Chapter Twenty-Four

Macs

“You blew it. You blew that load so hard all over her you’ll never fuck her again even if you turned on the dimples,” Tahoe rasps.

My date, if you can call her that, was pretty upset at my show after the wedding. She wasn’t even an afterthought if I’m being completely honest.

I blow out a breath. “That makes no sense. I don’t care if I ever see her again, anyways.” The one person I do care about seeing is keeping her distance. She didn’t call me after the wedding, and I checked my email incessantly for weeks after. She is well and truly finished.

Satisfied my gun is clean, I put it in the open case and move on to my open dead hooker bag. I’m unpacking from a trip inside my cage at work. Tahoe is already finished. He’s here to annoy me.

“The op tempo is picking up instead of slowing down,” I say, trying to change the subject. I can count the times I’ve been inside my house over the last several months on one hand. They’ve sent us to every imaginable city around the US. There are SEAL Teams overseas working on restoring infrastructure and order side by side with allied forces.

“It’d be nice to stay home for a good bit,” Tahoe admits.

I narrow my eyes through the cage into his.

“I’m getting tired,” he says.

“You never want to stay home. What the fuck is going on with that?”

He growls in response. That subject is closed. “I’m thinking about taking up yoga,” he says.

“Fuck you, man.” The bag of dirty clothes needed washed is now so large I’ve decided to drop it off at the dry cleaners instead of attempting to do it myself. “We’re not talking about her. Don’t think I don’t see your subtle ways of trying to bring her up. I’m smarter than you.”

He picks up his own bag and exits into the long dark hallway. Locking my cage, I join him.

“I may have picked up your cell phone when it buzzed last night,” he admits, with a grin.

I push his shoulder so he slams into the cage across the way. He holds up his palms.

“What, what? It was a text from Viola. Which is a pretty fuckable name, by the way. She wanted to tell you about a class Teala was teaching tomorrow. Wondered if you wanted to show up and surprise her.”

We’re not allowed to have our cell phones on anywhere except in the cages. The buildings at our work require top-secret clearance and loose ends aren’t accepted. Cell phones are an ultimate loose end. Before we exit into the other building, I slide my phone out of my pocket and check my text messages while Tahoe chuckles like a child.

“You weren’t lying. A fucking miracle,” I say. My heart rate speeds thinking about surprising her. I envision all the ways this situation could go. With my limited knowledge about relationships I feel I’ve done all I can do. It’s in her hands at this point. Facing my friend, I smile, using dimples. “You’re right. We should both take up yoga.”

He throws his head back laughing, and we agree to meet at her studio twenty minutes early. I’m not sure why Tahoe wants to go, but I’m too excited to care. Any face time I can get with Teala makes me excited. I tap out a quick text to Viola, telling her I’m coming and I don’t want Teala to know. She tells me she’s risking her life texting me because Teala was upset when she found out we were communicating behind her back. I tell her I will defend her life if need be.

The gray bubble comes up to signal she’s typing another message. She’s casually dating a guy she has no interest in. I think it’s in an effort to dip her baby toe back in the world of relationships. He travels on business frequently.

I stop in my tracks and swallow hard. Mentally I flip through the reasons Viola would have for giving me such information. If Teala is going to be with anyone who is away frequently, it’s going to be me.

****

What does one wear to yoga when you own more muscle than most individuals? I decided on a pair of standard issue black running shorts. I stripped off my shirt as soon as I got in the studio. Viola arrived early and let me in. When the front desk girl arrived, she looked at me like I was an alien. When I asked if she liked what she saw, she blustered an apology and explained she doesn’t see people who look like me in here often. I laughed, and she tucked her tail and left.

Tahoe drank too much last night and texted me at four a.m. he wouldn’t make my tea party this morning. It’s better this way. Two of us would have drawn way too much attention. Teala isn’t here yet, but this hot box of a room is filling up quickly—others unrolling their mats and stretching while they wait for class to begin. I tucked myself into a back corner by the mirror. It’s dark in here so my hope is she won’t see me right away. I almost backed out, but the temptation to see her won out.

Every time the door swings open my gaze flicks to the light to see if it’s her. This time, it is. She walks in first, followed by a tall, slender man with a mat tucked under his arm. They both wear the smile of those who are in on a joke no one else knows. A sheen of sweat breaks out on my face at the sight of her and her obvious happiness. I should get up right now and leave—never look back for fear of rearview remorse. That’s the condition you get when you look back on something and all it makes you feel is shitty. Typically I get rearview remorse about a mission—some small thing I didn’t do and should have or vice versa. Teala’s would be catastrophic and I don’t think I’d ever stop wondering what her life is like.

Teala starts the class and turns on the music. In the pike stretch, I put my head down and curse myself for being so curious. I curse Viola for telling me this was a good idea. I curse yoga man for taking what is mine, and with the last thought I know I won’t be able to stay silent for much longer. Teala stands in the center of her mat and speaks quietly, or what she presumes as quiet, and looks in the mirror in front of her. Her ponytail is long now. It’s the only thing that marks time in my life. The phases of Teala Smart. It’s seems so stupid, but she’s the only person I’ve ever been interested in long-term. Right now as proof, even when she’s not mine I’m still too intrigued for my own good. Her body is every bit as perfect as I remember it—the muscles in her legs and ass visible through the tight material of her pants.

I sigh and close my eyes. She’s working her gaze through the large, hot room, and I hold my breath when she gets to my side. Her eyes flick to my corner a few times, but her posture doesn’t change. There are probably thirty or forty people in here right now. She guides us through several flows, and I try my best to concentrate on something other than the back of yoga man’s head and the way his eyes fix on Teala’s ass.

“Take it to down dog and stretch,” Teala says, looking at her watch. She taps it a few times and heads back to where the music is coming from. She puts a water bottle to her lips, and I watch her drain it. Licking her lips, she puts the cap back on, and she finally meets my gaze. Her eyes narrow and then widen in shock. Her perfect lips pop open and she starts to say something, then realizes where she’s at and closes her mouth.

The smile comes to my mouth all by itself. “Teala,” I say, using my normal tone. It sounds like I’m shouting. “I need to talk to you.”

Teala shakes her head no, furiously. “Not now,” she whispers.

I stand, towering over the people in various arrays of stretching. I step over a few people using a large stride until I’m standing in front of her. “Yes, now. Now is the perfect time. I have your attention so fully, you won’t be able to run away.”

“Will she?” I ask the room. Someone has the audacity to shush me. I glare in the direction it came from. “I could rap you a song right now to tell you how I feel, but that would probably embarrass you.”

Her hands perched on her hips, she avoids my gaze. “You’re already embarrassing me.” She apologizes to the class and whisper shouts for me to get out.

I shake my head. “I’m not okay with you dating people, Teala.”

She tries and fails to pull me out of the room. Her small hands slide off my slippery chest. I remark it’s her fault for keeping the room so hot.

“Perhaps if it was cooler, you’d have a better grip?”

Tears spring to her eyes and I think she very well may die of embarrassment right here and now.

“Forget them and talk to me and I’ll leave. Okay?”

She motions to the hallway, and with this small victory, I smile. I follow her out into the cool hallway and breathe out in relief.

“Go finish that class!” Teala yells, beckoning the desk girl to take over for her. She doesn’t meet my eyes as she flies into the room. “I can’t believe you did this in the middle of class. You just couldn’t wait until the end? You had to be that selfish? Par for the course, Macs. Par for the fucking course!” She raises her voice at the end, and I wince.

I nod at the door. “You are so loud they’re going to hear everything anyways. Better keep it down if you don’t want your boyfriend to hear.” I lick a drop of sweat off my lip.

She closes her eyes. “I don’t have a fucking boyfriend.” Teala opens her eyes to look at me like I’m insane. “Even if I wanted one it would be pointless. Look at you, Macs. Look at you. No one would ever be you,” she says, motioning to my body. “You’re perfect in all the ways that draw me to a man. But you’re bad for my health.” She swallows as she sizes me up, one section of my body at a time.

“You’re not dating anyone?” I furrow my brow. That’s why Viola disappeared after she let me in.

“Of course I’m not! I’m in love with you, you stupid, selfish man.”

I shake my head. “Why the distance? Why haven’t you called? We’re fucking adults. Staying away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve done some pretty hard things. Just for reference.”

“I wanted to find myself, Macs. I wanted to be the person you fell in love with. I wanted to be the person you missed again. I will never be that girl, so I didn’t reach out.”

I can tell she’s getting upset, so I grab her arm and lead her to the locker room in the back. She sits on the bench, and I sit on a bench facing her. Our knees touch.

“Plus, you had a girlfriend already. I do have some pride,” she blusters on.

I scoff. “She was not a girlfriend. I don’t even remember her name.”

“Oh, gross. That’s supposed to make me feel better? Why are you here, really?”

I should dime Viola out. She was counting on my Alpha to come out and beat his chest. “I’m tired of staying away from you. I can’t anymore.” I shrug. “Take me as a friend if you must, but I can’t stay away from you.”

Teala furrows her brow. “A friend? You want to be my friend?”

I laugh. “I’d like to touch you, too. Define it however makes you most comfortable. I need to be around you.”

“How do you know Dr. Rhodes?” she spits the question out. It’s been on her mind since the wedding, I can tell.

I sigh. “I knew you were seeing him, so I saw him too. You shouldn’t worry. He didn’t tell me a fucking thing about your life, but I felt close to you by proxy. Your mom told me you were getting better, Teala.” Using the smallest, most unoffending gesture, I brush her knee with my forefinger. “Without me. You were getting better, and I was away.” I shrug. “It was easy to stay away, knowing you were happy.” I’ll let her define easy in any way she would like.

She shakes her head, unbelieving. “No one told me anything about that. Why? I wasn’t happy…I was figuring it all out.”

“Is it really that hard to believe I care about you? Admittedly, I got a little preoccupied with my job, and you can’t fault me for that, but I can’t not care about you. I tried that, too.” I put another finger on her other knee.

She looks down at where we’re touching.

“Looking at you. Seeing you,” I admit, shaking my head. “You’re everything that makes sense. I’m dead inside without you. Being next to you makes me feel alive.” Love animates the soul in a way nothing else can.

She lays her hands on top of mine, and a shiver hits my body. “I can’t be your friend, Macs,” she murmurs.

I hang my head. The disappointment was expected, but the tiny fragment of hope that resides in my heart just turned to dust. “I understand,” I whisper.

She tilts my chin up with one finger. “Because I’m madly in love with you, of course.” Teala rolls her eyes.

I huff, exhaling a pent-up breath. “So, you are.”

She nods. “I can be more than your friend, but not your friend in the normal definition of the word. If that’s what you want?” Teala smiles through eyes brimming with tears. “You’re sort of a whore, so I understand if you don’t want that.”

“You’re awful. You know that? Playing me for a fool,” I say. “I’m not a whore, either. I haven’t had sex with a woman while we were apart. Apps were down.” I give her a crooked smile.

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”

I widen my eyes. “Uh, yeah, it does. Why wouldn’t it matter? Were you with someone else? Multiple someones?” My breath catches in my throat. I will accept any answer she gives. I repeat that sentiment twice. I have to remember what my job has entailed lately, and try to formulate a way to explain what I’ve been doing. That matters as much as this does.

“No. Not for lack of wanting, either. Dr. Rhodes kept me on the straight and narrow. It doesn’t matter because the only way we can do this is if we start over completely.”

I could kiss that man right on the mouth. I kiss Teala instead. I pull her into my lap and she comes willingly, like she always has, her arms sliding around my neck as she straddles my lap.

“It wouldn’t feel like this,” she says against my lips. “And this is the only thing I’ve wanted more than my old ways. You.”

With one arm around her waist pulling her close and the other on the side of her face, I live in this moment. One I never thought I’d feel again. Her scent. Her familiar, yet foreign body against my bare chest, her lips are new and familiar at the same time. My head swims when I part her lips with my tongue and taste her. I could live like this—wrapped up inside her warmth. “I think the problem was the words. The emails. The black hole where sentiment is lost and emotions are fuzzed out and gray.

“Ask me again, what do I love,” I say, tracing her wet lips with my own. “Ask me.”

She sighs, and a dreamy smile lets me know she remembers our very first date—tells me I’m in safe territory after all this time of uncertainty. She’s receptive, and I can unload my weapons and sigh with relief.

“Give me the list, then,” Teala says, clearing her throat.

I lean away from her and fish my cell phone out of my pocket. “I won’t be your friend,” I say, scrolling through my images. “I won’t start back on date one either. I don’t care what your friends think.” That garners a scandalous grin for what it implies.

“Good. I’d hate to take you to Vegas as my friend,” she replies, surprising me. “The list?”

“It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s a hefty list, remember? I’ve been working on it for a long time.” I tap on my phone, my fat fingers fumbling when I’d give anything to make them speedy in this moment. I find what I’m looking for and send it. She tells me the Vegas trip is a go, and I can’t help but reminisce. It feels so long ago my only goal was to bag and bash and Teala was nothing more than a conquest.

Teala’s watch pings. Smiling, she brings it up to look. “A list of everything I love,” she reads my message aloud, and then brings a hand to cover her mouth. “The photo,” she chokes out. It’s the photo of her in my bathroom. She’s tousled, red faced, and more stunning than any woman I’ve ever seen.

“That’s it. That’s the whole list,” I admit.

“A big change from the last list, huh? No hair products, shoes or even your dick!”

Shaking my head, I bite my bottom lip and slide her down until her back is against this skinny bench. Her hands clutch my biceps to steady herself.

“My dick has missed you, though. You could probably say it loves you, too.” I see a white flash of teeth and then my lips are on hers. She’s biting my lip and wrapping herself around me while kissing me like it’s going out of style. Groaning, I melt into her touch, her lips, the warmth of her hot body against my skin, the small noises she makes that drive me wild. “On your mark?” I say against her lips.

“Get set,” she confirms.

We both say “Go,” at the same time.