Tame: Carter Kids #3 (24 page)

I screwed up.

I was a big enough person to admit that I'd overreacted.

Hell, I'd done more than just overreact; I'd behaved like a fucking tool towards my wife.

Almost a week had passed since the incident in the janitor's closet, and Teagan was acting like everything was fine. She hadn't chewed me out over my behavior the next morning or held a grudge.

In fact, her latest approach to handling our problems was to brush them under the mat and cover them up with a fake assed smile.

But I knew she was upset with me.

The fact that she wasn’t sitting with me proved that.

I was at the back of the bus and Thorn was sitting up front all on her own with her headphones on, staring out the bus window.

She looked so lonely that all I wanted to do was wrap her up in my arms and hug the hell out of her.

Refusing to allow the wedge between us to push us further apart, I stood up and walked up the aisle of the bus, not stopping until I was sitting down on the seat beside her.

Teagan didn’t look away from the window, but I knew that
she
knew I was there.

Her breathing hitched in her throat and she removed one ear plug from her ear and handed it to me.

Without a word, I took the ear plug from her and popped it in my ear before reaching for her hand and pulling it onto my lap.

I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face when the lyrics of Kate Nash's
Dickhead
filled my ear.

Just like earlier, Teagan never spoke a word as she entwined her fingers with mine and rested her cheek on my shoulder.

"I'll do better," I whispered before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She nuzzled against me. "I know."

We sat side by side in silence as she studied the scenery outside and I studied her face.

She looked deep in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked her after a while, when my curiosity got the better of me.

"The first time I saw you," Teagan replied. Turning her face towards me, she smiled softly. "And how you made me feel back then."

"Great," I muttered, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my brow. It was bad enough that I'd been a tool the other night, but Thorn was dragging up old memories of me being an even bigger one.

"I was a dick that night," I added, thinking back to the night I'd smashed her car windshield. "I overreacted." Teagan had overreacted worse than I had, but I was trying to get back in my wife's good books so I aptly left out that particular piece of information.

"You were," Teagan agreed. "But that's not the night I'm thinking about."

My brows furrowed in confusion as I waited for her to explain.

"You took the air clean out of my lungs the first time I saw you," she continued to say, looking up at my face. Biting down on her lower lip, she smiled. "I can still remember the way my heart fluttered in my chest when I saw you standing there, watching me play Martin."

Now I remembered.

The summer before senior year. I'd been seventeen years old, with little hope, and lot of attitude. Angry and full of hatred, I hadn't been expecting her. I hadn't wanted her, but she arrived regardless.

Without my permission, the girl next door had forced herself into my heart with that song…

Her blonde wavy hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. The denim cut-offs she had on were worn to a thread and the white t-shirt she wore was at least five times too big for her, tied into a makeshift belly-top with a hair clip.

Her skin looked like ivory silk, she had a cut on her left knee and a bruise on her right elbow and I’d never seen anything so fucking beautiful.

She wasn’t intentionally sexy… she just was.

I watched her intently as she stretched her arms and legs out, clearly basking in the summer sunshine – I couldn’t turn my face away.

"You were all beat up and bruised," Teagan said, drawing me back to the present.

"Yeah," I replied, tone thick with emotion. "I'd been in a fight the night before." Actually, I'd been in several fights. I'd had the broken ribs to prove it, but again, I refrained from telling her that.

"You looked so closed off, so… separated from your surroundings," Teagan said softly. "I'd just moved in and I was lonely and scared. I didn’t want to be there…" Pausing, she stared hard at my face. "And when I looked into your eyes, I realized that you didn’t want to be either." Shrugging, she added, "It was one moment – one brief, flittering moment in the grand scheme of things – but in that moment, you looked into my eyes and I felt a little less lonely."

"Thorn," I croaked out, not knowing what else to say. She confounded me. The way she could be. Her mood swings. Her memories. The way she saw me. I was a better person in her mind. She saw good in my darkness and hope in my despair.

The pull towards her was relentless. I didn’t even have a life of my own anymore. Everything was blurred and mixed up with hers.

Fuck…

"Of course, then Ellie came out and ruined the moment." Teagan smirked knowingly. "And then we had that huge fight a few weeks later and I buried that moment we shared under a mountain of grudges," she whispered. "That small space in time, on a long summer afternoon when the boy next door looked into my eyes and saw right into my soul."

Noah blew the roof off the place in NYC last weekend, making Daniel Cortez submit in the third round, breaking pay-per-view records and continuing his undefeated MFA record of 38-0.

We had arrived back in Denver, Colorado late last night in preparation for Noah's last fight of this leg of the tour against Gary Bash on Friday.

We were doing better since our altercation in New Orleans. There was still a Liam-shaped wedge between us, but Noah was trying harder with me.

I was trying, too; trying to pull myself out of the semi-comatose funk I'd been in, but knowing that The Hill would be our next stop wasn’t helping matters. Knowing that we were less than an hour's car ride away from where we'd been ripped apart all those years ago petrified me.

I wasn’t really feeling up to going out and exercising this morning – I didn’t want to leave the hotel room – but Noah had pestered me all through breakfast until I caved and gave in to him.

To be honest, I really didn’t feel like doing anything lately – well anything but sleep. Exhaustion had finally caught up with me and after four months on tour, I was completely beat –and overheated.

It was only ten o clock and the heat was already too intense for me to handle, but the sight my semi-naked husband, draped in ink and tanned like a god was causing my body temperature to spike to epic proportions.

I wasn’t sure if I was hungry or horny as I watched Noah lick an ice-cream cone – strictly forbidden ice-cream, I might add.

He was on a strict diet, and the both of us knew damn well he wasn’t supposed to be eating it. His shirt was off and tucked into the waistband of his grey sweats as he strolled alongside me with a baseball cap slung backwards.

"I called Max last week," I admitted, needing to get it off my chest, as we strolled through the Rocky Mountain Lake Park.

"Okay," Noah replied calmly.

Emotions flooded me at the thought of my uncle.

"I… I…" Pausing, I cleared my throat before saying, "I miss him."

Tossing the end of his ice-cream cone into a nearby trashcan, Noah reached for my hand. "Was he…
nice
to you?" he asked, entwining our hands

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, he actually kind of was." Snuggling into his side, I sighed heavily. "I asked him if he wanted to meet up."

"What did he say?"

"He said…he said he was busy and he'd call me back."

"Stubborn fucking man," he muttered under his breath.

"Are you nervous?" I blurted out.

"No."

I frowned. "You don’t even know what I'm referring to."

"Doesn’t matter," he teased. "I'm never nervous."

"Everyone gets nervous at some point in their lives, Noah."

"Why?" Cocking a brow, he looked down at me. "Are you nervous about something?"

"Yeah." Nodding stiffly, I repressed the urge to shiver.

"What?" Noah frowned.

"Going home," I whispered.

Home.

Was University Hill my home?

It was Noah's home, but could I actually call it mine having only lived there for ten months?

"Is that where we'll stay for the month you're off?" I added. "The Hill?"

"It depends."

Depends?
"On what?"

Pulling me to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, Noah turned and faced me. "On whether Boulder is somewhere you'd like to stay." Reaching up with one hand, Noah cupped my cheek and said, "Thorn, I meant it when I said I'd take you anywhere that would make you happy." He sighed heavily. "We can leave, baby." Lifting his hand, he gestured around vaguely. "The minute the final bell rings on Friday night, we can get out of here."

I'd left a lot of demons behind me when I ran away from The Hill eight years ago.

Coming face to face with said demons wasn’t something I relished the thought of.

The Hill was JD Dennis's playground and just because we hadn't heard from him, I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he'd forgotten about us, but I trusted Noah.

"I'll come home with you," I whispered, leaning into his touch. I trusted Noah with my life and I knew that he would never take me somewhere potentially dangerous. "If you think we'll be safe there…"

"You'll
always
be safe, Teagan," he assured me, voice gruff. "I fucking promise you that."

"Then we'll stay."

"What's wrong, Teagan?" Noah blurted out suddenly. Holding my face between his hands, he studied me with worried eyes. "Talk to me."

"
Nothing
is wrong." I forced a smile. It was fake, unnatural, and Noah saw straight through it.

Noah cocked a brow. "You're a horrible liar, Thorn."

"I'm just tired," I whispered, feeling horrible for lying to him.

"Is that it?" he asked, eyes locked on mine.

No…

I wanted more than anything to open up to Noah and tell him everything.

How unwell I was feeling.

How upset I was over what I'd overheard Tommy and the men saying.

How insecure I was feeling on this tour.

In fact, I wanted to kick the ground and scream at Noah to wake up and see how those bullies he called his team were treating me, but Lewis was right.

I needed to put him first for once in my life.

He needed to focus.

He was riding a high wave to the top of the league and I wasn't going to be the one to screw that up again.

"Yes," I lied.

If Teagan knew I was calling Hope behind her back she would flip the hell out, but I was desperate.

Not only was I desperate, but also after last night, I was worried sick…

I felt something damp trickle down my bare chest.

"Teagan?" My voice was thick from sleep as I rolled onto my side, taking her with me. Tipping her chin up, I stared down at her tearstained cheeks. Using my thumb to capture the tears rolling down her cheek, I brushed them away. "What's wrong?" Had she been crying all night?

"I'm just sad," she whispered, sniffling.

"Why? Are you scared or something?" It couldn't be the dark. I'd left my lamp on when we went to bed – same as every night. "What's on your mind?"

Clenching her eyes shut, Teagan wriggled closer to my body. "Nothing," she sobbed, burying her face in my chest. "Forget I said anything." Her small hand sought mine, entwining our fingers.

She let her tears fall onto my bare chest and that's when I lost it. "Tell me," I begged. "Tell me how to fix this for you."

Tears fell like big, fat raindrops from her eyes. "I'm tired," she whispered. "Of fighting. Of clinging on and hoping for happiness. I am bone weary and at the end of my tether..."

My wife was clingy and needy and teary and I was running out of options on what to do and how to help her.

Dialing my niece's phone number, I walked to into the changing room in the gym and sank down on the bench.

I wasn't sure if I was even calling at an appropriate time for her.

Hope was seven hours behind us in Ireland and it was just gone two in the afternoon here.

"Noah," Hope's sleepy voice filled my ear and I sagged in relief. "What's going on?" I heard her shift around. "Is everything okay?"

"No," I muttered. Dropping my elbows to rest on my knees, I bent my head and sighed. "Not really."

She was moving around, I realized, and I heard the slight murmur of a male voice seconds before Hope's voice filled my ear once again, clearer this time – more alert.

"Okay," she said in a pissy tone. "What have you done now?"

"Who's with you?" I heard myself demand. "Is that a man's voice I can hear?"

"I'm five months older than you, douche nozzle," Hope shot back. "Now, are you going to tell me why you're calling or can I go back to sleep?"

"It's Teagan. I don't even know what's wrong with her," I admitted in a torn voice. "I think she's homesick or something." I threw it out there, hating that I couldn't be enough for Teagan. "I think she's…lonely."

"She is," Hope shot back without remorse. "You carted her off on a tour with a bunch of assholes. She has zero friends over there. You're always training and Teagan's always on her own. How do you expect her to feel?"

"What the fuck do I do?" I ran a hand through my hair and resisted the urge to pummel something. "How do I fix this?" Panic seared me. "I can't let her go." It was out of the question.

"I don't know, Noah," Hope said quietly. "You married the girl."

"She was crying last night," I choked out. "She doesn’t
cry
, Hope."

"Everyone cries, Noah," Hope corrected. "Even the strongest people break down sometimes – if they've got a good enough reason to."

I didn’t.

I couldn’t remember a day in my entire life where I'd shed a single tear.

What the hell did that make me?

"Aren't you due a break or something?" Hope asked, drawing me out of my reverie. "Like, don’t you guys get some time to rest when you're on tour?"

"Yeah. My last fight is Friday night," I told her. "I get a month off before the second leg of the tour kicks off in the fall. Why?"

"Well that's good," she replied thoughtfully. "Maybe you could take her away or something. Spend some alone time together?"

"That really doesn’t help my cause right now, Hope." Teagan was miserable.

"I'll call her," she offered. "See if I can figure out what's bugging her."

"Thanks." I sagged in relief. "Oh, but don’t let her know that I called you."

"Oh yeah," Hope teased. "Because keeping things from your wife is a
great
way to start married life."

"Yeah," I choked out. If Hope knew the half of what I was keeping from Teagan, she wouldn’t be cracking jokes.

Like that fact that JD had people watching us everywhere we went – our every move had been tracked since we arrived back to the states.

Or the many notes Lewis had intercepted these past few months. Or the thorough room sweeps he performed in each hotel we stayed in before my wife put so much as a foot through the threshold.

Yeah, Thorn didn't know about any of that…