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I blink a few times, my eyes hazy.
Someone is rattling around outside.
A door closed, and I can hear the truck outside the door being shuffled around in. Like someone is opening it and closing it. A light is shining through the window. I rub my eyes and glance over at Jo—she’s sound asleep beside me. I carefully slide out of bed and walk over to the window, peering out.
I see Tanner throwing his bags into the truck, glancing around as he does. His face is busted up, dried blood on his mouth and cheeks, his eye swollen. My heart kicks up a notch and I rush outside as quietly as I can, closing the door behind me. He hears it and spins around, on guard, ready to tackle anyone that comes close.
His face isn’t in a good way, not to mention his hands are busted up. Whatever happened to him, it was intense.
“Tanner, what are you doing?” I ask, glancing around to see if he’s alone.
It’s dark out, only the light in front of the rooms and the flashing motel sign allowing us to see each other. It’s got to be two am, maybe three, and the streets around us are quiet, the office is closed, and everyone is sleeping.
Which bodes the question as to why Tanner is out here alone, stuffing his bag into the truck, all beaten and bruised.
“Go and get your things, we’re leaving.”
“What do you mean we’re leaving? What happened to your face?”
“Will you just do as I’m asking, Callie? Go get Jo, get your things, and get into the truck. Now.”
I open my mouth to argue but headlights turning into the motel distract me. I glance over in the direction of the light, but before I can see anything, Tanner grabs me and hauls me against the truck, slamming the door and pressing our bodies against it.
“Tanner?” I whisper, confused. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t move.”
My heart rate kicks up and I move closer to him, scared. I have no idea what’s happening, all I know is whoever is in that car, Tanner doesn’t want to come across.
Tanner turns and glances behind his truck, watching the car pulling into the parking lot of the motel. It turns around a corner, heading down to the back rooms, and Tanner moves quickly, grabbing me and pulling me toward the rooms. “Get Jo. Now. We have a matter of fuckin’ minutes.”
The sounds of boots crunching has our heads whipping around. Someone is walking around the rooms. Cursing under his breath, Tanner grabs my arm and we run toward the office, ducking around behind the building. My heart feels like it’s going to launch out of my chest, my breathing is ragged, and my skin is prickling. I’m terrified, worried about whoever it is that Tanner is so afraid of.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“Shh,” he growls, peering around the side of the building and watching for a few moments.
I can’t see anything, it’s dark behind here, but I’m terrified. How did they find him? Who are they? What do they want? Tanner is scared for a reason, and that reason is that he obviously knows these people are here to hurt him, or all of us, I don’t know. All I can think about is Jo, or Ethan, or one of the others walking out of their rooms right now looking for us and ending up shot, or worse.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Tanner says, his voice low. “You’re going to walk out there, casually, like you’ve just been out for the night. You’re going to walk to your room and if they talk to you, you’re going to act like you have no idea who they are. They won’t hurt you; they’re not going to cause a scene unless they see me.”
“What?” I whisper hiss. “You can’t be serious? What if they do know who I am? What if ...”
“They don’t, Callie. Go into your room, act drunk, do whatever you have to do. You need to get Jo, and she needs to contact Tatum, and we need to get the fuck out of here. I’ll meet you down the road, just hurry up because if they figure out you’re all with me, we’re in a whole world of fucking trouble. Go.”
“Tanner ... I’m scared,” I whisper.
Tanner stops peering around the building and looks over at me, his eyes softening just a touch. He cups my cheek in his hand and leans in close. “You gotta trust me, darlin’. Go and get everyone, the keys for my truck are in it. Get out of here, and I’ll explain everything later.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice shaky. “Okay.”
“Good girl, go.”
I glance around the building and then, with my stomach in my throat, I walk out. I’ve just reached the rooms again when I see a man. He’s tall, with dark hair and dark clothes, he’s walking along the outside of the rooms, glancing at a few of them, looking at cars, checking the area out. His eyes fall on me, and I feel sick. I have to trust Tanner, I know that, but it’s a really, really hard thing for me to do.
“You’re out late, young lady,” the man says, his voice gruff.
I feign a laugh, waving a hand, acting like I’ve had a big night. I make sure to sway just a little, but not too much that he thinks he can take advantage of me. “I went to a bachelorette party. Those things are insane!”
The man studies me and glances around. “You here alone?”
“Nope, with my best friends. We came down just for the party. Are you staying here?”
He shakes his head. “No, a friend of mine is. I wonder if you’ve seen him?”
He goes on to explain Tanner to a T. When he’s done, I act like I’m thinking about it, narrowing my eyes and rubbing at my chin. “You know, I have seen that guy around. He’s here with some friends or something, we caught up at the pool last night, super-hot,” I say, “I actually just passed him walking down the street, about two blocks down. He was all messed up. Poor guy. What happened to him?”
It’s a risk, I know it, but I want these men out of here, and away from my friends.
“He got into an argument with our other friend, I was lookin’ for him. Couldn’t remember where he said he was stayin’, but this sounded familiar. Thanks!”
“No problem at all. I hope you all work it out! Goodnight!”
I walk back into my room and lock the door, pressing my back to it and exhaling loudly. That either worked or it didn’t. If it didn’t, he’s going to figure out we’re all in these rooms and we’ll be screwed but I figure my idea was better than Tanner’s. If I can get them out of here, we can drive out before they return.
“Jo,” I say, whispering loudly instead of speaking, just in case he’s still outside. “Jo, wake up!”
I rush over and shake her a few times. She stirs, eyes bleary, and murmurs, “Callie? What’s wrong?”
“We have to go. You need to get up.”
“What?”
“Get up, quickly. Where is your phone? I need to call Tatum.”
She sits up, hair a mess, rubbing her eyes, and croaks, “What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story, but Tanner is all messed up and there are these guys following him. We have to leave this motel, we’re in danger.”
She’s awake now, moving quickly out of the bed. “What do you mean he’s messed up?”
“I mean he’s gotten into a fight with someone, and now they’re chasing after him. I don’t know, he didn’t explain, all I know is we need to get out of here. Where is your phone?”
She’s midway through stuffing her clothes into her bag, but she stops and finds her phone, dialing Tatum and handing it to me.
“Hi, beautiful,” his husky voice answers.
God.
Beautiful.
I’ll deal with that later.
“It’s Callie,” I say, pretending I didn’t just hear how he was speaking to my best friend. “Tanner is in trouble. He’s outside, but there are men out there, looking for him. I think I got rid of them, but we need to leave before they come back.”
“Fuck,” Tatum growls. “Where is he?”
“Behind the office. Someone needs to check if they’re gone.”
“I’ll check. Sit tight.”
I turn to Jo and hand her the phone back. “He’s going to call back. Let’s get ready to go.”
We put all our clothes into a bag, get changed quickly, and then wait by the door for Tatum’s call. It seems like forever passes when finally someone knocks loudly, causing both Jo and I to jerk forward.
“It’s me,” Tanner says through the door. “Let’s go.”
We go outside and see all the men standing, bags in hand, ready to leave. Tatum pulls around the corner in his truck, and Garrett and Jo jump in. Ethan and I get in with Tanner, and then we drive out of the motel. As we’re going down the street, we see a group of men, about six of them, walking up and down the sidewalk, no doubt looking for Tanner. It worked, I didn’t think it would, but it did.
“What did you say to them?” Tanner murmurs as we drive past and disappear into the darkness.
“I said I saw you walking down the street, all busted up. They must have believed me.”
Tanner is silent a moment, then he murmurs, “Thanks.”
“What happened?” Ethan asks, his voice still thick from sleep.
“Found one of the men involved in Celia’s attack. Located him, beat the shit out of him, burned a shit load of his drugs, and took off. Made a few of his friends angry, it would seem. They caught up with me, knocked me around a bit, but I managed to get away. I dropped my wallet, they must have got my name and found out where I was stayin’. I knew they would, which is why I wanted to get out of here quickly.”
“So not only are they pissed and lookin’ for you, they now know your name?” Ethan sighs, frustrated.
“That’s about it, yeah.”
“What were you thinkin’?” Ethan snaps. “Going in alone and starting something that you could have done silently.”
“Wasn’t askin’ for your opinion, Ethan. I can figure this shit out on my own.”
“Except you’re not on your own, you’re with all of us and we could have been in danger tonight. Use your fucking head!”
“That’s enough,” I say, my voice tired and a little frightened. “We don’t need to be fighting right now, we need to work out what to do next.”
“You don’t need to worry about what I’m goin’ to do next, just worry about your business, and I’ll worry about mine,” Tanner grumbles.
“Oh, you know what Tanner? I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do. How about that?” I say, glaring at him. “You’re not going to get yourself into this kind of mess alone, like it or not. We’re all in this together now, and we’ll finish it together.”
Tanner looks slightly shocked at my outburst, but he doesn’t argue any further which I’m going to take as a win for me.
“How far are we driving today?” I ask him, about half an hour later.
“Not too far, I’m in pain,” he murmurs, his voice a touch sleepy, a touch pained.
“I can drive,” I offer.
“We’ll stop soon.”
Stubborn damned men.
They’ll be the death of me.
~*~*~*~
“I’M DOING IT,” I SAY, sitting on the edge of Tanner’s bed with a first-aid kit in one hand and some washcloths in the other.
We’re all exhausted.
We drove until lunchtime and then stopped and found a motel for the night. Tomorrow we will make it to Chase, though Tatum is concerned as we haven’t heard from him in the last twelve hours. He’s worried that whoever Tanner stirred up is going to go after Chase in an attempt to find him. I hope that’s not the case, but there is a high chance it is. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.
“I can clean myself up,” Tanner mutters, kicking off his boots and lying back on the bed, exhaling loudly.
“I’m sure you can, but you’re about to go to sleep and I’m not going to let you die of some infection because you’re too stubborn to let anyone help. You can lay there and rest if it makes you happy, but I’m doing it.”
“Just admit it,” he murmurs, pulling off his shirt and tossing it on the ground, keeping his eyes closed the whole time, “You wouldn’t care if I got an infection and died.”
I stare at his chest as he lies on the bed, rising and falling, the huge muscles bulging even during his resting state. He’s gorgeous, so much so it makes my tummy do a silly little flutter. I let my eyes run over the bruises slowly forming on his ribs. He won’t admit it, but he has to be in a good deal of pain. They did a good job with him.
“I would care,” I say, climbing into the bed beside him and opening the first-aid kit. “I like you, even if sometimes I don’t understand why.”
His eyes open and meet mine, for a moment, the air gets trapped in my lungs. His look is so intense I want to throw myself at him, come what may. But I can’t do that. So, I look away and he closes his eyes again, but not before saying, “I like you, too.”
Dammit.
I get to work using an alcohol wipe to try and clean some of the dried blood off his face. He looks terrible, and I know he’s too exhausted to shower, but that would really help me right about now.
“You should shower, some of this blood might come off.”
“I can’t be fucked,” he murmurs, his voice deep, sleepy.
“Okay,” I say, taking my washcloths and going into the bathroom, soaking them with warm water.
I bring them back and position myself on the bed again, then I start using them to clean the blood off. They’re far more effective and it doesn’t take long to clean away the grime and blood stuck to Tanner’s skin. Then, I’m able to assess how much damage he has actually received. It’s not too bad, there are quite a few little cuts, but mostly it’s bruises, there is going to be a lot of them when he wakes up in the morning.
There is a cut above his eyebrow that’s deep, so I use some sticky bandages to try and pull it together so it doesn’t bleed all night. As I’m running my fingers over them, trying to get them to stick to his skin, he opens his eyes and looks up at me. “What was it like in there?”
“In where?” I ask, concentrating on trying to get this right so the wound stays closed.
“Prison.”
I pause, my fingers against his skin. My eyes move down to his, and I can see he’s serious, he wants to know. I hesitate for a few minutes, contemplating if I should share this part of my story, but deciding why the hell shouldn’t I? It’s part of who I am, after all.
“It was hard,” I say, getting back to work on cleaning up his face. “Especially when I first went in. I was only young, and I had no support. My family, they aren’t the best ...”
“I saw your mom at the trial, do you still talk to her?”
“No,” I say, my voice turning a touch colder. “No, I don’t. I don’t really talk to any of them, including my brother. They left me there, when I needed them the most. I was so young, I was afraid, I was alone. It wasn’t easy.”
“They left you on your own?”
I nod, swallowing at the painful reminder that my family abandoned me in my time of need. “Yeah, they did. They rarely visited, and when they did it was just to remind me of how hard things were for them on the outside. Because of what I’d done. Because of the reputation they now held. My mother made it more about her than me, and she made sure I knew how it had impacted her.”
“She sounds selfish,” Tanner says, no hesitation whatsoever in his voice.
“She was. Because she didn’t believe me. Nobody did. Nobody except Jo, and that’s only because she was in the car with me. She knows me, and she proved how much she loved me by sticking by my side.”
“What about your lawyer? Didn’t they believe you?”
“No,” I say softly, wiping a cut underneath his right eye. “No, they didn’t. It was my word against ...”
“Ours,” Tanner finishes for me.
“Yeah, basically. Your family didn’t believe Celia had anything bad happening in her life, they didn’t think she would take her own life, there was no evidence to point to it, so my word was worth absolutely nothing.”
“Ethan believed you.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah he did. I’m thankful for that.”
“Do you love him?”
I blink and my eyes meet Tanner’s, confused. “Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
I think about that, for a long moment. For a time, I thought Ethan could be the one. I thought that he would be someone I could be with forever. I used to imagine life outside of those walls, wondering if we could be together. I mean, we knew each other so well. We got along with little effort, it was natural and easy. I could have loved Ethan, for sure, but I don’t know ... It just never reached that stage.
“I love Ethan for the man he is, for the protector he was, for the friend that got me through some of the hardest times of my life. Am I in love with him, though? No. No, I’m not. It just never got to that point with us, maybe too much shared, maybe because of prison, I don’t know, it just didn’t.”
“Nothing ever happened between the two of you?” Tanner asks, shifting slightly toward me so I can wipe the other side of his face.
“No, it didn’t.”
“Did you want it to?”
I exhale. “Why all the questions about Ethan?”
“I want to know my competition,” he says simply, his voice strong and determined.
I blink. “Competition?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
He chuckles. “Obviously.”
“You don’t even like me, Tanner.”
“You’re fuckin’ wrong about that,” he says, reaching up with his busted-up hand and stroking my cheek. “I fuckin’ adore you.”
My heart races and my throat feels tight. “Y-y-y-you do?”
“Yeah,” he confirms. “Yeah, I do. I fucked up, we both know that, I can’t go over it a thousand times. I was wrong, I didn’t know the situation and I didn’t want to see the truth. I wanted you to suffer, but it was a mistake. Biggest mistake I’ve made in a good long time. The longer I’ve spent with you on the road, the more I see that you’re a good person, probably one of the best people I know. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”
Those words.
God, I’ve wanted to hear them for so long.
My heart squeezes tightly, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Tears burn under my eyelids, and my skin prickles with emotion that has been held inside for so long.
“You have no idea how much hearing those words means to me,” I whisper to Tanner. “No idea.”
“I think I have a bit of an idea,” he murmurs, stroking my bottom lip lovingly before tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry, Callie. From the bottom of my heart, I’m fuckin’ sorry.”
I can’t stop it.
Tears burst forth and roll down my cheeks.
I needed those words, more than he’ll ever know.
“Hey,” he says, sitting up and grabbing me, pulling me into his arms, “I got you.”
He’s got me.
He’s. Got. Me.
I bury my face into his chest, and I breathe him in, my tears soaking his bare skin. He hangs onto me for a long moment, until my tears slow down and my body stops trembling. Only then do I pull back and look up at him. He swipes a tear away with his thumb, and then leans down, his lips brushing mine. I want him, so badly, but I’m afraid. I’m scared. I’m worried that what Jo said is right, that we might never be able to get past what happened, that it’ll rear its ugly head over and over until it destroys us.
“We can’t be doing this,” I whimper against his lips. “There is so much water under the bridge, so much bad blood, it’ll destroy us eventually.”
“Or,” he growls, dragging his lips down my throat, “what doesn’t destroy us will only make us stronger.”
I clench my eyes shut, because I want him, he knows I want him. “Tanner,” I whisper.
“Don’t,” he murmurs against my neck. “Don’t take another thing away from me. I need you, Callie. More than fuckin’ air. I’m fallin’ in love with you.”
No.
Oh, god.
He’s confused. He’s wrong.
He’s not in love with me. He’s running high on emotion, he’s been through a lot, he’s confusing love for something that he doesn’t fully understand.
“You’ve been through a lot. A week ago you wanted me to suffer, that’s not love, Tanner.”
He pulls back, his eyes intense. “A week ago I was doubting my every move because of how I felt about you, I was pushing myself because I was fuckin’ confused and fucked up. I know what I feel, Callie. I’ve been through enough in my life to know the difference.”
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath in.
“Look at me,” he orders, his voice husky.
I open my eyes, and I look at him, I really look at him.
“We’ve got a fuckin’ long way to go. I’ve got a lot of bridges to mend before we can ever be anything solid, but I know how I feel about you. I know that you dig into a part of me that has been closed off for a fuckin’ long time. That means something to me, and I’m not losing another thing that means something to me because I’m too stubborn to fuckin’ see what’s right there in front of me.”
I swallow, and nod, because who am I to tell him how he feels?
Who am I to judge his emotions?
Even if deep down I don’t believe them, I’m not in a place to fight him.
I’m done fighting.
I’m going to let him mend this bridge, because I need to cross over it far more than he’ll ever know.
I want to see what’s on the other side.