More Than Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #2) (21 page)

I shrugged. “So am I.”

“Yeah, but you care about whether or not you hurt others. He only cares about getting what he wants—you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you do? Do you know anything about him at all? Who he is? Where he came from? Jamie, how many people in the world have superpowers?”

“Exactly!” I hissed. “Don’t you get it? He’s the only person I’ve ever met—ever even heard of—who is like me. I’m sorry you don’t like him, but I can’t just tell him to get lost.”

I stopped and took a deep breath, surprised by how worked up I suddenly was. How desperately I had already decided I wanted Teddy in my life. “Please, Ryan,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion. “From the second he used his powers tonight I felt something, a connection, relief that I wasn’t completely alone anymore.”

Ryan flinched. I recognized the hurt in his eyes and realized what I’d just said. “That’s not what I meant.” I reached for Ryan’s hand, afraid he might pull away from me. He didn’t, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry. Of course I’m not in this alone. You know how much you mean to me, but it’s not the same.”

My voice broke and a lone tear escaped down my cheek.

Ryan tried to hold out, but he’s never been able to resist my crying. Resigned, he reached up and dried the wetness from my face. “Babe, I’m sorry. I just—maybe I am jealous, but there’s something about him I don’t trust. He just shows up out of nowhere and happens to have powers at the same time all this stuff with Visticorp is happening? I’m going out of my mind with worry, Jamie. You’re in danger and I don’t know how to keep you safe. If anything happens to you…”

Ryan’s voice broke. I reached up and placed my hands on his cheeks, pulling his face close to mine. “I’m strong. I’m not completely defenseless. And you’re an expert at finding solutions to the impossible. We’ll figure it out.” I pressed my lips to his. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

We kissed again, but it only lasted a second. We had more to talk about before Teddy got free from Becky, and I was pretty sure Ryan wasn’t going to like it. “We have to tell Teddy.”

“Tell him what?” he asked. But he knew. “No. Don’t even think about it. Just because he has powers doesn’t mean we can trust him with your secret.”

“We have to. That guy from the alley tonight was one of the Visticorp thugs who’s been following me. He saw what Teddy did. Teddy’s in a lot of danger now, and he has no idea. We have to warn him.”

Ryan shook his head. “We don’t know anything about him. At least wait until we know more. Please? I have a bad feeling about all this, Jamie.”

There was no way I could say no to him. “All right. We’ll talk to him first. Find out more about him.” I tried to lighten the mood a little by saying, “If I bat my lashes at him a few times, he’ll probably tell me everything I want to know.”

“Hey now,” Ryan warned, but with a light tone. He pulled me over the center console into his lap. “No making eyes at anyone but me. I forbid it.”

I giggled. “You forbid it?”

“Yes. I absolutely forbid it.” Ryan wrinkled his nose and then said, “You know? I believe Teddy may have found my only flaw tonight.”

“Impossible. You, Ryan Miller, are utterly perfect. You have no flaws.”

“Except for the fact that I don’t like to share. I want you all for myself.”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck. “That is the opposite of a flaw,” I said, and then lost myself in his kiss.

Not even a minute later, the back door slammed shut. “Do you guys really have to do that every five minutes?” Teddy’s voice was laced with disgust.

“If you don’t like it, go somewhere else,” Ryan said and tried to pull me tighter against him.

I leaned back a little so he couldn’t kiss me again. “Try to be nice?”

Ryan frowned, so I stuck my lips out into a sexy pout and batted my eyelashes at him playfully. “Please? For me?”

Ryan sighed and let me climb back into my own seat. Once I was settled I turned around and leveled Teddy with a stern look. “You, too! You promised me you would behave yourself if we were going to be friends.”

“Yeah, well, that’s proving to be a much harder task than I anticipated.” He paused and then gave me one of his award-winning dimpled smiles. “But the fact that I can’t resist hitting on you is part of my charm, right?”

I hate to say it, but the kid was right. I almost laughed. If it weren’t for Ryan’s clenched jaw, I would have.

Ryan turned around in his seat to glare at Teddy. “You are either dense or you have a serious death wish.”

Teddy looked at Ryan as if contemplating how much of a threat he was. It was clear he was sure he could take Ryan, despite the size difference. I intervened before he said as much. “Look, can we forget the testosterone for a while and discuss the fact that you stopped a tranquilizer dart
with your mind
?”

That was enough to sober everyone up. We didn’t get to the real conversation until we’d found a Denny’s and had coffee in front of us. I was the one to finally bring it up.

“So...” I said, waiting for Teddy to fill in the obvious blank.

He sighed. “What you saw is called
telekinesis
.”

“Telekinesis?” I repeated in awe.

“The ability to move things with your mind.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know what it is, dummy. I just can’t believe that you have it. Why? How? Do you know what caused it? Can you do other things, or just move stuff?”

Teddy chuckled at my questions. I could have spouted a million more.

“Just moving stuff is enough,” he said. “Trust me.”

Ryan scoffed at the “trust me” part. I elbowed him but then leaned into his side and let him put his arm around me. He was always more relaxed when he was touching me. He says it’s got something to do with the energy inside me that always floats to the surface, but I think it’s just Ryan’s personality. He’s affectionate. Always has been. And there’s nobody’s affection that he loves more than mine.

I tried to get my mind to focus. I had so many thoughts and emotions and questions swirling around in there. So Teddy didn’t have a bunch of superpowers like me, but still. Telekinesis? How awesome is that? That one power was every bit as powerful as my electricity, and probably a lot more useful.

“I’m not sure why I have it,” Teddy said without me having to ask. “But I’m pretty sure I was born with it. And before you ask, no, I didn’t inherit it from my parents. They’d been every bit as surprised by my ability as I was.”

Teddy’s face darkened at the mention of his parents. I sensed there was a story there, but I didn’t want to pry. Instead I tried something that Ryan always does to me. I stayed silent, just listening, and waited for him to give me more. It worked. After a minute, Teddy took a breath and continued his tale.

“I don’t remember when it started, but I’ve read my mother’s journal and she talked about strange things happening when I was just a small child. When I was barely two years old, my mother would take something from me and put it on a high shelf. Minutes later it would be in my hands. She talked about things shaking and flying across the room when I got mad. She wrote that at first she believed our house was haunted. My parents were very devout Catholics. They had a priest come out and bless the house and when that didn’t work, we moved—but the hauntings followed us.”

I noticed Teddy’s use of the past tense when he spoke of his parents. I hoped he was simply referring to their religious status, but I doubted it.

“There’s an entry in my mother’s journal about the first time she figured out it was me. She was up on a ladder retrieving something from the attic and she slipped. I caught her before she hit the ground. The way she describes it, she was too heavy for me, too big an object for me to hold because my nose started to bleed, and after I set her down I passed out.”

“Wow.”

I hadn’t meant to interrupt, but I was so overwhelmed by his story. The idea of a toddler with that kind of power, well, that seems even scarier than what happened to me.

Teddy was just as caught up in the memory as I was, but he looked so pained by it. I wanted to make him feel better. “You realize you may have saved her life that day, right?”

Teddy’s face turned frighteningly hard. “Maybe. But I also ended it.”

“What?”

Ryan and I looked at each other and then waited for Teddy to explain.

“After I passed out, my parents took me to several doctors, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I hated the doctors. They were scary, they had cold hands, they poked me with needles, and hooked me up to big machines. One day they told me they were taking me to another specialist and I threw a tantrum. I was three—that’s what three-year-olds do—but most three-year-olds don’t have the power to take control of the car with their mind. I tried to turn the car around and we had a head-on collision with a delivery truck. Both of my parents were killed.”

I gasped, my hand coming to my mouth. I didn’t realize I was crying until Ryan squeezed me tightly and kissed the side of my head. His quiet “You okay?” made Teddy look up.

When Teddy saw my tears, he nearly dropped his coffee mug in his lap. “Please don’t cry! It was so long ago. Really, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay!” I cried, my voice breaking on every other word.

My mind went to Derek for a minute, but it quickly turned to my parents. It could have just as easily been either of them that I accidentally killed, and that would have been a million times worse than losing Derek. Teddy lost both of his parents in an accident that he caused. I couldn’t even imagine what that must feel like.

Without thinking, I reached across the table and grabbed a tight hold on his hand. “I am so sorry,” I whispered, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. “No one should have to live with that kind of guilt.”

I don’t think Teddy was prepared for my emotionally unstable side. He kept sputtering words like “um” and “hey.” Eventually he started rubbing his thumb over my fingers in a gesture meant to be comforting. It had been innocent, but it was still wrong and I quickly pulled away from him.

Teddy sighed and took another sip of his coffee. His eyes dropped to his lap. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell me it’s not my fault.”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “There’s no point in telling you that. You already know it was an accident, but pointing that out isn’t going to take away your guilt, is it?”

Teddy raised surprised eyes to meet mine. “Nothing can do that.”

“That’s why I didn’t say it. I know the guilt you’re feeling. I know it too well.”

Teddy questioned me with a look, but didn’t push me for an answer. Especially not when I started crying again and Ryan said, “It’s okay, Jamie. You don’t have to talk about it.”

But to my surprise, I did want to tell Teddy. Yes, he was practically a stranger, but he understood exactly how I felt. I’d never met anyone who understood me that way before. I wanted him to know that I understood him, too, so I bit my lip and then confessed something I’d only ever told Ryan and my parents.

“When I was sixteen, I killed my boyfriend. Yes, it was a freak accident that was beyond my control, but it was still my fault. Derek is still dead because of me, and nothing anyone can do or say will take that guilt from me.”

I felt Ryan’s surprise at my admission, and I thought he might be mad at me for sharing something so personal with a guy he didn’t like, but when I looked up at him I only saw love, sympathy, and total support.

Teddy stared at me for a moment, processing what I’d just told him and soon understanding crept over him. “The accident you mentioned in the hospital?”

I nodded.

“You were driving?”

That’s not what killed Derek, but I’d promised Ryan I wouldn’t explain the truth about myself to Teddy yet so I nodded again, letting him believe his assumptions were true.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy whispered.

I shook my head. “You’re the first person I’ve ever met that understands how I feel.”

A faint smile tugged at Teddy’s lips. “It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?”

It really was. “Yeah.”

We smiled at each other, but with Ryan sitting there watching us share this connection the silence instantly became awkward. I tried to dial back my intensity and said, “What happened after your parents died?”

Teddy took a long deep breath. “Italians can be superstitious. Not many people wanted to hang on to a cursed kid when strange things happened around him. I was bounced from family to family for the next two years until some people from the States adopted me.”

“The people who adopted you, do they know what you can do?” Ryan asked.

I hadn’t even thought to ask that. The idea of being different and having to hide it all the time was horrible. I was so grateful that I’d never had to hide from my parents. At home I could always be myself. It was a nice break. If Teddy didn’t have that, then when did he get to be himself?

“Yeah, they know. I’d learned to control it a little by the time they came along, but they’d read my file. They’d suspected something from the very beginning. They worked with me, though. Helped me learn how to control it completely.”