Man of Honor (Battle Scars) (13 page)

I tilt my head to the side, considering.
Is that the only reason things are so much more with Drake? Because we have the same circle of friends and we’re familiar with each other?
The way Drake makes me feel: safe, surrounded by warmth, keyed up with sexual energy…those aren’t familiar emotions for me. He’s the only one who has ever inspired them. And I know, deep down inside my soul, that it’s not just because we’ve known each other for a few years now.

It’s more than that.

Greta’s searching my expression, and sees something in it that makes her reach out to squeeze my shoulder from her place across from me. “How do you feel about him, Mea?”

Shaking my head slowly, I gaze at her in utter disbelief. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I tried as hard as I could to prevent it, to stay mad at him for something that wasn’t even his fault. But he got to me…somehow.”

Berkeley’s voice has gentled, and she grasps my hand in hers with fierce friendship shining in her eyes. “And?”

I have to admit it. For myself as much as for my friends. “And I think I’m falling for him.”

I
t’s my turn to buy Dare’s drink, so I grab his order request and head for the bartender in the back of the old, classically “haunted” Savannah dive. I had my doubts when Mea first suggested this idea, but I have to admit it’s turning out to be a great night. We let the girls leave first in a limo, and then we followed in a stretch Hummer to the opposite end of the riverfront.

Knowing that in a little under an hour I’m going to see Mea’s gorgeous face lighting up everything around her again is enough to have me sweating in anticipation. After our afternoon together, my body is spent in the best possible way, and my brain? Filled with memories of how amazing she looked while she fell into pieces in my arms.

I know how lucky I am. I know that although Mea might not be a stranger to sexual partners, the fact that I got to see her all vulnerable and free the way she was today is something that I should cherish. I’m always going to remember the way she looked. Always going to want to replicate the way I made her moan.

And the way she made me feel? It’s unmatched by anyone who’s ever come before her. I know for a fact that no matter where I go or whom I’m with, I’ll never have another experience like that one. That’s why I’m going to try my damnedest not to let her go. I need to be enough for her, and I want to be more than she needs.

The female bartender heads over with a flirty grin. Leaning over the bar, she sends me a wink. “Your turn to buy, huh?” She glances over at Dare, who’s clearly been having a good time tonight, and then back at me. “He’s the groom? Let me guess…” She allows her eyes to slide around my torso, taking in my build and flicking over my face before she finds my eyes once again. “Best man?”

I’m surprised, but I don’t let it show in my features. “How’d you guess? And yeah…he wants a Killian’s.”

She turns to grab the bottle of beer, and when she slides it across the bar to me she grins. “It’s my job to know. You, though…you’ve caught my attention. Want to swing back by here after your party is all done?”

I’ve never really been a player; it’s not my style. I’ve been with women, sure. But I don’t jump from woman to woman like some of the guys I know. And to each his own, I don’t judge anyone for their choices. I’ve just always known that in life, a revolving door of women, isn’t for me.

“Sorry.” I grace her with a rueful smile. “I’ve got plans after this party.”

She leans into her hand and offers me a sad half-grin. “She’s a lucky girl. What can I get to top you off?” She gestures toward Dare’s beer.

I look down at the sole beer in my hand, and then look back up at her. “Nothing. I’m good.”

And I am…good. One beer, just like the me before I lost my mom. Alcohol doesn’t drown out the pain. It just numbs it for a little while. But now? I know there’s a better way to deal with things. Especially knowing that being drunk meant I wasn’t there for Mea when she needed me.

Never again.

Pulling a folded bill out of my jeans pocket, I leave it on the bar and rejoin my group. Jeremy and Chase seem to be getting along really well, laughing at the same types of jokes and ribbing Dare with everything they have. Ronin, quieter than the other guys, eyes me as I return. I don’t know Ronin well, but I’ve noticed that his eyes miss nothing. He’s shrewd, and he has a reason for every move he makes.

There’s been more than one friendly gathering where I noticed Ronin and Mea with their heads together. I’m a guy, and I can read the hungry expression in another man’s eyes when it comes to a woman. Back then, there was nothing I could do about it. I’d be restless as hell, wanting to slam my fist into his face just for talking to her with intent, but I couldn’t without looking like an asshole.

That’s not the case now. Mea is mine.

I hand Dare his beer along with a clap on the shoulder, and then I take up a relaxed stance beside Ronin. He acknowledges my presence next to him with an incline of the head, but we both stare straight in front of us.

“What’s up?” I stuff both hands into my pockets, for lack of anything better to do with them other than clenching them tight.

Ronin takes a sip of his highball, swallowing before he speaks. “So. You and Mea? This a new thing?”

My blood heats up as it races through my veins, but I fight to keep my cool. Ronin is asking. There are a lot of guys who wouldn’t do that. They’d just try and take what they want. So I nod.

“Yeah.”

He flicks his mossy eyes toward me quickly before looking away again. But I don’t miss the seriousness in them, the question in his gaze. “Casual?”

I shake my head. He needs to be well aware of where I stand with Mea. Because no guy with brains in his head would turn down a prize like her if he thought he had a chance. “Not for me.” I look at him when I say it, and he turns his head so that our gazes meet.

He stares at me for a minute, and I don’t back down or look away. When he finally gives me one brief nod of his head, I know we have an understanding. “Treat her right.”

Blowing out a quiet breath through pursed lips, I give him a curt nod. “Plan to.”

Our tour guide returns to us then, leading us out of the bar and onto the brightly lit, busy Savannah riverfront street.

“The next place is extra creepy,” he informs us as we walk. He’s really gung-ho about the ghost thing but can also read the vibe from our group. It’s telling him that we don’t give a shit about ghosts or haunted bars, but we like a good drink from a good pub, so he’s left us alone to enjoy that for the most part.

It’s not lost on me that I’ve only had one beer tonight. I don’t have the strong urge to get lost inside a glass of whiskey, and I know exactly the reason why. The sweet obscurity of Mea is still swimming through my system, and its power gives me more strength than a drink ever could.

It gives me hope. Just because my mother was a drunk and now she’s gone, it doesn’t mean that I now need to turn to alcohol to cope. It just causes more problems, especially with Mea. I’ve always wanted my own life separate from the shitty one she gave me, and I’ve made that in Lone Sands. The fact that she passed away rocked me through and through, but I can’t change who she was or what she lacked as a mother. I can only live for today, and right now a big part of my today includes this small tornado force of a woman.

We pause outside the next stop. “This is the Tucker Inn,” our tour guide informs us. “It’s said to be haunted by the ghost of a lonely man who used to frequent the pub at the turn of the century. Come on inside and we’ll tell you the rest.”

The dude is so excited about the prospect of this ghost that he speeds inside. Jeremy is shaking with laughter, and Grisham elbows him hard in the ribs as he leads the way into the dim tavern.

We hear the girls before we see them. They’re making a ruckus right at the front of the place. Apparently, the little group has been taking turns buying Berkeley her drinks as well, because she’s spinning in a slow circle in the center of them, wearing a pageant sash and tiara. When she spots Dare, she books it across the bar and leaps into his arms.

Catching her easily, he buries his face in her neck and begins murmuring something that I can’t and probably don’t want to hear. Removing my eyes from the spectacle, I search out Mea.

She’s a fucking temptress in tight black jeans and a pair of black, scuffed-up cowboy boots. Her top, flowing around her like it contains currents of its own energy, hangs off of one shoulder. It exposes creamy mocha skin, and my feet carry me toward her before I realize I’m moving. Her eyes lock in on me, drinking me up the same way I’m swallowing mouthfuls of her vision like a man dying of thirst.

“Hey, you,” she murmurs as I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her soft curves right up against me. She sighs as the fingers of my other hand trace tiny pictures on her bare shoulder.

“Hey, sweetheart. Miss me?” My voice feels like its buried somewhere under stacks of sandpaper.

My dick twitches when she stretches up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. Her lips touch my skin, and I’m a live wire. Ready to burst into flames with a mere touch.

“I don’t do clingy, remember?” Her husky voice is everything.

I want to pull her to a dark place in the back of this bar and let her tornado suck me up.

“I remember.” Then my mouth catches hers, and the sexy slide of her plump bottom lip against mine makes me groan.

Too soon, we have to pull away. Both of our tour guides have chosen that moment to gather our group and tell a ghost story.

“The ghost that haunts this bar is affectionately known as Lonely Joe. He fell in love with the bar owner’s daughter, who lived in the apartment upstairs with her family. She worked in the bar, helping her father with the bartending and other bar duties. They had a torrid affair, but when the bar owner found out, he put the kibosh on the whole thing. The daughter was heartbroken. She jumped off the balcony at the top of the bar. After she died, Joe disappeared. No one ever saw him again. But ever since, customers and workers here have claimed to hear and see his ghost, still waiting for the woman he loves to come downstairs again.”

Beside me, Mea shivers. I pull her closer into my side.

“That’s a horrible story,” she says aloud. “Way too sad.”

Greta peeks out from under Grisham’s arm and agrees. “I want to cry.”

“Well,” says the tour guide with a knowing smile on his face. “Spirits are the best way to remedy that. Everyone head on over to the bar to grab a drink.”

The group settles around the bar, ordering drinks. Mea’s phone vibrates from where my hand rests on her hip. There’s a stubborn set to her jaw and a determined gleam in her eyes as she ignores it.

“What’s up?” Are you going to check your phone?” I keep my voice low, so that only she can hear my question. I’m more than a little curious at her reaction and the tension rolling off of her right now.

Shaking her head, she avoids my eyes. “Not now. I’ll check it later.”

I spin her around so that she’s facing me, searching her eyes. “Is everything okay? Remember what we did in my bed this afternoon? Me and you aren’t limited to spending time in the bedroom together. If something’s wrong, I want to know about it.”

Pulling the corner of her lip into her mouth, a war rages in her eyes as she debates whether or not to tell me something that’s clearly tearing her apart.

“Mea?”

Shaking her head quickly, her curls fly in a wild frenzy around her head. “Not here,” she whispers. “But…I do want to tell you, Drake. I want to tell you everything.”

The way she says “everything” feels like the word weighs a hundred pounds leaving her lips. She’s hefting the weight of it; I can almost see the heaviness of it on her shoulders as the toes of her boots scrape against the wooden planks of the bar floor.

I smooth my hands up from her shoulders to her face, cupping it between them like something precious. “I’m right here. We can talk later. You gonna be okay the rest of the party tonight?”

Blinking up at me, I can see the steel she uses to cover up whatever’s creating a storm of turmoil inside her. It’s like a coat of armor she wears to protect her heart; she’s so used to hiding behind it that it takes almost nothing for her to shutter herself in.

We turn to join the group, and I take her hand in mine as we walk toward them. I squeeze it just to remind her that I’m here and she’s safe with me, and she glances up at me with a small smile. It’s only a fraction of the normal Mea grin, but it tells me what I need to know. She’s strong, and she won’t let anything get in the way of her best friend’s happiness.

Even if it means she has to bury what makes her heart beat fast with fear. What makes her body heavy with sadness. What makes her expressive, chocolaty eyes glaze over with pain.

Fuck. How long has she been dealing with whatever this is on her own? She carries it on her shoulders, and from the looks of her, she’s close to breaking.

I make a vow to myself right then and there. Whatever her secret is, it’s going to be deep and dark. It terrifies her; it chases her in her dreams at night.

I’ll fight it for her. I’ll be the light in that darkness if it takes every last breath I have in order to do it.

I
wait until I’m back at the rental house, alone in my bedroom with Drake, before I check my phone. Drake watches me while I pace the room like a wild animal trapped in a cage. My phone is caught between my hands, but I haven’t looked at it yet. I’m counting my steps, gathering every ounce of courage I have before I finally flip the phone over in my hands and read the screen.

Drake watches me, silent pleading in his eyes. But I haven’t told him about my father yet. I don’t know the right words to say or how to launch into a story that grotesque.

I have Daddy issues. You know, the first man who’s supposed to love you and protect you? The one who is supposed to fight the monsters away? Well, mine was the monster. And I’m the one who had to put him away.

It’s no conversation starter, that’s for sure.

There are six missed calls from my brother. And three texts.

I open the first text message.

The second text message is a bit longer.

My stomach plummets toward the floor. My fingers tremble along the warm metal of my phone as I open the third text. I read the two words there and can’t control the strangled cry that leaves my throat.

Drake is off the bed and across the room in a second, pulling the phone from my hand and pulling me into his arms. Over my shoulders, he reads the text. I can hear the confusion in his voice as he grinds out his question. “Who’s ‘he’? Out of where?”

I try to take a breath, but no air flows into my lungs. I realize I must be having a panic attack at the same time that Drake does. He lifts me into his arms and places me on the bed before he crawls in beside me. Pulling me to him, he strokes my hair as my entire body convulses with terror. Cold, hard terror that steals your breath and your words.

“Shhh, baby girl. I’m here. No one will hurt you, I swear to you. I’m right here.” He murmurs the words and ones just like them over and over again. I have no idea how long it takes for the attack to subside, but when it does my body is empty and cold. My limbs are weak and heavy. But at least I can breathe again.

“It’s my…it’s my father.”

Drake stiffens, but he doesn’t stop his comforting stroking. He waits for me to tell him more.

I run my hands along his bare chest. As soon as we came into my room, he stripped off his shirt, dropping it on the floor before sitting on my bed. I’m so glad for the bare skin contact now. It’s as soothing as his voice and the cloak of his arms around me.

“He’s been in prison since I was fifteen years old. When I was thirteen and a half, I told a teacher that he had been…assaulting me…for the previous two years.”

Drake takes a deep breath beneath me. I hold mine, waiting for his reaction.

I’ve never told anyone this. Especially not a man. It’s humiliating, and it makes me feel dirty just speaking the words. Thinking about them is difficult enough, but thanks to the therapy my aunt and uncle made me endure for two years when I arrived at their home, I had developed skills to cope. The nightmares stopped, or at least became extremely rare.

“Mea.” I’ve never heard his voice sound this way. It’s as if he’s been swallowing broken glass. It sounds like it hurts him just to speak. “Did he hit you?”

I shake my head. A tear leaks out of my eye and lands on Drake’s chest. And then another. And another. “He was always kind of a control freak, you know? My mom…I remember her being so wonderful and normal when I was younger. But she developed mental illness when I was around seven or eight. And she just kept retreating into herself more and more until she was barely there at all. She would still move around the house, but I never heard her voice. She never looked at anyone. Now, I wonder if her illness wasn’t spurred on by a desire to escape him.” I sniff, trying hard to stem the flow of tears that are so freely falling now.

Drake’s hand rubs small circles on my back. He doesn’t speak, just listens.

“He wasn’t violent. Not like you’re thinking. But he would drink…and then his temper was worse. I would always shelter Mikah from it as best I could. But when my mom disappeared…he had appetites that weren’t being satisfied anymore. One night he came into my room and told me it was my job to take her place.”

“Fuck.” His body jerks like he’s been punched. Gently, he slides me off of his chest and stands. Pacing the room much like I had just moments ago, I watch with every single muscle inside of me tightening into painful coils. He reaches the small rolltop desk and leans over it, pressing the wood with his big, strong hands.

Shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “No, baby. No.”

I just watch him. I can’t tell him it isn’t true. As much as I want to. And watching the way it’s killing him…it’s killing me.

Then, he pounds both fists against it, making me startle. “Fuck!”

Standing up straight again, he runs both hands over his head a couple of times before turning to face me. He strides back toward the bed and climbs on it, situating me against his chest again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice broken. He turns his head and rubs his nose along my jaw, inhaling me deeply. “I can’t stand the thought of him hurting you. Your father…the man you were supposed to be able to trust above all others.”

Nodding, I wipe the tears away from my eyes. Drake reaches up, helping me to clear my face of the wetness. “Every fucked-up thing about me today is because of him.”

There’s a ferociousness in Drake’s voice when he answers me. “There’s nothing fucked-up about you. I’ve known for a while that there was something beneath the surface that made you who you are. But you are amazing in
spite
of him. Believe me when I say that.”

His words bring a tiny ray of light to my heart where before it was lost in darkness. “Thank you.”

“Why did your brother’s message say that he’s out, sweetheart? I need to know the answer to that.”

The question brings my terror screaming back to the surface. It wraps around my throat, threatening to squeeze the life out of me. “He was up for parole. I thought there was no way in hell he would get it, Drake. Especially not without his family there to support him. But he did. And now he’s out on parole.”

Drake sucks in a sharp breath. “Are you afraid he’ll come after you?”

“Just the thought of him makes me scared. My nightmares of him are nothing compared to the real, live man. He stole something from me back then that I can never get back. And I can only imagine that years in prison haven’t helped him get better. He was probably thinking about ways to hurt me worse.”

“Baby, it’s okay. I’m right here. He can’t hurt you. He’d have to go through me, and that’s not gonna happen. Why do you think he’d want revenge?”

The word
revenge
makes me shudder.
Is it too much to hope for that my father will get out of prison and start his life over again somewhere new? That he won’t ever try to find Mikah and me? That he’ll just walk away and leave us alone?

“The last time that it happened…” My voice trembles and I
hate
it. I’ve spent years turning myself into someone strong, someone confident. Someone who couldn’t be hurt because no one would ever get close enough to cause me pain again. And here I am, falling apart at the very thought of my father. “Mikah was only eleven. But he was always this scrappy kid who wasn’t afraid to take on the world. He walked into my bedroom. He knew right away that what he was seeing wasn’t right, and he started yelling at our father to get off of me.”

Drake hisses, the sound slipping through his teeth. “I can imagine his fury.”

“I was so afraid for Mikah after that. Our father was too unpredictable. Our mother couldn’t save us. So I went to school the next day and told a guidance counselor what was happening. We were taken out of our home and sent to live with our aunt and uncle in North Carolina.”

I feel it when Drake drops a kiss on my mess of curls. His hands are so steady on my skin while he comforts me. I never imagined that I could feel this protected while talking about my father and what he did to me.

“Mikah and I both testified in his trial a little over a year later. It sealed his conviction.”

“You changed your name when you moved.” It’s not a question. My mind flashes back to the Emily girl I knew back in Kentucky all those years ago, and who I’d run into again last night.

I nod against his chest. “Yes.” My voice cracks on the word, and Drake’s arms tighten around me.

“Baby girl,” he murmurs so quietly against my hair. “I’m so sorry. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. I promise you that.”

With every heartbeat I hear thrumming in Drake’s chest, I feel the earnestness he experiences when he tells me he’ll keep me safe.

“I know you will. I just have to calm down and keep living my life. Just because he’s out doesn’t mean he’s a threat to me. I just have to keep living.”

It’s a mantra I remind myself of over and over again as I drift off to sleep in Drake’s arms.

Just keep living.