“What?” I asked, looking around the room. “Tate –”
But he was exiting the room still buttoning his jeans.
“What on earth?” I asked the door he’d shut behind him.
I sat there, staring at the door and wondering what just happened.
Then I heard the voices. Tate had company. He must have heard them approach the house. I’d only been to his house once, I didn’t know the noises and I was focused on what he was saying. I hadn’t heard a thing.
Then I heard the voices get louder, they were male, one Tate’s and one…
Then I heard Wood shout, “You are f**kin’ shitting me!”
Then I heard a loud crash.
Without thinking, I threw the sheet back and jumped from the bed. As alarming noises came from the living room, I searched frantically for anything to cover me. I grabbed Tate’s t-shirt and pulled it on. I found my undies and stepped into them, hopping, skipping and running while I tugged them up on my way to the door.
I ran down the hall (three bedrooms, one bath, Tate’s room had a master bath, none of which I’d had time to explore) and hit the living room to see Tate and Wood locked in mortal combat and the living room had been turned into a warzone.
Until that moment, I had never in my life seen two men fighting, not even pansy-assed ones.
But neither Tate nor Wood were pansy-assed and neither of them, from my unpracticed eye, were holding back.
There were grunts of effort and there was blood.
“Stop it!” I shrieked, Tate connected with Wood’s jaw and blood flew from his cut lip, turning my stomach with nausea at the same time my lungs froze. I sucked in oxygen and repeated a screeched, “Stop!” when Wood connected with Tate’s bared ribs, Tate’s body jerking from the blow.
Again without thinking, I ran into the fray just as Wood swung wide, Tate ducked and Wood’s blow landed on my temple.
I saw stars, the pain radiated throughout my skull and I fell straight to my hands and knees on the floor. My head was swimming so much, I had to go down to my forearms and I rested my head on the back of my hands which were palms down on the floor.
“Laurie,” I heard Wood say from far away, his voice barely penetrating the fog which formed around the acute pain.
“Get her ice,” Tate ordered.
“Baby –” Wood said gently.
“Ice!” Tate bit out.
Then there was a hand on my back and I felt fingers pulling my hair away from my face, sweeping it across my neck.
“Ace,” Tate called.
I didn’t answer, I was busy blinking.
“Babe, sit up,” Tate demanded quietly.
“Um…” I mumbled just to be nice and let him know I was alive.
“Laurie, baby, do me a favor and sit up,” Tate insisted.
I pulled in breath and sat up, settling my behind on my calves as my left hand went up to cradle my temple.
I saw Tate’s face in mine.
“Take your hand away.”
“Um…” I mumbled again, confused even though the fog was lifting and the pain was dulling.
“Laurie, I gotta see.”
I dropped my hand. His came to my cheek and carefully tilted my head to the side. His hand slid up and his thumb probed my temple gently.
I winced at his touch because it darn well hurt. Outside of the pain, all I could think was that those two taking repeated blows with that kind of power behind them and staying standing was a f**king miracle.
“Ice,” I heard Wood say and I tilted my head back and blinked at him.
He looked both concerned and pissed. His lip was cut and still bleeding. There was redness around his cheekbone. He’d have a shiner the next day.
“Can you get to your feet?” Tate asked and my eyes turned to him.
He was crouched beside me. There were droplets of blood leaking from his nose into his beard. Other than that, he looked okay.
“Yeah,” I whispered and got to my feet with Tate’s hand at my arm and hip supporting me.
I got up and stood steady. Then I took in a deep breath.
Tate turned to Wood, tagged the ice from his hand and then came back to me, lifting it and pressing it gently to my temple.
“Laurie,” Wood called, my eyes went to him and my mind snapped to sharp focus.
“You didn’t tell me she was sick,” I whispered, my hand going up to take over the ice from Tate. His hand let mine hold the ice, he moved to my side and slid an arm around my waist.
“Lauren, I –” Wood started.
“You what?” I interrupted, still whispering. “You didn’t give me the full story, Wood.”
“Baby, there’s a reason.”
“Really?” I asked. “I spent ten years with a man who kept things from me, Wood. I’m not going to start something with another man who’d do the same.”
Wood’s arms crossed on his chest, the gentleness went out of his face and he jerked his head to Tate. “He tell you everything?”
“We haven’t had time,” I reminded him. “My father being sick, Tate needing to work. You haven’t told me everything either and you and me, Wood, we had time.”
And we did. Me having dinner with him, sharing my breaks with him including my dinner breaks, necking on my bed. We’d had time.
I’d felt like a heel the last three weeks because I was a nice person and I found it hard to live with what I did to Wood. It hadn’t occurred to me that what he did, with him knowing what it meant for me to be on the back of Tate’s bike, wasn’t nice either.
“I’m sorry it happened this way,” I told him, still being nice. “I wish it didn’t.”
“I do too,” he agreed instantly and walked straight away as I blinked at him, shocked by his sudden departure. I thought he’d get angry or at least have something to say like “Sorry I acted like a Neanderthal, fighting with Tate in his living room, and punched you in the head.”
My body moved to watch him and Tate’s moved with mine.
Wood stopped at the still open sliding glass door and turned, his eyes leveling on me.
“You don’t burden a good woman with that shit, baby. You find out, you’ll know. You get a shot at her, you hook her deep, then you lay that shit on her,” Wood stated and I felt my lungs freeze again but he wasn’t done. He jerked his head at Tate and went on, “He’ll tell you shit about me, if he hasn’t already. And all of it’s true. But none of it was true with you.”
Then he disappeared into the night not even bothering to close the door.