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I couldn’t believeI gave her a nickname!
It had just popped out when I looked over at her in the chair, her small frame and big belly round with a child.
A pang of hurt sliced through me for a minute as it usually did, but I shoved it down. Teal was not Bridgette and she didn’t deserve me acting like I had been around her when she’d already been through so much.
She didn’t have to tell me what it was to sense it was bad.
Yet even though I’d changed my tune today and realized Teal was going to be part of my life one way or another, the nickname endeared her to me more. That was a bit scary.
But I wasn’t taking it back.
ChapterFourteen
TEAL
Things had slowly begunto change.
It had been a couple of weeks since my move and I’d been riding to and from work with Kace almost every day. A few evenings when his schedule wouldn’t permit, he had Gyth or Braxton run me home.
None of them had taken no for an answer anymore.
The time in the car on the way to work had been interesting. We got to know each other during the drives. Our similarities and our differences.
For example, Kace was a morning person. Me, not so much. I wasn’t awful but I needed a little more time to wake up, especially with the lack of sleep lately. Kace was raring to go, talkative, and liked to listen to his music on the way. He liked it loud. I knew this because a few times when I’d gotten into the truck it was blaring and scared the crap out of me. He’d obviously been alone and forgotten to turn it down before getting out previously.
His choice of music was normally country because he said he’d grown up listening to it. When he asked what I liked, I had no answer. He seemed surprised by that, but there were many things I hadn’t done or didn’t know much about. So, in the end, whatever he’d wanted to play had been fine with me. And after several weeks I had grown to like a lot of the songs that had been on the radio many times and one morning I caught myself singing along. I just hadn’t been thinking about the fact that I was doing it out loud.
“You have a nice voice,” Kace had said to me that morning and the compliment had caught me off guard. I stopped singing. “Don’t stop, please. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Nobody has said many nice things to me in a really long time,” I confessed. It felt good to hear him do so and warmth rushed through me.
“Well then, the people you have been around are assholes,” he said in an angry tone and then glanced my way to check my reaction.
Knowing he was pissed on my behalf I gave a small smile., “Can’t argue with that.”
After a beat, he smiled back, turned his attention back to the road, and launched right back into our conversation about music. He told me how good Gyth was at singing. I guess the big guy played guitar and could truly belt it out, something I found myself looking forward to hearing.
One thing I noticed was that the topics that Kace did talk about seemed to be impersonal. He hadn’t talked about his family, childhood, or too much about his military days except for a few funny stories that had to do with Braxton and Gyth. As much as I found myself yearning to know more, I didn’t ask. Because if I did then he may want to know the same from me.
And even though my trust was building with him and everyone else, a piece of me couldn’t let my guard down all the way. That and the fact I was scared to revisit the past. So, we stuck with the easy stuff and left it that way as the days went by.
But even with just the small talk, I knew deep down we were becoming friends.
There was something I had learned about friendships since meeting everyone. Friends were there for each other when needed, they protected each other, and when a friend was hurting, they hurt too. I experienced that one afternoon at work.
For me, many emotions rippled through me that day. Ones I wasn’t accustomed to.
* * *
I wasglad it was Friday.
It had been a busy week and although I enjoyed my job, I was exhausted and looking forward to the weekend. With just a few hours to go until I was off, I dug deep for the energy to finish out the day.
The guys were in the field with clients, but there were a handful of people using the gym and the phone was ringing quite frequently. I was a little frazzled with everything going on, but I also got a little nervous when I was the only employee in the building. We had a lock on the front door for times like this and I was utilizing it. The guys had insisted. If they were there I usually left it unlocked to make it faster and easier. But it wasn’t allowed when they were gone because they looked out for me and my mind swirled back around to what that meant.
I was their friend now too.
Realizing I had many wonderful people in my life, warmed my heart, and put a little extra spring in my step to finish up work. That was until the chime went off on the door letting me know someone had arrived. There were not any afternoon appointments for the guys atNo Surrenderso I could only assume it may be someone else for the gym. I had been hoping for a peaceful last few hours but something told me when my eyes landed on the blonde woman with the irritated look on her face standing outside the door that it wasn’t in the cards for me.
