I'm back, a little late, but I'm here! Thank you so much for the increasing number of reads and votes! The love for this story never fails to amaze me.
Enjoy, and like always, you know, comment, share, and/or vote if you enjoyed the story!
Thanks!
-VIVKELLER23
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Rain
There were so many emotions going through her after Teagan's gallant defense on her part. Joy that someone actually thought she was worth standing up for was the first. Disbelief that the person who chose to defend her was the most notorious flirt on campus came next.
She lost track of the order of emotions somewhere in the middle. Among them was embarrassment and pride. She was allowed to be proud of what she'd done to protect Gia, even if Gia preferred to twist the events to simply remember the bad times.
But the last and the strongest emotion she felt was shame. Because though no one else heard the true meaning between the words Teagan said, she did.
Perhaps the only reason Rain had been able to overlook the past to help Gia was because she knew what came after the man refused to listen to her rejection.
That was what Rain heard. She knew firsthand what it was like to be attacked by someone who didn't understand the meaning of no.
It wasn't something she was particularly proud of.
That was why she bolted, furiously swallowing up the ground as she strode away. It didn't matter where she was going, all that mattered was that she get away from the critical speculation and the pitying glances she knew would follow her once the truth got out.
That was how things usually played out. At first there was pity that she hadn't been able to fight off the man who hurt her. Then came the questions. Why had she been out that night at all? How come she didn't think to take someone along with her to offer some protection? Surely, if she knew the guy, she must have done something to invite his advances and then changed her mind?
And, though she had answers to each of those questions, it became harder to hold onto her innocence with every new attempt to turn the blame on anyone but the monster responsible.
But Teagan hadn't pitied her the day he saved her from Timothy. He'd been angry enough to want to murder the other man, but that anger had been for her rather than directed at her. He'd had questions, too. Yet, every single one of them had been asked to understand why she'd been forced into the situation. They hadn't been pointed questions to poke holes into her story, to try to find where she'd misstepped to encourage Jeffers.
Teagan Miller was like no one she'd ever met. So why was she constantly having to remind herself to stay on her toes around him?
"Rain, wait up!"
She closed her eyes. He also didn't take hints very well, did he? Anyone else would have given her the space she needed.
Teagan Miller wasn't like anyone else though.
"Hey." He cut her escape short. Just like that. One hand on her wrist tugged her with just enough force to make her stop and face him. Deep, impossibly gorgeous green and grey eyes stared down at her. "What's wrong?"
Everything? No, that wasn't the answer she was supposed to give. Rain forced a smile that never quite made it to her lips. "Nothing at all."
It wasn't a surprise to see that Teagan didn't buy the smooth lie. "You don't mean that. Which only makes me wonder why you're so set on lying in response to all of my questions," Teagan told her with a gentle smile that lacked his usual cockiness.
"I didn't need you to defend me back there. Especially not in front of so many people."
"I know you would have preferred to remain silent, maybe walk away." His warm fingers traced the veins on the inside of her wrist, sending little shivers up her spine which only served to shake her already flimsy hold on control. "But someone like Crue needs to have the truth spelled out for her to ensure she gets it."
"If I thought she needed to know, I would have told her myself," Rain snapped.
A normal person would have probably said thank you.
Teagan didn't get defensive which would have been completely understandable given the fact she was being so ungrateful. So difficult was the word her father preferred.
A nod, simple yet so unexpected, Rain could do nothing but grow frustrated that she was never sure what to prepare for with him.
He didn't follow the rules everyone else ritually adhered to.
"That's the problem. You don't think anyone needs to hear it, but you're wrong. It's not so much who you finally decide to open up to, it's the fact that you set yourself free of whatever guilt and pain you think you deserve just by letting go of the past."
Teagan used his hold on her wrist to pull her just a little bit closer. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body as only a breath kept her from his sculpted chest. Close enough to make her heart speed up for no reason other than that he was looking at her as if she was a woman worth looking at.
As if, at least to him, she wasn't ever going to be invisible.
"I would really like it if you trusted me enough to be the person you confide in, but I won't push you into it."
Rain fought the unnatural urge she felt to spill her secrets, bare her soul. Those were words she hadn't known she wanted to hear from anyone. "You really don't have to bother trying to know it all," she whispered, closing her eyes so she wouldn't drown in the intensity of his gaze. "No one wants to know the truth, not about me. No one has the right to know it but me."
Teagan's surprisingly warm hands framed the sides of her face, jolting her out of the misery she always crawled back to. Amusement, gentleness, kindness. A little bit of all of that swirled in his eyes.
"While that may be true, you shouldn't have to carry all that weight by yourself. No one has to live with the fear of letting go and letting others in."
Everything out of his gorgeous mouth made sense. Which was why she so desperately tried to fight him. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"And you don't know how you're hurting yourself by building up the walls," he returned. "I see that pain, Rainy Day. I've felt my own share of it, too. But I've learned that when you try to keep it all locked inside the way you have, you lose a vital piece of who you are."
No. How long had she been hoping for just a little of that understanding from her father? Too long.
"When all you focus on is the bad, you miss out on all the good in life that would have helped you move on. Helped you heal."
Rain was shaking inside, wanting to let some of the hurt out so she could breathe. Because he was right. She's spent so many years trying to hold onto the past so she wouldn't be in danger of exposing herself, that she hadn't allowed herself to just be for so long.
"What about you?" Rain questioned in an attempt to turn his attention away from her.
"What about me?"
"Have you let go of your past? Or isn't it true that you use your hookups as a way to cope with the darkness you can't completely escape from?" she asked.
The warmth of his hands disappeared as he crossed his arms defensively in front of himself. "I didn't know I was so obvious."
"Not to everyone, but like you said, people with demons can recognize the shadows in another person's eyes."
Teagan nodded, smirking slightly. "Well, I suppose you've seen more about me than anyone besides my old man. It's not like my life's story is going to ruin my stellar reputation." He spoke carelessly, a strategic effort to conceal just how important the secrets he carried were to the flirtatious man who saw too deeply to simply be considered a playboy. "How about we make a deal. I'll answer any questions you have, so long as you can give me something no one else knows about the Ice Queen of Granite Woods?"
Did he think she was stupid? There was absolutely no way she was going to agree to that. It was too risky. And who knew what he'd ask of her...
But he gave her that tiny smile, the genuine one that made it impossible not to find him exasperating and gorgeous all at once.
She shook the devil's hand and made a deal.
xXx
Teagan had the smoothest way of turning simple outings into much more. Or maybe he just lacked the finesse with which to ask females out on dates that took place outside of the bump and grind parties he frequented. Whatever the reason, Teagan never really came right out to call their meetings a date.
On the other hand, if he started using that word, Rain wouldn't be able to pretend she didn't see what was really happening.
She was beginning to lose her head over the one guy she had specifically chosen knowing he would be the last man on Earth to threaten her peace. Her heart.
She was no better than the countless other girls who had set their sights on the breathtaking Casanova only to want a part of him they could never have.
She wasn't stupid. Though Teagan was surprisingly very invested in whatever she had to say, Rain knew better than to fall for someone like him. But there were moments where her better judgement failed her, and all she wanted was to know he wasn't just playing her because he could.
Apparently, now was one of those moments.
He'd brought her to his mother's grave, which was something Rain appreciated more than she could say. Because it meant something that he trusted her enough to bring her with him.
Rain eyed the basket he'd pulled out of the back of his truck, feeling warm. "How did you know I would even agree to coming with you?" she asked him while he worked on getting his makeshift picnic out on the grassy patch he'd chosen.
The neatly cut ham and cheese sandwiches in his hands almost fell to the ground. He shrugged, catching the wrapped plate smoothly. "It takes a special kind of girl to be okay with having a picnic in a graveyard."
Was he complimenting her?
"You're special, Rainy."
Well. Heat burned her cheeks before she could think of a suitable reply. Thank you didn't seem like it would make the cut.
"And this isn't just any day to have a picnic in the only spot with decent grass on this side of the train tracks," he continued. There was an underlying gruff quality to his voice, almost as if he was trying to keep the sadness from resurfacing. "It's the anniversary of her death."
I'm sorry, she thought instantly, desperately. But somehow, she knew that wasn't what he needed from her.
He'd brought her here to show her a part of himself that no one saw.
The curving of her lips was weak, but the bond she felt between them tightened. "No matter how much time passes, the hole in your heart stays, doesn't it?"
He nodded. Another plate was set on the checkered blanket, followed by some glasses. "And all anyone ever says is 'I'm sorry' like they understand, when half of them don't even care."
She knew a little about that. But she found it was worse when the people she'd once considered family and close friends turned their backs on you, pretending that everything was okay even while it all fell apart.
Teagan looked at her, his eyes wide and focused on the look on her face. What did he see? Rain wondered. What was he searching for?
"She was a beautiful woman with too much love to give. She was wasted on my father, and despite the number of times I begged her to leave him, she stayed." He shook his head bitterly, his eyes tormented even though he refused to look away from her.
He was showing her what it looked like to give up the mask of carelessness. And she couldn't look away.
"She loved him, God knows why, when he couldn't be bothered to visit her on her deathbed. She loved me, too, when I wasn't even her son."
Her heart ached for him, for the boy he must have been when he lost the one good thing in his life. "I've heard that blood isn't what makes two people family. It's the love and the memories they share." She believed those words more so now that her father resembled nothing more than a cold stranger to her. "In all the ways that counted, I think you were her son, and she was your mother."
Teagan smirked, the deep sadness that had clouded his eyes eclipsed. "Careful, my Ice Queen. I may actually start to think you care about me."
"Don't be stupid."
Of course, I care, she confessed inwardly. It was almost impossible not to when he did everything in his power to make sure she couldn't just brush him off.
"You're right, I know that, but it's difficult not to want the things we can't have."
His words could easily have been referring to the fact his mother hadn't been the woman to give him life or the fact his father hadn't been able to love his mother as he should have. That love was something his mother deserved and craved until her dying breath.
It could have meant all of that.
But when she gazed into the green pools he had for eyes, the heat she'd felt so many times before and dismissed ignited, sending a shiver down her spine.
The wanting wasn't all one-sided.
Rain was the one to break the contact as she reached into the basket to pull a bottle of strawberry lemonade out. Her cheeks flamed even as she quirked a brow. "Seriously?" she asked, eyeing the smirk on his lips.
"You seem to have a taste for it."
"It better not be spiked," Rain warned.
Teagan feigned hurt, completing the look with shocked innocence. "Now what kind of person do you take me for, Miss Sullivan?"
"One with too much confidence and good looks," was her dry response.
He gave her a wolfish grin. Cocky and completely male. "You think I'm handsome, huh?"
Oh, come on. Rain rolled her eyes. "I've also said you were overconfident, annoying, and a flirt, but sure, ignore all of that. It's not like those things matter."
"It's okay. I think you're pretty sexy yourself, Rainy."
And the fire was back. She could recall the few handful of times she'd been called pretty, usually by men her father worked with back when her mother had been alive. She hadn't taken it to heart. But she knew she wasn't bad looking either. She had a strong bone structured face, natural honey toned, brown hair, and she dressed modestly, with just enough flair to make her figure look good.
But she wasn't beautiful. And she definitely wasn't sexy.
Yet, the way he looked at her at times, she could almost believe she was the only woman on earth worth looking at.
Imagine that.
"You have got to stop that," she managed.
"I was telling the truth, but I'll tell you more about it some other time." Teagan took the lemonade bottle from her hands and concentrated on pouring it into the glasses. "So, now that you know that I was the bastard child my father had with some woman I don't really know, what'd you like to share to top that?"
She'd almost forgotten the real reason behind his invitation today. A part of her instinctively shrank away from the questions in his gaze. But she couldn't hide forever. And Rain found she didn't want to hide anymore.
She'd lived with the secrets, the guilt, and the shame for so long, that when the chance to let some of it go came, she wasn't able to shove it back.
"I killed my mother."
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Agh! So what did you think?! And what did Rain mean she killed her mother?