More Than Lies (48 page)

“Do you know when that will be?” I want to see for myself that he’s okay.

“No. I’m here now, but when I find out I’ll let you know.” The sound of a door closing causes me to look up to see Shawn standing in his bedroom.

“Okay. I have to go. Talk to you soon.”

I hang up the phone and lay it on the bed beside me. Beast then jumps down and walks toward Shawn. He steps over him as he nears the bed where I’m sitting. Shawn’s eyes have this cautioned look about them like he’s expecting me to evaporate. If only I was so lucky.

He falls to knees and I watch him slowly break down right in front of me.

“I don’t know what to say, Tara and I don’t know what not to say. I don’t want to push you and push you away, but I don’t want to sit back and give you space and the same thing happen. I love you and I want to fix us.” He stretches his arms out on the mattress, pushing them along my sides as his head falls into my lap.

I run my hand through his hair. The silky strands are soft as I glide my fingers back and forth. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to experience some of the hurt he caused me, but I can also look at him and see he may have experienced something far worse.

If I’d thought for only a minute that he was gone and I’d never see him again, I can’t begin to imagine the hurt that I would have been feeling. Losing my brother was hard enough. Losing the man I’m in love with, I don’t want to even go there in my head.

I can’t just forgive him, either, not fully, but I know, I feel it that making him pay by distancing myself will hurt me that same as it’ll hurt him. I don’t want any more pain. I want the pain to start healing. How can I begin that if I keep us in limbo or even worse let him think we’re over?

“I want that more than you know, but fixing us can’t happen overnight. I have to be able to trust you again. I want to trust you again. How do I know you won’t do it again when you so easily threw us down the drain, Shawn?”

“I can’t promise that I won’t make mistakes, Tara. I know I will, but there’s no way in hell I’d put us through that again.” My heart believes him, but my head is telling me to take this slow. “Do you still love me?”

“You aren’t a switch, Shawn. I can’t just turn you off when I want to. Yes, I love you. That’s real and it’s not going away.” I take a big breath. “We can’t fix what was broken, but I’d be willing to take things slow and start over.”

His shoulders sag in relief.

“Okay. I can work with that, baby.”

“Then can we go to sleep, please?”

“Yeah, I just need to call Natalie and have all my appointments canceled. I couldn’t go in today if I wanted to. I’m in no condition to work.”

A new year, a new beginning, but when so much has happened, when your life, your heart, and your mind have all been through a blender, how do you mend them? One day at a time that’s how. You wake up each morning and tell yourself, you got this. When you want something, you go for it until you’ve exhausted every possibility of trying to obtain it. If you don’t end up with it, then it wasn’t meant to be yours.

That’s become my life’s motto.

Shawn and I have worked hard to get to where we are today. We aren’t perfect, but I don’t expect us to ever meet perfection. Relationships are hard work, but what we have is beautiful. It took him months to earn my trust, but he did. I know he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop though and that scares me. It’s like he doesn’t trust himself. He’s going to mess up. I’m going to mess up. But if we do this together and we have each other’s back, I know we’ll be fine. He has to believe that somewhere inside himself, first.

My relationship with my dad has taken a one eighty and for that, I’m happy. I hate that he’s going through a nasty divorce with Katherine, but you wouldn’t know that talking to him. He’s happy now too. He moved out of the house I grew up in. That saddens me a little because I have so many memories of Trent there that I’ll never get to see again. He’s living in a high class apartment in downtown Tupelo, close to his office. He seems to like it. We have lunch once a week.

Through my dad and Pam, I’m learning a lot about my real mom. I get sad when I think about her though. I hate that she really was so weak that she did that to herself. Pam loved her. Every time she talks about my mom, I can tell it in her voice and I know she misses her. It was strange at first when I realized how much I looked like her. I’ve seen more pictures and I look a lot like her.

I haven’t forgiven my dad completely for keeping something that huge from me, but I’m getting there. I know I will forgive and forget. I have to if I want to move past it and I do.

I continue to worry about Jared. He woke up a few days after his motorcycle accident. Physically, he wasn’t injured too bad and only stayed in the hospital a couple of days after waking. He didn’t attend our college graduation a few weeks later and no one, not even Cole, has seen him in months. I think the fact that the woman involved in the wreck died is hitting him hard. I wish he would talk to someone about it and deal. I’ve tried calling him, but last month his number was disconnected.

Kylie ended up moving to Orlando much sooner than she originally planned. She submitted a letter to the director of the residency programs there, telling him about her situation and asking to transfer. She was approved and Mason tells me she’s doing okay. I’m not sure if I buy that. Kylie won’t talk to anyone about my brother at all. She’s closed herself off to it and that can’t be good. Not only that, but there is a noticeable change in her. She used to be so outgoing, an extravert, but now she might as well be the opposite.

Shane did the same thing, but he didn’t transfer to Florida. Instead, he was able to transfer to a hospital in Memphis where he’ll finish out his last year of residency before starting his fellowship in Pediatric Cardiology. He moved to Tennessee within a few weeks of Kylie moving to Florida. All was great until…

“With that faraway look you have going on I take it Matt finally told you.”

I look up to see my boyfriend standing by the door to our bedroom staring at me. From the looks of it, I’d say he has just returned from a vigorous workout at the gym. Shawn is sweaty from head down. Deliciously so, and damn if it isn’t making me smile.

I didn’t hear him walk in much less close the door and start to remove his clothes. First the soaked white sleeveless shirt comes over his head and is quickly tossed to the floor. I glance in the direction of his discarded clothes and then back toward Shawn before raising an eyebrow. He knows damn well I can’t stand any type of mess. Clothes not put in their proper place might as well equal a mess and chaos in my world.

“I hope you’re planning on picking that up.” He smirks and starts sauntering my way where I’m sitting on the edge of our bed. Well, it’s really his bed. When we decided to take the leap and combine rooms, mine being the master was the obvious choice, Shawn had to have his Temper-Pedic, saying it is like sleeping on a cloud in heaven. I couldn’t disagree with him on that so mine got moved into his old room. “Just thinking. That’s all.”

He dips in front of me to plant a salty kiss on my lips. My eyes flutter close as they always do when his mouth is pressed against any part of my body. I can’t help it; it’s a reflex. Shawn’s touch is my own piece of heaven and I will savor every second I’m given with him. He grabs my boobs, but I swat his pawing hand away from my breast. Shawn is a freakin’ groper and a half. In other words, he’s a boob man, not that I complain a lot. It tends to pay off to my benefit more often than not, but I suddenly recall what he said a few minutes ago.

“What did you mean when you said, Matt finally told me? Told me what?”

His eyes grow large like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.

“Umm, nothing. Going to shower, babe.”

“I don’t think so.” I grasp him by his biceps, wrapping my fingers around tightly, telling him he isn’t going anywhere just yet. “Spill it, Braden.”

“Shit.” He pulls backwards causing me to lose my grip. “You’re going to have to ask him that.”

“So he’s keeping something from me, you know what it is, and won’t tell me? Am I hearing you correctly?”

“Don’t get pissed at me. It’s not my place to tell you. It’s his. It’s ticking me off that the motherfucker hasn’t grown the balls to spit it out yet. Why don’t you do he and you a favor, go downstairs and make him spill the beans?”

“I think I will. You shower and hurry it up because I don’t plan on wasting a Saturday that you don’t have to go into work.” Shawn lips turn up into a self-assured smirk.

“Are you trying to tell me my girl needs some of this dick?” He grabs his junk that’s practically eye level with me. “I thought I gave you enough of it last night to sustain you.” I don’t think that I’ll ever get enough sex from the man standing in front of me to ever sate my need for him. I don’t dare speak that. Shawn doesn’t need any more arrogance in that department.

“Just go shower already.” I stand. Apparently my best friend has been keeping something from me and I aim to find out what that something is. Matt and I have finally fallen back into the friendship we had in high school so it’s bothering me to know he’s not telling me something.

Shawn turns, walking in the direction to the master bath without another word. I exit the room seconds later.

After I make it down the stairs I hear conversation coming from the living room. I start there, finding Matt and Mason yelling at the TV screen. Rolling my head, I see it’s a college football game. Being as its January, it has to be a recording of a game that’s already aired.

“What secret are you keeping from me?”

“What?” Matt’s eyes practically bug out as he turns to look at me. “Shawn fucking told you, didn’t he?” His shock turns to anger.

“He let it slip thinking you’d already told me. But he didn’t actually tell me what it is that you’re hiding from me.” When he doesn’t speak, I huff out a breath of air in frustration. “Well?”

“I was offered a job.” He sits back into the sofa, leaning his head back. This isn’t making a bit of sense. This is great news. Matt’s been freelancing editing jobs since we graduated.

“So what gives? Why are you keeping that from me? This is awesome, Matt. Don’t you know I’d be happy for you? Ecstatic even?”

“It’s in California.”

Say what? Okay, I don’t mean to, but I know my happy face just fell flat on the floor and he knows it.

“This is why I haven’t told you. I didn’t know how to tell you that I’m leaving, Mississippi.”

“So you accepted the offer, then?”

“Yes. It’s Lockhart Publishing. I couldn’t turn it down, Taralynn.”

Shit. Even I know that’s an amazing opportunity. “So when do you leave? Oh. My. God. You’re moving away from me.” Yes, as I asked him the question, it hit me like a freight train. He’s leaving and I won’t be able to drive over when I want my Matty time.

“Nine days.”

“WHAT? You can’t be serious. They only gave you a little over a week to pack and move across country?” This is too soon. He can’t leave. I want to be selfish and tell him he can continue to freelance and do great. I won’t, though. Fact is, I’m not selfish like that. No matter how much I want to stomp my feet and be.

“They gave me forty-five days actually.” I’m going to kill him. The bastard can leave to tomorrow.

“You’ve known for—” I don’t get to finish my sentence because there is a knock on the front door. Matt’s saved by the knock so to speak because I tell you I was seconds away from smacking him a few times. Instead, I pivot and walk the short distance from the living room to the front door in the foyer.

When I open it, a very pregnant brunette is standing in front of me.

“Can I help you?” I ask in a polite manner even though moments ago I was feeling anything but polite toward my sorta, sorta not best friend.

“Is Shawn home?” Something about the way she says his name has an alarm going off inside my head. I don’t like her. I’ve only ever experienced an instant feeling like this once with one person and that was Holly. “His truck is in the driveway so I figured he was home.” She smiles a little, but it looks forced.

“He is.” I tell her. “He’s in the shower at the moment. Would you like to come inside and wait for him?”

“Yes, please.” Her reply is too excited, but I take a step back, bringing the door fully opened to allow her to enter.

“You can go through that entrance and wait.” I point to the living room where Matt and Mason are. I can see their faces from where I’m standing. They both look alarmed too. “He should be down shortly.”

I close the door and follow her, stopping at the entrance. I prop my body against the frame as she walks to the couch and takes a seat on the opposite side of Mason.

“Who are you?” It’s Mason that asks her the question. He’s never one to wait for answers. If he wants to know something, he asks.

“Tiffany.” Sounds like a stripper name if you ask me.

That was so judgmental and not like me at all. Still, there is a vibe I’m getting from this woman that I don’t like.

“How do you know Shawn?” Again, Mason with his twenty questions. I hope she’s prepared to talk until Shawn makes an appearance. Mason doesn’t shut up.