16. Tessa #3
Tessa looked back at him in shock, her jaw dropping and eyes growing wide. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen?” he said. “That summer I’d started using, which did help numb the pain, but only made things worse. I was already a fixture in juvenile probation and had so many conditions of release I knew I’d never get the chance to be truly free ever again.”
“Greer,” she said, shaking her head as she looked at him. It was like night and day. The boy he spoke of, versus the man he was before her. “What happened? I mean, after your mom gave you an ultimatum?”
“Clean up or get out?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I left.”
Once again, it didn’t make sense. Greer talked about his mother often and went to dinner at her house several times a month. “But you had to have patched things up?”
“We did, but that wasn’t immediately,” he said, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles.
She figured he probably was getting comfortable where he still had the box in his waistband.
“That day, I left and just started walking. I didn’t have a thing to my name.
No money, no prospects, and I honestly wasn’t sure where I was going to go, so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Then I found myself wandering through this business district, and I ended up standing at this window to an MMA studio.
I stood there watching for what had to have been hours.
I’d never seen anything like it, and it was, like, something about it just spoke to my soul. ”
“That wound up being your coach, didn’t it?” she wondered. “The one who taught you to be positive.”
“It did…” he hesitated. “But believe me, it wasn’t that Hallmarky moment where he saw me peeking in, and he invited me to come be part of it all. It took a while before I could convince him to take a chance on me.”
“So you were as persistent then as you are now?” she asked, smiling when the corners of his lips began to rise.
“You better believe it,” he said with his now infamous twinkle back in his eyes. Tessa curled into him, resting her head on his shoulder, the final bits of adrenaline drifting away and replacing her pounding heart with a full-on sense of exhaustion.
When his lips lazily pressed to the top of her head, she knew he was feeling the strain too.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m that person, though,” he said softly as they continued to watch Boston fly by, dipping down into the tunnel only to resurface again.
“It’s part of you,” she said, tilting her head to look up at him.
“But you went down a hard road and pulled yourself back. You’re better now.
Stronger, living a clean life. You’ve found something you love, and you’re making your dreams come true, which is more than some people do their whole lives.
It’s no wonder your mom and brother are so proud of you. ”
He smiled down at her, knowing that what she was saying was true. After all, he’d told her that before.
“Not something to love,” he said. “Someone.”
She beamed a smile back at him. “I love you, too.”
He closed the distance, covering her mouth with his own in a kiss that sealed everything for her. That this man was it for her. That there was nobody she’d rather be with. That she could trust and rely on him from now until eternity.
Greer. Was. Hers.
“I know,” he said, a smirk forming on his lips. “After all, why else would you ask me to come on this trip with you?”
“Excuse me?” she asked, her spine stiffening as she took him in. “I didn’t ask you to come, you invited yourself!”
“Not sure I remember it that way,” he said, settling back and pulling her to him once more. “From what I remember, you had a desperate need to leave Boston and go wandering.”
“Wandering,” she said. “Could you be more ridiculous?”
“Wanderlust, to be specific,” he said, spinning the tale. “Couldn’t keep you from going off into the great unknown, so I had to come along. Someone had to keep order.”
“The only order you kept was for food delivery,” she said, shaking her head but feeling laughter bubble up inside of her. “But I will concede that if it weren’t for you, I know we wouldn’t have found the necklace.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, noting the tone in her voice. “You needed me?”
“Very much,” she said, feeling like he just needed to hear the words. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have been lost with everything that went on.”
“So…” He paused. “We can sum up our entire trip as wander, lost, and found?”
“Oh, that was so bad,” Tessa groaned, and it quickly morphed into a strangled laugh as she slapped her palm over her eyes, her shoulders shaking.
“It wasn’t that bad,” he said, grinning and seeming to come full circle.
“Yeah, it was,” she said, settling back for the rest of the ride. “If anything, it’d be Wanderlust and Found.”
“You know what? I’ll take it.” He seemed to ponder that for a moment. “More specifically, I’ll take you.”
She studied him for just a moment, the love and tenderness in his eyes nearly leaving her breathless.
“You know what?” she said, feeling her heart soar just being next to him. “I’ll take you too.”