Love Unrehearsed (35 page)

I smiled at my innocent babbling about swimming with my Barbie doll, pushing my oversized sunglasses up my sun-kissed nose. I had on a little pink one-piece swimsuit with a blue fish on the hip.

Ryan pointed over my shoulder. “Is that? Yeah, that’s your pappy’s cabin.” I saw the familiar gray cinder-block garage behind me.

And then I saw him. Like a ghost out of my innermost thoughts he appeared, coming out of the garage behind me. Tall, thin, and lanky, walking with the stinted lope of a teenager.

There he was, captured forever on film.

The boy with the black hair.

I felt as though someone poured ice through my veins.

Discoveries

I stared at the television for so long my eyes hurt. It was like he walked right out of one of my nightmares and presented himself to me.
Here I am—the one who haunts you.

Ryan had moved behind me after telling Mike and Marie we needed a few minutes of privacy. He sat on the floor, holding me while I quietly broke down again.

I didn’t even realize I was touching my own mouth until I felt Ryan’s hand smooth around my wrist. “In my dreams, he always has bloody teeth. Just blood—everywhere. I never . . .” It was hard to speak.

“Is that Joe?” Ryan asked softly.

I nodded. “I think so.” I rewound the tape and paused to see him in still frame but the tape made squiggly lines on the screen, obscuring his face.

I felt Ryan’s lips, his breath on my neck. “Is this one of the things that has you jumping out of bed sometimes?”

“Yeah. All this time, I didn’t know who he was. He’s not in any family pictures. I thought . . . I thought he was someone I made up.”

Ryan slipped the remote out of my hand and pressed play again. The tape rolled on, mostly capturing me playing with beach toys in a round plastic wading pool on the grass. Every so often, Joe would make an appearance, a ghost in the background, lurking, but always keeping an eye on the camera’s direction. I suppose, keeping an eye on me.

“I want to know him.”

Ryan’s hand skated across my face, taking in my plea. “Mike can find him if you want,” he said.

I thought about it for a second. “I want him to want to know me, too. It can’t be one-sided. He’s got to want to know me but it’s been so long—people change.”

Ryan held my face, pressing a soft kiss on my lips, but he was distracted by the heavy thudding of footsteps coming up my stairwell.

I heard Pete’s hearty greeting when Marie let them in.

Ryan crawled around me, pressing the eject button. “You change your mind, just say the word. We can hire someone to track him down. I’ll let you decide if you want to share all of this with them.”

My gaze was locked on the tight skin of his body, graciously exposed when his T-shirt rode up his stomach. It was just the jolt I needed.

Pete instantly scrutinized me and jerked his head for me to follow him to the dining room, where he cornered me. “Red-rimmed eyes. All puffy. You okay?”

Nothing got past Pete.

And I couldn’t lie to him. I gave him a noncommittal head bob while his mouth silently said “bullshit.” I decided talk therapy was what I needed.

I pulled out a chair and asked Tammy to join us. No sense having to repeat myself. After a string of introductory words, I then uttered the two words that churned like acid in my stomach.

“. . . I’m adopted.”

Ryan closed our bedroom door and peeled his shirt off, exposing a body I’d never get tired of looking at. “You know I don’t care, right?” His words were as gentle as the eyes that watched me with apprehension. I’d spent an evening discussing my origins with my friends; it was emotionally exhausting.

“I know.”

“Doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you. The only thing I want to know is if you’re going to take my last name when we get married, which I’m hoping to hell you will.”

I blinked at him, processing what he said, and then sort of melted inside. “I had intended to.”

He breathed out a contended sigh and hugged me. “Thank you.”

I heard the toilet flush and Marie’s and Mike’s low murmurs outside our closed door.

“It’s weird having other people here,” I muttered conspiratorially.

“Yeah, I know. I totally love your apartment but I hope you know I don’t want to live above your pub for the rest of our lives.”

“Or listen to Marie giggle before sex.”

“That too,” he chuckled, palming my rear. “You do realize that Mike and I can’t leave here until both of you are bowlegged and glowing, right?”

I grinned. “You should make it a competition. See which one of you folds first.”

Before I could react, Ryan let me go and grabbed the doorknob. “Hallway meeting,” he called out loudly.

I felt instant mortification. “Ryan!”

“Shush.” Ryan crossed his beefy arms, waiting. God, I loved his biceps. Mike came out of the room, sans shirt as well. Damn, he was built like a linebacker who spends his life in a gym, not to mention his chest was as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

“Two things,” Ryan started, holding up his fingers. “You come out of your room for any reason, you put something on. I don’t want to see anyone else’s bare ass other than my woman’s. Number two, Taryn suggests we make a wager on this evening’s festivities.”

“Ryan!”

He pushed me back with his fingertips. “Shush.”

Mike leaned a hand on the door frame. “Wager?”

“First man to fold.”

Mike’s eyes cut to me once, quickly. “Interesting. I’m in. Time or quantity?” he asked as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

“What time is our flight again?”

“Eleven forty-five. We’re gone by nine,” Mike’s deep voice rumbled.

“Time. We can sleep on the plane.”

“Agreed. Bet?”

“Two bills?”

“Sounds fair. Women keeping time?”

“Yep,” Ryan quipped. “Time gets written down so there’s no cheating.”

“Anything else?” Mike asked.

“Nope.”

“What time is it now?”

Ryan leaned around to see my alarm clock. “Ten after eleven.”

I watched as they shook hands.

“Have a good night,” Mike said with a nod.

“You too, man.” Ryan tapped his shoulder and then locked our bedroom door.

Me and my big mouth.

The lascivious glare Ryan gave me instantly made my heart beat faster, warming me in all the right places, effectively distracting me from all of my woes. I was the rabbit and he was the hungry wolf and it was obvious that I was about to be eaten alive. Perhaps this wasn’t a stupid suggestion after all.

He walked with purpose, stalking over to my side of the bed.

Game on.

My alarm went off at eight o’clock. I wanted to hurl it against the wall and smash it to bits. Ryan’s arm was pinning me to the bed and he was out. Even the shrill of the alarm didn’t stir him.

I heard the shower turn on so I hit the snooze button one more time before dragging my butt into the kitchen to make the guys some breakfast.

Marie came shuffling in, rubbing one eye, and mumbled something that sounded like “morning.” “You write your time down?”

“No.”

She stretched. “Damn, my body hurts.”

My body ached, too. I could feel the pain in my hips. “Yep.”

She grabbed a piece of mail off the counter, tore it in half, and grabbed a pen. “Was this shit really your idea?”

I took four coffee mugs out of the cabinet. “I said it as a joke.”

“It was brilliant.” She pushed the torn envelope and the pen toward me. “But I think he broke my vagina.”

I spit out some coffee after that one, staining my envelope piece. I wrote down the last time I looked at the clock: 4:50.

Marie had written 5:10.

“Looks like Ryan’s out two hundred,” I muttered.

Mike came in all fresh and looking mighty fine in a pair of worn jeans and a gray tee that hugged every muscular curve. “Morning, ladies. Who won?” He ran a hand tenderly over Marie’s shoulder.

“You did.” She beamed up at him.

He smiled and kissed her as if they’d been together for years. I didn’t miss his hand possessively palming her butt cheek, either. It made me smile.

“Pay up, shorty,” he teased Ryan when he came into the kitchen.

Ryan motioned for the results. “I lost by twenty minutes?” He groaned and tossed the papers onto the counter. “That’s bullshit.”

I poured a cup of coffee for him. “Sorry, babe.”

“Twenty freakin’ minutes.” He towered over me, giving me the stink eye. “You made me quit, too.”

“Sorry. I was done. You want me to pay half?”

“No,” he grumbled, scowling at me, making me question whether he was truly upset. “I got it. But you owe me and I will collect.”

I followed him into the bedroom, worried. “Are you really mad at me?”

He smirked. “No, babe. I’m just teasing. I was tired and wiped out, too. It’s okay . . . until I collect what you owe me.” He cracked me hard on the rear.

I sucked in a breath, imagining him collecting. I hated watching Ryan pack. He was always in motion.

Like two sad sacks, Marie and I hugged and kissed them both goodbye in my living room. Marie looked just as forlorn and reluctant to let them go as I was. We stood there for a moment after the door closed behind them, staring at each other in silence, feeling empty.

“That was the best night of my life,” she uttered. “Thank you for that.”

“I heard you scream a few times.”

Marie rolled her eyes, abashed. “I heard you, too.”

We gave each other a high-five, just because.

She yawned. “Well, I don’t know about you but I’m taking my broken vagina back to bed.” I watched her walk funny, doing the “I’ve been fucked hard” swagger down the hallway.

I shuffled behind her, feeling her pain echo in my own sore hips and thighs. “Yep. Me too.”

I crawled my achy body into my cold, empty bed, thinking about how much sleeping without Ryan sucked.

A few days later I was Skyping with Ryan when the separation hit me hard. “I hate being away from you.”

He tilted his head, studying me. “You don’t have to be, you know.”

I pulled my fingers back, as if his words had bite. “I know.”

He regarded me for a moment before turning his attention back to the documents in his hand. “Sell it. Cut yourself free.”

As much as I’d thought about it there were several reasons why I couldn’t. “I can’t. Marie and Tammy rely on me, on this place. I can’t screw my friends like that. Besides, I need to work, Ryan. I’m not good with doing nothing or shopping every day.”

“I need you to manage my life,” he said simply.

“You just don’t want to deal with your mother,” I teased.

He scratched his head, distracted, seemingly frustrated. “That too.”

I frowned at his lack of attention, which then had me tapping my finger on the image of his face, as if that would do the trick.

He finally looked up. “Listen, parties, family gatherings, holidays, vacations, all of that personal stuff is in your realm, Taryn. She wants to throw an engagement party for us—fine. Work it out, block out the dates, and put it on the calendar, and then when you’re done with all of that explain to me what these numbers are on my investment statements because I can’t figure out how I could lose so much in one quarter.”