Hello, readers! I'm soooooo sorry it took so long to get this chapter uploaded. I struggled with inspiration for this one, but I finally got the ball rolling again.
Thank you for continuing to read this story; I am so in love with the characters in this book, and I'm glad to be getting positive responses as well.
Anyway, to make up for being late, this chapter is a bit long! Also, enjoy the Wings cover above. I kind of think the song fits.
Please vote and comment if you like it.
--VIVKELLER23
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Teagan
It was Friday afternoon, but he wasn't halfway to the parking lot trying to start his weekend off like any other healthy college student would have if they'd been in his shoes.
Why were his feet carrying him to the library for the twentieth time since he'd met her?
God knew.
But the elderly librarian was beginning to look proud of him, as she was happy to see that for the first time since he'd become a part of the college student population, he was finally finding interest in something other than his next one night stand.
In a way, he was. He'd found an all-consuming interest in the one woman he could be certain a one night stand would probably never be enough.
He'd tried to talk himself out of it for about three minutes and failed miserably.
After eavesdropping on the Ice Queen's- crap, Rain's- private conversation with her mother, he hadn't been able to get the look of sadness on her face out of his head. Besides not wanting to have to answer her questions if she noticed his presence, Teagan walked away from the sight of her because he hadn't wanted to intrude on her private moment anymore than he already had.
So, now he had to go out of his way to seek her out at her home away from home just to see her.
She probably already saw him as a creep. No need to cement that assumption further by making her aware that coincidence had made him present during a very private moment.
Coincidence doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth for days, Mr. Tee.
That annoying, genuinely good part of him that he thought he lost sometime after finding out the reason for his father's resentment had made it abundantly clear that it was still very much alive and well inside him. The past two days had been filled with his good side's unfiltered comments about how he should be ashamed of himself. How offended that voice of reason sounded in his mind when Teagan looked at himself in the mirror.
And, though he had to admit that shame was definitely one of the emotions he had become acquainted with in the past two days, it wasn't the only thing he felt. It wasn't even the main one.
The good side inside of him, for all intents and purposes, the angel on his shoulder, was an unapologetically honest five-year-old who just got louder and louder the more Teagan tried to ignore it.
Absolutely brutal.
This morning, his good side announced that he'd caught on to Teagan's nickname and had been using it nonstop ever since.
Self-denial is gonna give you heartburn, Tee. Heard it from a bald guy who looked like he knew stuff once so it's gotta be true.
He was going to lose it, the little bit of sanity he had left, if the five-year-old angel on his shoulder didn't go to bed soon. You heard it from Dr. Phil.
You did, too, but you don't listen. You're gonna dig yourself into a hole and Queenie is just going to leave you there to rot.
Teagan felt the abominable urge to roll his eyes, but he managed to stay controlled with great effort. Queenie was the name the voice in his head gave Rain, formerly known as the Ice Queen, and it was grating on his nerves.
He wasn't going to argue with a voice that was in his head and a figment of his imagination anyway.
I am too real! It's your heart I'm not so sure about, jerk face.
Un-frigging-believable. Just ignore him, just ignore him, just-
Just admit it, just admit it, just admit you messed up and fix it before you can't!
Teagan shook his head, refusing to give in to the silent war waiting to blow over if he didn't stand his ground. What did the voice in his head really know anyway? It didn't understand where he was coming from. It didn't know a thing about the reasons he had for making the choice he had. It didn't even know what two plus two was.
Four, you dummy! Answer's four, and I also know you're going to end up crying when it's all over like a baby over spilled milk.
Teagan sighed. Fine, the angel on his shoulder wanted to fight, then he'd give him-
"You know, the whole internal warfare going on in your face is really tantalizing to see, but I have places to go, people to see, and a world to change before my father gets home from his meeting. If you'll kindly move out of my way, I would so appreciate it."
Queenie! The demonic angel voice chanted in a high pitched squeal.
Relax, buddy, she's talking to me.
The voice in his head had a snide response to that, but it died quickly when the Ice Queen in question gave him a very concerned look.
The frown on her face gave her a slight crease between her fine brows. "Are you okay, Teagan?"
Ah. The way she said his name wasn't helping him get over his vivid dreams of her at night. If anything, now that he knew what it sounded like coming from her lips, it added a level of realism that hadn't been there before.
In his dreams, the voice was huskier, filled with a need that he was beginning to know very well.
Now if only he could find out what an actual night in her bed felt like, he'd be set.
Teagan smiled. "Concerned about me, my little Raincloud?"
Ugh. And you were the one talking about my name for her? Hypocrite!
The voice had a point. The pet names he had for her were getting ridiculous.
She seemed to think so, too. She snorted, looking unimpressed with his attempt at flirtation. "Raincloud? How original. I thought you wanted to know my name because you wanted to impress me, you know? For once, address a girl by name rather than use your 'charms' to try to seduce her? Guess I was wrong. My name seems to have given you an inspiration of weather names."
He felt scolded, and the feeling was a new one. Wasn't very sure he liked it, but he was certain another part of him was feeling very good.
Teagan shifted uncomfortably, trying to keep her chastising words from getting a, for lack of a better word, rise out of him.
It was indecent. All the woman did was fight him at every turn, she never gave an inch, and he still didn't find her prickly exterior discouraging. It had the opposite effect of what he thought she was going for.
Instead of wanting to give up, Teagan found himself striving to the challenge. He wanted to have to work for the Ice Queen's caresses. For some reason, the thought of all the ice he'd have to help melt away before he got to the fire he'd only glimpsed made him want her more.
She wasn't going to be just any conquest for him.
That in itself was exciting.
"Oh, I wanted your name so I could practice using it during my alone time," he whispered, making sure to lower his voice so only her ears caught the meaning behind his words.
She turned a pretty pink, but made sure to keep him in check with an angry look out of those violet eyes. "How very expected of you," she admitted with a careless sigh. "I'm growing tired of this whole thing actually. Why don't you go on back to Crue? I'm sure she's forgiven you by now."
Her Highness' claws were sharp. If he didn't know any better, he could almost believe she was jealous of the relationship he had shared with Crue in the past.
He wondered what she would think if she knew the real reason he'd contacted Crue the morning after the party. Would she blush and accuse him of having no shame? Because he didn't feel any shame where she was concerned. There wasn't room for shame in his life anyway. He did whatever he wanted, lived the only way he knew how, and cared only about surviving.
Right now, pursuing the Ice Queen was the only thing keeping him from blowing up.
"Crue's old news," he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Nothing with her was ever serious so there's no reason for you to feel threatened, Rainy Day."
She hissed, like a freshly soaked cat does when slightly submerged. "I'd have to actually care about you and what you do with your play things to feel threatened, Mr. Tee."
He smirked. "And you're telling me you don't care in the slightest?"
"Queens have more important things to worry about than wasting time on big boys and their childish games."
One point for the Ice Queen. "Touché, Your Majesty. You aim your blade savagely."
Romeo had nothing on him.
"And you are the epitome of subtlety," came the sassy reply.
Teagan laughed. Darn, it felt good to laugh.
It seemed laughing had become nothing more than a childhood memory for him, but with her, he was beginning to find laughter every time they met.
She didn't share in his jovial spirits though, and she made that very clear as she stepped around him.
He had fast reflexes thanks in part to his less than ideal upbringing and the little bit of sports he took up while in high school. His hand had grabbed her arm and slipped down to intertwine with her slender fingers before she'd taken two steps.
"Where are you off to in such a rush?"
She pulled at her hand, trying to loosen the grip he had on her. "Let go."
"If I do, will you do a favor for me?" Teagan asked.
"What kind of favor?"
So defensive. He wondered what had made her so opposed to opening up to people? She was so regal all of the time, but even that part of her was detached.
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "Always so suspicious of my intentions, My Queen."
"You want a favor from me or not?"
"Okay, okay." Slowly, Teagan took his hand out of hers and held it open in front of him, trying to prove he was harmless. "I need a ride to work."
She gave him a hard, assessing look before spinning around and storming out of the library.
"Wait!" he called after her and earned a dirty look from the librarian as he took off behind the Ice Queen. He didn't care. "What did I say this time?"
She stopped abruptly, and Teagan had to catch himself before he ran into her ramrod straight back. "You expect me to believe that the biggest playboy on campus, notorious for partying every night and jumping from girl to girl, has a job?"
He could have been offended at the sound of that, but he just didn't have the energy in him after the brief sprint he'd run to catch up. "Life doesn't come cheap, Rainy, even for scum like me."
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Then she nodded. "Follow me."
xXx
A year and a half ago...
Teagan's obsession with the Ice Queen hadn't been completely out of the blue. If you wanted to get technical, it should have been completely out of the red.
Red hot heat, nothing short of flames taking root and burning him alive.
Maybe not that explosive, but in his memory that's what it felt like.
He'd been fairly new to Gray's, having started the previous semester, and had instantly joined the party goers group of Freshman that seemed to only be at college for the good times that happened outside of the classroom. He remembered befriending an overconfident brute whose skull was too thick to understand rejection gracefully.
He was twenty, having just passed the GED exams to be accepted into Gray's music program. He had a face that lacked character with hollow cheeks and yellow-brown eyes that looked too big for his skinny face. His hair was a shaggy wheat color and hung in loose strands to his ears in what looked like the ends of a mop.
The fool had the looks of a donkey but carried himself as if he was a frigging unicorn.
How ironic that the most ungallant guy to set foot on campus should be the one who had introduced him to the Ice Queen in the first place. They said God works in mysterious ways, but he doubted even God would have had such a sense of humor.
It was a classic tale.
The Horndog and the Royal Queen...
Totally not a fairytale geared towards children, but it was immensely entertaining.
The overconfident fool, named Leslie, of all the awful names to give a male, had apparently gotten lucky the night before after offering to drive some waitress home from a fancy bar. That one lapse in the unnamed waitress' judgement had given Leslie the false idea that he was desirable to women far above his reach.
So what did Leslie do with this newfound secret?
That's right, folks! The idiot went after the most unapproachable, respectable woman within a ten mile radius!
Leslie decided to try his luck on the Ice Queen.
Teagan could still see the cream colored, half-sleeved dress she'd worn to the first day of school. She'd paired it with some strappy gold sandals that were both extremely eye-catching and practical. Her dainty little toes had been painted a vibrant hot pink that had been so completely unexpected when contrasted with the pastel hues of her outfit, Teagan had felt a tightening in his gut.
Yes, you read that right. Teagan Miller was pulled in, not by the Ice Queen's proper dress, not by her flirty footwear, and not by the very classy persona she wore like a cloak.
Nope. All it took to ensure he couldn't look away after just one glance was a bold choice in nail polish.
For Leslie, it might have been all of the above.
Regardless of the reason, Leslie honed in on her as she made her way across the freshly cut lawn towards the library. Just like a hungry, slightly rabid dog hungrily watching his next target, Leslie licked his thin lips as he prepared to make his move.
Teagan was so shocked that Leslie would actually try to make a play for the Ice Queen that he didn't react at first. He liked to believe he would have stopped the fool if he got too aggressive in his attentions, but it turned out the Ice Queen had more surprises up her sleeve than just the color she chose to put on her toes.
Leslie did some weird strut thing as he cut across the lawn and stepped right into the girl's path.
A person with a functioning brain would have taken the Ice Queen's wordless move to walk around him as a sign that she wasn't interested. But poor Leslie lacked that bit of common sense it seemed.
"Whoa, whoa, pretty lady!" he exclaimed in a slightly slurred voice. He reached to touch her shoulder, and laughed when she immediately jumped back to avoid him. "Where you off to in such a hurry, Miss Fancy?"
Teagan was only a few steps behind Leslie. He was only there to make sure to keep Leslie from getting too confident and making a mistake. But from where he stood, he got his first look at her. The sun was too bright for him to make up his mind, but he knew her eyes were some shade of blue. Her face was drawn and she didn't look amused to have to deal with Leslie this early in the morning.
She never even acknowledged Teagan's presence there. She pinned Leslie with a look that would have cut glass, but Leslie was made of soft stuff. "I assume since you were good enough to be admitted into Gray's that you've got some sense in that miniscule brain of yours?" she asked in a tone dripping with sarcasm. "Women attending college are doing it because they actually have a choice, not because they want to be hit on by little boys."
Again, this would have been enough for anyone else to take the hint and walk away.
Not for Leslie.
When the Ice Queen made to walk away a second time, Leslie simply turned his head and whistled. "Mama's got a mouth on her, don't she?" Leslie cackled, choking a little on his own spit before he caught himself. "But she's got an even nicer booty."
She froze mid step.
This had gone far enough. "Les-"
"Nice booty you got there, sweetheart," he slurred, eyeing her backside. "It's almost begging to be grabbed and played with."
She spun around and glared at the lopsided smile he gave her.
Teagan stepped forward with every intention of pulling Leslie away and giving him a piece of his mind. Mainly that girls didn't respond to blatant sneers.
But she stopped him.
She gave Leslie her sweetest smile. "Nice nose, Romeo," she replied, fluttering her lashes just as he'd seen many cheerleaders do. "It's almost begging to be broken."
Teagan watched her walk away and disappear into the library. He couldn't help the smile that transformed his face as he dragged a sputtering Leslie towards their first class.
Neither could he help the little spark of interest that took life that day.
xXx
The drive to Welter's Elementary School was a long one.
She didn't once reach for the switch on the radio to turn on some music and lessen the tense silence. And from the looks of it, if Teagan had so much as tried to turn it on himself, he might have been in danger of losing a hand.
So Teagan sat there in the passenger seat, tapping away at his knee just to do something as they passed the nice part of town and entered "the slums."
Welter's was a school known for having to replace its teachers every three or four months because they couldn't handle the problem children that were assigned to their classes.
And then there were the coaches who never lasted more than two or three practices before they left to work for the fancier schools. The cycle of hiring and having to rehire every few weeks made the sports programs look like a joke. In fact, the school was so desperate to get someone to permanently stay that they hadn't cared that Teagan wasn't a college graduate or very experienced. He'd applied for the position of the school's soccer coach as a freshly graduated high schooler and had been working there ever since.
It didn't pay too much which was why he worked another job, but he enjoyed the challenge of getting the kids to play as a team even if they were little demon spawns.
Finally, she pulled into the gravel parking lot of the school and shut off the car.
Teagan cursed himself for the fourteenth time in the past four minutes for asking her to bring him. She obviously had never been to this side of town, and he couldn't blame her. No one voluntarily stepped over the invisible line that divided the rest of the town from "the slums." Even the children who were stuck living in the poverty infested area knew they had to go to school if they ever wanted to leave.
"Look, I'm sorry I bothered you and made you drive over here. I should have just walked or taken the bus." No doubt she'd feel sorry for him for working at such a rundown school.
She snapped her eyes to his face. "You didn't make me do anything," she corrected him. "I doubt you could have even if you'd tried."
She wasn't frustrated. She didn't even look disgusted or frightened he saw. That was strange considering that the area was known for petty crimes like theft and purse snatching.
"What do you do here, Teagan?"
He sighed. This was the first time she'd ever asked him anything remotely personal about himself. He found that he wanted to make a good impression and maybe show just how proud he was of the work he did.
"I'm a soccer coach. Also, a referee when needed, but that's not the important part."
She smiled at that. "I think both are pretty important during the games for those kids."
He nodded. "Guess so."
"And I'm sure those black and yellow stripes really bring out the bad in you, huh?"
Holy Crockpots! Was the Ice Queen flirting with him? "Depends. I mean, I try to keep it PG so I don't corrupt the children."
He definitely heard a quiet laugh. "How considerate of you." She glanced at the watch on her wrist. "It's already five. Do you have someone to pick you up afterwards?"
"I usually have one of the parents drive me home when I don't have a ride. I'm good," he lied smoothly. She didn't need to know that "the slums" was the place he was still trying to climb out of.
"If you're sure?"
Teagan grabbed the door handle and hurried out of the car. After shutting the car door he leaned over through the open window and offered her a wink. "Don't worry about me, okay, sugar?"
"I can't believe you yelled at me for skipping practice to introduce some girl to my grandma, and you're over here flirting with a fancy lady!"
Teagan groaned as he tried to pull his head out of the window too fast and bumped his forehead. He rubbed at the throbbing pain and turned to glare at the Devil's Minion Number One.
His parents hadn't actually named him that. His name was Gavin and he was a fifth grader who should have been in sixth grade, but since his father had been arrested for breaking into the elementary school to steal a few textbooks to help his son do his homework at home, Gavin had been put on independent study the rest of the year and failed.
Hence, he thought he was some tough hot-shot who knew everything.
He had two dimples that got him out of most trouble, jet black hair the same color of his eyes that he wore slicked back from his face, and an olive complexion that gave away his Latin heritage.
The name Devil's Minion had come about after two days of practice in which the soccer balls had all been popped and replaced with beach balls.
The worst part? There were more Minions.
"Dang it, Gavin, haven't I told you to wait at the field for me?" Teagan hissed in between clenched teeth.
"Yeah, but it's not my fault you choose to waste your breath giving me orders."
He heard Rain's muffled laughter behind him. Just peachy. "I'm totally okay with giving you laps to run around if you don't start listening."
"Well, if the lady will come and see me run, I'm all for it."
The nerve. The boy had no shame, and he had yet to learn to respect what belonged to another man. The fact that Rain "Ice Queen" Sullivan wasn't technically his was a small and inconsequential detail in the grand scheme of things.
"Beat it!" he told the little rebel.
Gavin pointed a finger at him, shaking his head. "Hey, sugar, you see how he treats me?"
She'd given up trying to cover the fact she was laughing. "My name is Rain."
"Aw, that's a pretty name for a pretty lady," Gavin replied, flashing his stupid dimples.
Teagan had to admit the boy was a smooth talker. "Gavin Santos, so help me, if you don't-"
But Gavin was already heading back towards the school gate and towards the soccer field. "Yeah, yeah, Coach. Miss Rain, you should totally come by Sunday afternoon to see him in action. The stripes really bring out his eyes!"
And with that, the Devil's Minion ran away.
Teagan sighed. "I'm sorry about that. He's, you know." Teagan shrugged as if that explained the trouble with Gavin as he turned to face her through the car window again.
"He's you, basically, only cute."
Teagan winced in a grand show of pain. "You wound me, Your Majesty."
"The truth hurts, they say."
He laughed, finding that it was getting easier and easier with her around. "Anyway, I'd better go before he decides to come back with his partners in crime." He gave a wave and headed in the same direction Gavin had taken.
But Rain called out to him before he'd made it past the gate.
"What time should I be here on Sunday?"
Gavin, my little wingman!
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