Posts tagged “feelings”

Chasing Truth: Chapter 21

Posted on 17/11/2014

trust1_zps9676419f

 

“I’m guessing my time is up.”

Mari didn’t try to hide the bite in her tone. Tyler had an agenda. She would be stupid to forget that. She watched his gaze dip to the stuffed animal. His lips curved at the corners and he took a small step forward. She stopped once more.

He slipped his other hand into the pocket of his jeans and his eyes lifted to rest on her face.

“You’re still mad. I get that. I left the other night when I didn’t want to, with a lot of things still between us. I gave you the time and the space you asked for, but now it’s time for us to talk.”

“You know, I’m noticing a theme here. You make a decision and I’m just supposed to fall in line with it.”

“Are you going to be difficult about this or do I just need to wait you out?”

“Wait me out. And hold your breath while you do it,” she added over her shoulder as she started around him.

He caught her arm, pulling her to him. “Don’t do this.”

Her brow furrowed with fury as she thought about just what he’d ruined. Their relationship had been so easy, so affectionate and amazing. That was now gone.

“I’m not the one doing anything. You did this.”

He hesitated. “Hear me out, Mari. That’s all I’m asking right now.”

She pulled her arm free, but nodded as she took the few stairs up to the door. She barely pushed the door open before he was behind her, following her inside. She could feel his warmth at her back. Then he leaned in, his words tickling her ear.

“Missed you, sweetheart. Spent a whole day at Rocanda thinking about you.”

She closed her eyes against the words as if it would shield her. It was these moments that heaped on the confusion. He wanted to get close to Blake. It was his entire reason for being on the island to begin with. She was a means to an end. Yet, when he said things like that, looked at her as if she mattered…well, she had a hard time remembering that.

She turned and set both the plate and stuffed animal on the table before she made herself face him again.

“You’re using me, Tyler. Don’t think for a moment I’ve forgotten that.”

“I found you that morning at the beach because I knew who you were. You’re one of the few consistent links to Blake and it wasn’t easy to find that out. I’m not going to lie about that and I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. But Mari, you took me out to Rocanda the next day and things started to change. The more I was with you, the more personal it got. I need access to Blake. That hasn’t changed. Neither has what I told you. What’s between us is between us and that’s real. Maybe we don’t like how we got here, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Don’t sit there and tell me it’s not.”

Arguing about it was getting her nowhere and she was afraid if she wasn’t careful Tyler would talk her into believing him. She tried another angle.

“So let me make sure I’ve got this right. You want to get close enough to Blake to…investigate? Figure out whether or not he’s really into trafficking…things?”

She’d done her best to shy away from the things Tyler hinted Blake might be involved with. There were years of abandonment and now animosity between them, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to be that kind of man.

Tyler’s eyes never softened, never left her, but he allowed the subject change.

“I need to get information.”

She chewed her bottom lip and then forced out a long hard breath. “Then right now we need the same thing.  As far as everyone else is concerned we’re still together and everything’s good. When he shows, you’re the boyfriend and you can do whatever it is you need to do.”

She thought he would smile and acknowledge her concession as his victory. Maybe he would even assume everything was good between them again. He did none of those things. His eyes seemed to darken as he crowded her.

“As far as everyone else is concerned?” he echoed quietly.

“That’s what I said.”

“And as far as we’re concerned?”

His voice was softer, but she wasn’t fooled. Still, she held her ground without breaking the stare.

“We’re two people helping each other reach a goal.”

He was shaking his head before she even finished. “Not good enough, Marielle.”

“Well it’s going to have to be because that’s all we’ve got.”

He continued crowding closer until she took a few involuntary steps back. Her back came up against the edge of the counter, halting her retreat. Tyler came closer still and cupped her face. His words were slow and pointed.

“You do not come into my life and make me feel things I swore I would never feel for a woman and then dismiss me. I lied to you. I owned up to that. I’m asking you to work through it with me. For me. If I could’ve met you another way, without all this between us, I would take it in a heartbeat. I can’t do that.  This is the hand we’ve got, baby. Play it out with me. Give me a chance to show you we can turn it into a winning hand.”

Her heart beat far too fast and his serious gaze held her frozen.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she finally whispered.

“Let me show you that you can,” he whispered back.

She closed her eyes against the force of his gaze. “If I decide it’s not working, we go back to my plan.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead. “We won’t need your plan.”

With those words he confirmed her fears. Tyler was talking her into believing him.

 

<< Chapter 20 || Chapter 22 >> 

Categories: Chasing Truth

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Her Champion: Chapter 30

Posted on 22/08/2013

footballpractice

“Found her,” Bekah announced as they strolled over to the benches.

“Hi guys,” Tamar said breathlessly, plopping beside Crystal.

Crystal pushed up the brim of her school hat to smile at her. “Hey! It’s about time you got here. The game’s gonna start soon.” She glanced down at Tamar’s shirt. “We really need to get you a jersey.”

“Meet Dylan’s fan club president,” Tonio drawled with a grin. “That might as well be her name when we’re at a game.”

“Umm hello? She’s his girlfriend. She should totally have a jersey. She’s vice president by default.”

Bekah smirked at Crystal. “Shouldn’t the vice president know something about football first?”

Tamar narrowed her eyes at her cousin, feeling a little better. “I know some stuff,” she mumbled softly, her voice barely audible over the loud chanting around them.

“Besides the tossing of football across the field, what else?” Bekah challenged playfully.

Tamar was silent for a few seconds and cleared her throat. “The quarterback is the star of the game,” she answered proudly, grinning.

Bekah only scoffed in laughter. “See?”

“Hey, she knows Dylan’s position is important. I can work with that. I can work with anything.” She plucked her hat from her head and placed it on Tamar’s. “There. That’s a little better. The vice president has to show team spirit for the man’s team.”

Tamar lifted a hand to brace the cap over her head and she gave Crystal a gracious smile. “Thanks.”

Bekah nudged Tonio. “Where’s mine?”

“You’re not the president or the vice president. I’m not responsible for outfitting you,” he explained casually, his eyes on the field. Just moments later though, he removed his own hat and settled it over Bekah’s hair. “But since I’m such a generous guy…”

Bekah’s teasing smile waned at his tone but shrugged, facing the field in front of her. No one was going to ruin this moment for her. Not even him.

Tamar adjusted the hat on her head and peered over at the empty field. “When does Dylan come out?” she asked Crystal.

Tonio leaned in and nudged Bekah when she didn’t respond. “Lighten up, Princess.”

Crystal glanced down at her watch. “In about a minute. I can’t wait to see if he’s at 70 percent completion. That would be amazing. Are you excited? I mean not about his completion percentage but the game.”

Tamar had no idea what Crystal meant but she knew Dylan wouldn’t disappoint his fans. He’d worked so hard for this moment. Her heart skipped a beat in anticipation and she craned her neck to look out onto the field, awaiting his entrance.

Bekah rolled her eyes at Tonio’s nudging. His mercurial behavior toward her was annoying. She was too old to entertain the confusion he brought up in her.

“Do that too often and they might get stuck,” he warned with all the wisdom of an old man. “If I promise to take over your outfitting for the next game you gonna smile at me?”

Bekah raised a brow at him before smirking derisively. “It’ll take more than giving me your hat to bribe a smile out of me, dude.” She rolled her eyes for good measure and turned her attention to the field as the crowd’s cheering got louder.

“It looks good on you though,” he said as he rose to his feet. “That should be worth one of those pricey smiles of yours.”

Crystal rose up on the tips of her toes, screaming at the top of her lungs as the football team ran out onto the field. She grinned at the way Tonio made a show of rubbing at his ear and reached around to shove him playfully.

Tamar cringed at Crystal’s screeching beside her and when Bekah grinned full-on at her, she responded with a smile of her own. Directing her gaze to the field, her heart went pitter-patter as the players ushered onto the field and her breath hitched at the sight of Dylan trailing behind. His long legs and his broad shoulders sent her heart racing, she could hardly breathe.

Bekah cupped both hands around her mouth and cheered once she spotted Dylan on the field.

The crowd erupted in a frenzy as Dylan and a few of the other players bounced around the field, hyping everyone up before the start of the game. Finally the team settled down as the special teams took the field in preparation for the kickoff.

Crystal locked her fingers together in anticipation as the ball went airborne.

“Nice catch,” Tonio murmured appreciatively as one of the players began racing back up the field, ball in tow. He weaved out and around the other players. His teammates threw up block after block as he ran.  He was finally tackled just inside the 50 and Crystal jumped in excitement.

“This is gonna be good. I feel it. Last time Jones had a return that good, we got a touchdown on the next play!”

Tamar could only see Dylan. Saw his number and latched on for the entire game. She smiled with uncontainable pride at the expert ease to which he moved across the field. He commanded the entire team without a word and her entire body shivered with the thrill of knowing that he was hers.

Bekah grinned like a proud mother when she watched Tamar’s face enraptured with the scene before her. She was like a dazed but joyful child in a circus, her eyes dancing with joy. Shaking her head in amazement, she turned back to the game.

Crystal was a live wire the entire game. She jumped, cheered, yelled, groaned, and complained throughout the night, leaning into Tamar every so often to explain a play or a call. She was engaged until the very last second ran down on the clock and then she exploded into cheers with the rest of the stadium as the Covington Cheetahs won the game.

By the end of the game, Tamar was clapping and cheering as the others in the stadium. She couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear, her gaze zoned in on Dylan as he high-fived the player next to him. The adrenaline that had kept her up on her feet and cheering pulsed through her and she jumped like an wired teenager in a concert. She couldn’t wait to hug Dylan.

“Great game!” Bekah cheered and whooped aloud, waving Tonio’s hat in the air.

“He had to be sitting on at least a 65 completion percentage. Had to be. Oh my gosh and Clayton was on fire tonight!” Crystal brought her water bottle to her lips as if she just realized she held it. “Man what a game!” She smiled at Tamar. “See, total vice president material.”

Tamar grinned at Crystal. “That was about the most exciting thing I’ve ever witnessed,” she confessed, still breathless.

“Looks like you enjoyed yourself too,” Tonio said to Bekah, smiling as he watched her wave his hat around with abandon. It bothered him how much pleasure he got simply from watching her.

Bekah laughed freely. “It was fun,” she admitted, lowering the hat. Then thinking again, she shoved the hat against his chest. “Thanks for the loan.”

He didn’t lift his hands to take the hat. “Keep it. I like it on you.”

She smirked and flipped the hat on top her head without question. “Don’t ask for it back later. I won’t give it to you.”

“Didn’t think you would. You’d let me borrow it though, right?” he asked with a smile.

“We’ll see about that,” Bekah tossed back.

Tamar stood on her tiptoes, peering between the standing crowd for Dylan. “Is it over?”

“Yeah. We can go meet him out front but it’ll be a few minutes before he comes out. And then there’s the fans,” Crystal explained. “He’ll sign autographs and all that.”

She nodded and smiled. “I’ll probably have to get in line too, right?”

Bekah chuckled softly. “You want an autograph too? Heck, why don’t we all go meet him?”

“We’re the fan club. We’ve got special privileges,” Crystal said mischievously. “Let’s go.”

Tamar grinned in excitement as she followed Crystal and Bekah down the steps. She was practically bouncing on her heels as they nudged between distracted students, barely noticing how Bekah stayed close to her side as a barrier between her and the hyper fans.

<<Chapter 29 || Chapter 31>>

Categories: Seeking Metropolis

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