16. Tessa #2
She didn’t want the aged trinket. Her father’s prize and her mother’s decoration.
She wanted Greer.
And if it meant she had to choose, so be it.
Glancing at her phone once more, taking note of the time and the lack of messages, her mind pondered what she should do.
Sure, it was an odd situation, given she’d never been in a clinch like this before.
And honestly, while she’d had friends in her life, there wasn’t anyone that she could call on the way that she called on Greer.
They could rely on each other. They supported each other.
They were partners.
And even though they’d gotten thrown together under the most unusual circumstances, she’d discovered in him someone who had never let her down.
And she knew she couldn’t let him down either. Not now.
Not ever.
Standing up from her seat, she took a long look down the sidewalk, knowing she had to go back for him. If that meant facing down that guard again, or breaking into that building all by herself, setting off every alarm in there, she wouldn’t let him take the heat all by himself.
Only she didn’t have to.
Because walking down the street, headed straight for her and wearing the world’s biggest smile, was Greer.
She knew he would catch her.
Which was why she ran full-tilt toward him on the sidewalk.
Diving in and around people who were coming and going from their day, Tessa launched herself into his arms, where he caught her as she wrapped her arms and legs around him.
Holding her close without any fear that she’d drop, she felt the sweet sensation of his laughter reverberate from his torso into hers.
He was here.
He was okay!
And something pointy was digging into her inner thigh.
“You made it,” she said breathlessly, pulling herself far enough away to take in his smiling face. “I was worried you thought I’d abandoned you.”
“Nah,” he said. “You’re right where I told you to be.”
She cupped his face, kissing him, getting lost in him when he started laughing all over again.
“C’mon,” he said, gripping her thighs as he set her back to the sidewalk gently. “Let’s get on the train and back to your parents’ house. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not hang around here any longer than necessary.”
“Of course,” she said, taking his hand, the two of them scooting down toward the station, taking the rocky path that eventually led to the building that would grant them access to the subway.
Seated inside, it took only moments for the doors to shut and the train to take off back toward the heart of Boston and Back Bay.
The further they traveled from Newton, the more Tessa felt like she could breathe again.
“So what happened after I left?” she wondered, turning her body toward his as he put his arm around her shoulders.
“Well, after your brilliant move,” he said, pausing to give her a grin, “the guard took some time to try to turn off the alarm and then rearm the system. He couldn’t seem to get it right at first, which gave me all the time I needed to sneak out past him.
I wound up leaving right out the front door, and he never noticed. ”
“Thank heavens for that,” Tessa said, letting out an exhale knowing that they were both okay. “Do you think anything’ll come from it?”
“No,” he said with an odd degree of certainty. “They might have caught us on camera, but there’d be no reason to even look at it. Even if they did, they’d just see us walking through the halls, maybe placing us there at a time when something went missing. But there’s no proof, so…”
Tessa paused at his words. “What do you mean by ‘when something went missing?’”
Greer’s face softened into his trademark smile. Discreetly lifting his shirt and giving her a fine view of his chiseled abs, she noticed a black box peeking up from his waistband before letting the hem drop again.
“No,” she said in utter disbelief.
“Yes,” he confirmed, pulling her tighter to him. “I got into that drawer, and there was a box with your name on it.”
“How did you find that?” she wondered, certainly not recalling a box out when she was in there, and definitely not one with her name attached.
“It was in his desk,” Greer answered, clearing his throat and not elaborating any further. At first, she wondered if maybe he was doing that on purpose to protect her. The fewer details she knew, the more plausible deniability she had. However, that wasn’t what this was.
“Greer,” she began, waiting for him to lift his eyes to her. “You did this for me. I have a right to know.”
His expression grew tight, and he hesitated just for a moment, probably thinking over what kind of pain he’d need to endure from her if he refused to tell her. In the end, “It was in a locked drawer. I had to… unlock it.”
She peered at him, not knowing at all that he had this skill under his belt. “You picked the lock.”
“Yup,” he admitted. “And I relocked it, hoping the guy wouldn’t notice. Honestly, that guy didn’t notice a lot.”
True that. “Okay, you seem to know a whole lot about this stuff,” she said. “Watching for cameras, surveillance, picking locks. What are you not telling me?”
For the first time ever, Greer looked a little bit… lost. His face no longer had that beautiful smile, and his curls seemed to droop a little with sadness.
“I’m not… perfect,” he started out, his green eyes a bit dim as he seemed to hesitate. “I got into a lot of trouble when I was in my teens.”
“Oh,” she said, really not knowing what to say. “Well, everyone has a past, right?”
“Not like this.” He laughed, but it didn’t have any humor behind it. “I was an angry kid. My dad left us when I was eight, not that he was around much before then.”
“I knew your mom raised you and your brother,” she said, trying to find some common ground. One that told him he hadn’t kept all of this to himself. That he’d given her peeks inside. “She was a single mom.”
“That she was,” he said, settling back into his seat, trying to find an easy way to let go of the details. “I was a handful. My big brother was a great example, always good in school and on sports teams. I tried everything I could to be like him, but we were always apples and oranges.”
“So you wound up going down a rough path then,” Tessa said.
“Yeah,” Greer agreed. “My dad and I were a lot alike. We look alike, think alike. Have some of the same hobbies and interests. But for the life of me, I could never get him to see that. I tried so hard to get him to be interested in me as a kid, and maybe once or twice, get him to look at me out of the nine or ten times I tried to get his attention.”
“Greer,” Tessa said, her heart breaking for the little boy who just wanted to be seen and loved. She moved in close, letting him know that even if that man didn’t care, she did.
“So when he left,” Greer said, taking in a deep breath to continue on, “I was angry. I couldn’t believe it at first, and then I figured he probably just left my mom because they never could get along.
But when I tried texting him, he didn’t respond.
It was like he just decided he wanted to move on from his life and forget his mistakes.
So? I coped as well as I could.” He paused, breaking into a grin. “Which in retrospect wasn’t very good.”
“What happened?” she wondered, her thumb stroking back and forth over his skin.
“Well, at first, I started getting into fights at school. On the playground. Down the street at the skate park. Anywhere there were kids who had something to say about me or my family. My brother tried to pull me out of them, but there were too many for him to be there for every time. Then I moved on to petty theft, and my mom started getting calls from school. At least when I got caught.”
“How many were there?”
“A lot,” he said. “When I finally got suspended, she told me I’d need to get my act together, or get out.”