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Chapter 17
The next few days were a small respite from the real world and from the rest of his life. Teag slept like the dead at night, due to the painkillers he took, and spent his days watching movies, dozing, eating, and getting to know Maria. She proved to be a patient, gentle, and efficient caretaker, and she was also an excellent distraction.
Teag knew a reckoning lurked on the horizon. The horror of Cristina and Renata’s brutal murder and the damage from his own trauma cast a shadow over everything. The memories of that night hovered at the periphery of his mind, like a specter. He didn’t delude himself into thinking his nightmare was over, but Maria’s presence kept him from sinking too far into the darkness.
She watched him like a hawk and regularly asked him straight up how he was doing mentally. He never lied, but he also didn’t elaborate. There wasn’t much to say.
The better he felt physically, the more restless he became. He took to using utensils as drumsticks and tapped out rhythmic riffs on everything from the pots and pans to the table to a bucket he’d found under the sink. They couldn’t go outside, so he paced slowly but relentlessly around the house, building back some of his stamina.
His favorite time was bedtime, and not because anything had happened between Maria and him, not even the promised make-out session from their first dinner together. No, it was his favorite time because Maria allowed him to hold her, to feel her warm body tucked next to his, and to breathe in her scent, a mixture of peach and jasmine and something entirely Maria.
The intimacy of sleeping next to her, even without the immediate promise of sex, astounded him. In the last several years, with the exception of his time on tour when he was trying to get Maria to go out with him, he’d never gone this long without sex. It shocked him that merely holding this woman while she slept profoundly satisfied him. Not that he could have performed very well, or possibly at all, but still, this closeness was something he'd chased, using sex to get it, and it turned out he didn’t actually need the sex at all.
He thought he’d found something real with Natalia, but those feelings paled compared to the intimacy he shared with Maria, and this without having shared the most intimate act of all. He couldn’t wait to take Maria to bed for real, but he also treasured these moments, and he suspected she did too.
He tried not to push her to share more about her past than she wanted, but he suspected she wouldn’t offer much without a little help. He also knew from experience that deep wounds festered if you didn’t purge them. So he used the cover of darkness and the sense of closeness he knew they both felt while lying in one another’s arms to take a chance and nudge her a little.
“Tell me about it, love,” he whispered, kissing the tender spot above her ear.
She stiffened, but he pulled her close. “You’re safe with me. I promise.”
His words had the desired effect, and she seemed to melt against him.
“I know,” she whispered back, but she was silent for so long, he thought maybe she wasn’t going to speak after all. Then, just as his eyes grew too heavy to keep open, her soft voice penetrated the dark.
“Growing up, my brothers and I were really close. I’m the youngest, but there’s only about eighteen months between each of us, so I tagged along with them a lot. Their friend group wasn’t a bona fide gang, but it was close. They got into some trouble. Nothing violent. Our neighborhood was tough though, and at the time, we couldn’t really see a good way out. So we were scrappy. They dealt a little, mostly weed. Got pinched for petty theft, but nothing stuck. They kept me away from most of it. Made sure I had a legit after-school job.”
Maria’s words gave Teag pause. Their teen years sounded shockingly similar, only he hadn’t been lucky enough to stay out of real trouble.
“Anyway, we hung out with another guy from the block, Tommy Lopez.”
Her voice hitched when she said Tommy’s name, and Teag ran his hand gently up and down her arm.
“He was a little older than my brothers and took a few more risks than the rest of us. He was sharp though, knew how to navigate the neighborhood. I had a total crush on him. Obviously, I tried to keep it a secret. Did a pretty good job of it until I was sixteen. That’s when Tommy started to notice me too.”
“Oh shit, your brothers must have flipped,” Teag said, cringing.
“We hid it well, for months. I think that was part of the excitement, for Tom anyway. He was always an adrenaline junkie, loved the thrill of the chase, the forbidden.”
“He sounds like a bit of a fuckwit.”
Maria gave a startled laugh. “Yeah, but I didn’t think about him like that. Not then. I had this sort of romantic Romeo and Juliet notion about us. You know, star-crossed lovers whose family would wrongly disapprove.”
“You know Romeo and Juliet wound up dead, right?”
“Yeah, Teag, I know,” she said, sniffing indignantly.
“Sorry, continue,” he prompted.
She sighed, and he could feel her shake her head slightly. “Tom was a lot of things, not all bad, but he had a reputation with the girls. He chased them hard, but once he caught them, he lost interest. I thought I could be the one to change him. Famous last words, right?”
Teag could imagine the end of this story, with teenage Maria broken-hearted after the dick got what he wanted and dumped her. Her instant, and seemingly unfair, reaction to his overtly flirtatious nature and track record with women now made perfect sense.
“He had his wicked way with you, and that was it?” Teag asked sympathetically.
“You could say that.”
Something in her tone caused him to shift and look at her face. In the dark, with only the dim glow of a bathroom nightlight casting shadows over her smooth skin, Teag could nonetheless see the tension and sadness written into her features. A cold pit formed in his gut.
