Thorn: Carter Kids #2 (12 page)

“Mission accomplished,” he rasped, cupping my cheek. Using his free hand, he dragged me on top of him. “You own me,” he added, kissing me again. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Keep you forever,” I whispered against his lips…

Beep…beep…beep…

The shrill sound woke me from the best dream I’d had in months and I could have cried. Stretching out in my bed, I curled and uncurled my toes before reaching underneath my pillow for my phone. “What the heck,” I croaked out, voice thick and sleepy when I checked my screen to see who was calling.

Holding my phone between my ear and shoulder, I covered my mouth to stifle a yawn. “It’s like…” I glanced briefly at the screen of my phone. “Half past one in the morning, Sean, come on.”

He was always doing this. Phoning me at outrageous times of the night even though he lived on the floor below us.

Sean Hennessy and I had struck up a conversation one day when we were passing in the hallway, and in the two months that had passed since he had moved into our building, I had come to know him as very lovable – and very gay. Sean had stepped in as a sort of surrogate Hope for me. Ever since she hit the NYT bestsellers list with one of her books last year, she had been hitting the town hard on the weekends, partying with the newfound
friends
she had found since hitting the big time and drinking her memories away. During the week she still barely left her room.

Sean was fun, and I needed that in my life.

The night I discovered his sexual preference – during an extremely clumsy and surprisingly amatory game of charades on my birthday – I had rushed upstairs to my apartment to drown my sorrows with three bottles of wine and an entire box of After Eights. Not that I would ever admit it, not to a soul.

I had been trying to force myself to move on from Noah. I was feeling so lonely and in my drunken state I had thought Sean to be the perfect candidate. He was the polar opposite of Noah – thin, with baby blue eyes and choppy light brown hair, happy and outgoing. Where Noah was a fighter, Sean was a hairdresser. It should have worked. But it didn’t because I wasn’t over Noah and Sean preferred male company.

Ugh, the shame of forcing myself upon my gorgeously gay neighbor would forever haunt me. My heart still hurt a little at the memory…

“Time for you to get your skinny ass out of bed,” I heard Sean chuckle down the line. “I’m outside, babe, and I come bearing gifts of the
Foxy Dan
kind.”

“It better be some good whiskey,” I grumbled, throwing the covers off my legs, and climbing to my feet.

“You’re looking a little flushed there, Teegs,” Sean announced, studying my face with his brows furrowed, when I let him inside. “Have you got a fella hiding in your room that I don’t know about?”

“Oh yeah,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “He’s hiding in the closet right now.” Grabbing the bottle of Jameson out of his hand, I made my way over to the couch, curling up in a ball as I unscrewed the cap and swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “I’m all alone, Sean,” I told him after I forced down the alcohol, grimacing as it burned my throat. “Same as always.”

“Babe,” he replied sadly. Sinking down on the couch beside me, he patted my thigh. “Come on.”

“It’s true,” I hiccupped, handing him the bottle. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a man anymore.”

“Well that makes two of us.” Sean slumped back and took a deep draw from the bottle. “I’m going through a serious dry spell, Teagan. Six months.”

“Ha,” I grumbled, not feeling one bit sorry for Sean. “That’s nothing.” If six months was classed as a dry spell then I was living in a drought. “Try going without any for two years and then come back to me.”

“You could always have Liam,” Sean offered after a moment before bursting out laughing.

“Funny,” I shot back crankily. “But no, thanks all the same.”

“Why not?” Twisting on the couch, he faced me. “He’s crazy about you, Teagan – always has been by the sounds of it. And you two had that thing back in secondary school.”

“Liam and I are just friends,” I declared, flustered at the thought of being anything more than that. “Seriously, Sean,” I said crossly when he waggled his eyebrows at me. “We are just friends.”

“Then you might want to tell him that,” Sean scoffed. “That guy has a soft spot for you.”

“No he doesn’t,” I grumbled, not liking where this conversation was going. “Can we change the subject now?
Please
?”

“Fine. Suit yourself,” he replied, holding his hands up in the air. “But I really think you ought to give the guy a chance.”

“I can’t give Liam a chance, Sean, because I’m still not over the last guy I gave a chance to,” I snapped. “So just back off. Okay?”

Sean’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “So that’s it,” he whispered as if the whole world suddenly made perfect sense. “You’ve been burned.”

“I guess if you call having your heart annihilated burned, then yes, I’ve been burned before,” I grumbled. “I’m still burning.”

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Want to get drunk?”

“Definitely.”

AS TIME PASSED BY,
and my heart grew harder, shriveled up and died in my chest, I allowed myself to forget all about JD Dennis and his threat that night. I knew he was still out there, somewhere, but I didn’t care. I had nothing left to lose. All I cared about now was fighting…well, fighting and the sadist sitting on the bunk in front of me.

“Stop moving, man, fuck!” Lucky hissed, shoving me backwards with the palm of his hand.

“I’m trying,” I hissed out through clenched teeth, as I wrapped my hands around the metal bunk and braced myself for the pain. “Fuck, Lucky, I thought you said you knew what you were doing?”

“I do,” my one friend in this shit hole of a place replied as he inked the side of my ribcage. “So stop crying like a bitch and let the master work his magic.”

“Look at me,” I snarled, clenching the bars of the bunk when it felt like he was going to cut through my ribs. “I’m fucking bleeding out here.”

I wasn’t a stranger to pain, but letting Lucky tat me with his fucked up concoction of ink was almost unbearable. “Fuck!” I hissed, when he nicked me for what had to be the fiftieth time. Throwing an arm forward, I swiped the cigarette that was balancing between his lips, and put it to my mouth, inhaling deeply.

“There,” he mumbled, “Done.”

Inhaling one final drag, I passed Lucky his smoke and climbed off the bed. “Jesus Christ,” I growled, looking down at my tender, bloodstained skin. “You fucking butchered me, man.”

“You wanted a thorn in your side, Messina,” Lucky drawled, leaning back from where he was perched on the bottom bunk. Chuckling, he admired his handiwork with a shit-eating grin on his face. “And it looks like you’ve got one.”

TODAY WAS NOAH’S BIRTHDAY
and I found myself, like every birthday before that, standing in front of the postbox at the end of my street with a crumpled envelope in my hands. I had lost count of the number of times I wrote him a letter, only to chicken out before mailing it.

Crowds of people brushed past me, carrying on with their day-to-day lives, oblivious to the turmoil churning around inside of me.

Maybe I had too much pride, or maybe I was a coward, but as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months and then years, I found myself too afraid to send that damn letter. I wanted to, but I was frightened of what he would say, or worse, what he didn’t say if he chose to behave the way I had in the beginning.

My life wasn’t like the fucking Notebook. My Noah wasn’t at war, he was a criminal serving time for a serious crime, and I sure as hell wasn’t anybody’s Allie.

I didn’t have money or a rich fiancé.

No, all I had was a stack of bills longer than both my arms, and a best friend who was more emotionally fucked up and closed off than I was.

Tucking the envelope back into my coat pocket, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Happy birthday, Noah.”