowing his face anymore. He just felt sad.
But his relative calm lasted only until he saw Noah and Faith sitting on the steps of his porch.
What were they doing here?
Did they want his permission? His blessing?
Fuck me.
He almost turned around right then to keep on walking.
But Noah jumped up and jogged toward him. “Tanner, Jesus. Where have you been?”
His eyes strayed over to Faith, who still remained sitting.
“Decided I felt like taking the long way home. What are you doing here?”
Noah dug his hands into his jeans pockets. “We need to talk, and I didn’t think it could wait. Not with how we left things.”
So Tanner’s instinct had been right. Noah wanted to start something up with Faith, and he needed to be honest about it or some other honorable shit like that. Maybe he intended to take Faith home right now.
The thought of her in Noah’s arms, in Noah’s bed, made Tanner’s guts twist. He couldn’t fucking stand it.
Only Noah would think talking about something like this was necessary.
“You could tell earlier I’m pissy tonight,” he growled, “and I promise you, things haven’t improved.”
Noah came over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, though he had to reach up to do it. He steered Tanner a few yards away, probably so they’d be out of Faith’s earshot.
“You’ll want to hear this.”
“I guarantee, I don’t. You don’t have to worry. I’ll get over it. Just… You don’t have to rub it in my face.”
Noah tipped his head back and burst out laughing. “Really? You like this girl, and you’re giving her up that easily?”
Tanner squinted at his friend. “What, am I supposed to fight you?”
Don’t tempt me, he thought. Don’t fucking tempt me.
“No, you’re supposed to shut your big yap and listen.”
But he didn’t want to do that. In fact, he was feeling more unreasonable every second. “I jerked off thinking about her. More than once. Sure you don’t want to punch me?”
Noah’s eyes closed. “Jesus Christ, dude. This would’ve been a lot simpler if you’d come out and told me how you felt before. Instead of pulling all this drama shit. And now that I know, I’ll get out of your way. All right? That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
He didn’t understand. “Out of my way? What do you mean?”
“Why are you making this so difficult? Do you have feelings for Faith or not? Real feelings, not just…” Noah rolled his eyes. “Jerking off,” he muttered.
He turned to look over his shoulder. She was still there on his porch. A few locks had fallen out of her braid around her face.
“I do. I want the chance to make her happy. So bad.” He wanted to see her hair fanning over his pillow again, but it was a lot more than that.
He wanted to make her smile, hear her laugh, and be able to kiss her right after.
“But she doesn’t feel that way about me.
And even if she did, I thought she’d be better off with someone like you. ”
Noah scoffed. “That makes no sense. More importantly, she doesn’t agree—on either of those counts.”
Tanner’s head swiveled back to his friend.
“The rest is for her to say, not me. But can you promise me one thing? Try not to screw this up?”
Noah spoke briefly to Faith, then got in his car and drove away. He’d left her behind.
Crickets were chirping, but otherwise, the street was quiet.
Tanner didn’t know exactly what was going on here, and he still felt like a mess on the inside. But he was starting to hope. It felt like a glimmer of sunshine after a string of gloomy days.
He went up to his porch. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I’m surprised you wanted to see me. Wasn’t at my best tonight. Really sorry about that.”
“I wasn’t either.” She stood, brushing off her dress. His eyes traced over her.
“But you didn’t almost start a brawl.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Maybe I did. You weren’t with me every minute.”
“I wanted to be.” He held her gaze. He really needed to know if what Noah said was true.
Then she said something he hadn’t expected. “Should we take a walk?”
He checked her shoes. Sandals, but not the impractical heeled kind some women wore. “Where to?”
“Anywhere.”
For the first time in hours, he felt himself almost smile. “Okay.”
His house was only a few blocks away from the beach, so he turned back in the direction of the shore.
She fell into step beside him. She had a small purse on a long strap, and she put it over her head so it crossed her body, which made him think of his hands following the same path along her shoulder, over her breasts, to her waist…
Did she want that?
God, this was torture. But he wouldn’t be anywhere else for the world.
For a while, they didn’t say anything. When they reached the shore, they took the paved beachside path.
He was thinking of their first “date” together.
Even though it hadn’t been a real date, that night had meant something to him, and its significance had only grown as the weeks passed.
He’d had his reasons for not pursuing her before, even aside from thinking he was in the friend zone. Those realities still existed.
He needed to be honest with her. Noah had told him, Don’t screw this up. He really didn’t want to.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
Faith stopped and turned to him.
“It would be easier if we kept walking.”
“Oh. Okay.” She hesitated, but they resumed their course.
“The other night, when you were at my house, and I freaked out when you came upstairs… I knew exactly why it happened, but I didn’t want to tell you the truth.” He took a breath. “I have PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Because you were in the military?”
“It’s related to that, yeah.”
“What’s it like?”
The question surprised him. He thought about how to describe it. “Like there are so many signals coming into my brain I can’t make sense of it. I feel overwhelmed, convinced something bad is going to happen. I’m always bracing myself for it. Certain days are worse than others. Certain nights.”
“You have nightmares? Like the other night?”
He nodded. “I told you I don’t sleep much, but this is the real reason why. Sometimes it gets intense.” Like he was running from something, and if he stopped moving, it would lunge out of the shadows to consume him.
“Is it intense now?”
“Lately? Yeah.”
“That sounds awful. I’m sorry.”
Ocean Lane was practically deserted now.
The occasional car drove past, and a few people remained on the beach.
When Tanner was out late like this, he sometimes saw homeless people in sleeping bags or bundled with blankets.
In a few more hours, nearly everyone would be alone, their expressions glazed.
Sometimes, Tanner wondered if he looked the same to others he passed in those early hours of the morning.
“I don’t want to make excuses for what happened tonight. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“It wasn’t so bad. You didn’t hit the guy.”
“But I wanted to.”
When he was at work, he could focus. The world shifted back into clarity. But outside his job at Bennett Security, Tanner felt unmoored. Adrift in a chaotic world he could no longer navigate. Yet the world hadn’t changed. Just him.
Faith tugged at the purse strap crossing her torso. “When I’m around you… Do I make it worse?”
He rested a hand on her upper arm, stopping her. “No. Not at all.” He never wanted her to think that. “It’s complicated. But it feels good to be around you.”
“I like being around you, too. A lot.”
They were far from the nearest streetlight. Her face was half bright, half shadow. He reached up to run his thumb along her cheek. She turned into his touch.
“I suck as your wingman, though. Because I’d rather not see you with anybody else.”
“I don’t want anybody else. Just you.”
Tanner was struggling to get enough air in his lungs, but for once, it wasn’t anything like panic.
Faith reached for his hand. Their fingers wound together. “Should we keep walking?”
“That works for me.” He didn’t want to fuck up this moment. But at least she hadn’t run in the other direction. She was still walking with him. Holding his hand.
“Have you told Noah about having PTSD?”
“He knows I went through something a few years ago. But not about how it’s been recently. I got a concussion. It happened before I met you.”
“Sylvie told me. It was when you were protecting her?”
“Yeah. It’s like getting knocked in the head rewound the clock in my brain.
When I woke up, I thought…” He didn’t want to rehash those memories with her.
That was a place he’d prefer not to go. “Anyway, Noah wouldn’t judge me, but I’m worried he’ll make me take time off.
When I’m protecting people, that’s the only time I feel calm.
Or most of the time when I’m with you.” He huffed a laugh.
“As long as I’m not thinking about Noah making moves on you. ”
“I really thought you didn’t see me that way. I thought I had a hopeless crush.”
“So did I.” He marveled to think Faith had been feeling the same.
But Sylvie had always said he was clueless about women liking him. Of course, there was more to it. The fear of dragging her down under the weight of his issues. But now he wondered if he’d had it wrong. If denying his feelings for her had only made the stress worse.
“I got my hair cut because of you.”
“Me?”
He brushed his palm over the shortened strands at the side. “You said you wanted to see more of me. And once that idea was in my head, I couldn’t get rid of it. You said I was hiding, and you were right.”
She squeezed his hand. “I don’t want you to hide. But you don’t have to change anything for me, either.”
He needed her closer. Tanner let go of her hand so he could wind his arm around her waist, drawing her against his side as they walked. Being able to touch her this way was the best thing he could imagine. Well, second best. No clothes between them would be slightly better.
“But I do like the haircut,” she added.
“Myra told me I upped my hotness quotient.”
Faith stopped to study him. Her eyes moved around his face, settling on his mouth. “She’s not wrong. It wasn’t easy to keep my hands off you that night at your house.”
He hummed. “It wasn’t easy lying next to you in my bed, trying to be good.”
“I didn’t want to be good, either. Still don’t.”
His cock jumped, responding to the heat in her gaze. He pulled her into a walk again.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Same place I took you on our first date. The bench with a spectacular view of the shoreline.”
“Our practice date. Are we still practicing? Or is it opening night?” She giggled.
He swallowed a groan of longing. “There’s that dirty mind of yours.”
His fingers massaged her waist through her dress. The thought of her skin with no barriers—just Faith, blond hair spread beneath her, panting under his touch—sent jolts of arousal down his spine.
The path sloped upward. Unlike the last time they’d walked this way, when he’d been on good behavior, his dick was getting harder by the second. Her teasing sounded less like a joke and more like a naughty promise of things to come.
He wouldn’t move too fast with her. But damn, now that he knew she felt the same way, it was not easy to focus on being patient.
But there was more he needed to say.
They settled onto the bench. This midnight view was more subdued than their last visit here. Lonely lights dotted the coastline. Tanner pulled her close and rested his cheek on her head.
“I’ve been crushing hard on you since the night we came here,” he said. “I thought about asking you out for real. But I knew if you were around me enough, you’d eventually see what I was hiding. I was afraid I’d scare you away.”
Faith sat back enough that she could lock eyes with him. ”People think I’m innocent or naive. I’m not.”
“I know.” She’d told him enough about her past to make him realize that. “But haven’t you been through enough?”
“You don’t think I’m strong enough to handle it?”
“I know you are. But I only want happiness for you.”
“This makes me happy—you and me, being honest with each other.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Nothing about you could ever scare me away.”
He wanted so badly to believe that.
Faith caressed the whiskers on his chin. He felt her breaths on his skin. Their mouths were just inches apart. She craned her neck, eyelids heavy.
Tanner touched his lips to hers. They both pulled back, eyes meeting.
She dove forward to kiss him again. Faith’s lips were so soft. He wanted to suck on them, to taste all of her, but he forced himself to be calm.
Then she draped one of her long legs across his lap, and he couldn’t stop himself. His tongue licked at the seam of her lips. Faith opened her mouth to deepen their connection. Her tongue slid against his. The slick motion, the heat—it combined to make his insides feel like they were combusting.
She made a little moan, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.
This thing between them, however she wanted to define it, was so new and surprising that he hardly believed it was happening. But she felt so right in his arms. He was going to hold onto this girl if he could help it.