Keep You (13 page)

             
Her hands were buried in his thick hair, his tongue ring tracing delicate circles around her nipple when she felt his hand push between her thighs.

             
She recoiled out of instinct, images of Nick trying to do the same thing tumbling through her brain, shattering the moment.

             
Tam’s face was in front of hers in an instant, his hand on her waist. “You’re alright.” She realized she was shaking and tried to get it under control, ashamed. “Joey.” He reached up and touched her face. “It’s okay.”

             
She took a deep breath and then another. This was Tam,
her
Tam, who she’d watched and wanted for so long now. His blue eyes were searching hers. His body was one tense, straining, coiled muscle against hers, but he was being patient, being slow. For her.

             
Jo moved closer to him, until she could feel just how patient he was having to be against her stomach. “I’m okay,” she said firmly, meaning it.

             
He lifted his brows in question.

             
“Completely.”

             
He pressed a kiss to her lips again and trailed them down her throat, her flat stomach.

             
He showed her the absolute best thing he could do with his tongue ring.

             
And when he settled above her and urged her legs around his waist, she was slick and panting and ready for him. The pain was quick and sharp, but he eased in so slow, so careful, and the pain dulled to a sting.

             
And then that subsided too until it was just them and nothing else.

**

              Tam woke up and didn’t know where he was. As he clawed his way through the light layers of fog last night’s whiskey had left in his brain, he was aware that the bed beneath him was too soft, Goldilocks soft, the light assaulting his eyes was coming from the wrong direction and, most importantly, he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t unusual to wake up somewhere strange, to be in bed with someone, but as his eyes cracked and realization dawned, this morning was markedly different from those other mornings. Because the girl who sighed and stirred at his side, whose small hand moved across his chest, was Jo.

             
He wanted to scold himself, to be pissed that he’d let things go too far. But that just wasn’t possible.

             
He rolled his head to the side on the marshmallow of a pillow and saw that Jo was awake, her turquoise eyes clear and translucent in the early morning light, trained on his face, her lips curved in the smallest of smiles. Her hair was wild and tangled, honey, spun gold and mahogany on the white sheets.

             
Yep. Zero regrets.

             
Except for one, and he’d not make that mistake twice.

**

              Jo wasn’t expected back at the house until Sunday morning, a jewel of information she dropped while brushing her teeth with a spare, unopened toothbrush she found under the sink in the master bath. They shared the toothbrush and an unspoken agreement that they were taking the Saturday for themselves before they had to return to their respective lives.

             
Her overnight bag was presumably still in the trunk of a limo somewhere, so after a breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Jo put on the sweats she’d worn the night before and borrowed a pair of much-too-large flip-flops from Gwen. She came downstairs laughing. “Jess insisted I carry underwear in the bottom of my purse. Guess she was right.”

             
They made a Wal-Mart run and it felt very domestic, very couple-ish, and very much like spending time with his best friend. Mike was still his best bro, he still loved Jordan and Walt and the rest of the clan, but at some point, Jo had become
the
Walker in his life.

             
He kissed her in the freezer section when she asked him what kind of ice cream he wanted.

             
He called her “baby” for the first time as they walked past the hanging racks of bikes.

             
In the toiletries aisle, she took his hand and pulled him to a stop, eyes wide and brimming with worry when she asked, in a whisper, what the odds were she could have gotten pregnant from the night before. He told her he’d rolled the dice since the odds were in their favor and didn’t share any of his private worry with her.

             
The middle aged woman who checked them out took one glance at their purchases coming down the conveyor belt and gave Tam the stink eye of a reproachful mother. A DiGiorno, a six pack of Coke, Haagen-Dazs Double Chocolate Chip, a toothbrush to replace the one they’d used, pink women’s flip-flops, blue women’s track shorts and a white t-shirt, a cheap-ass pair of blue lace panties and a pack of condoms: there was no mistaking the kind of weekend they were having.

             
Jo opened the ridiculous silver purse she was carrying and tried to give him cash, but he’d have none of it and put everything on his credit card.

             
It was a cloudy, ominous day that threatened more rain and they spent it doing nothing. There was a
Die Hard
marathon on AMC and they ate pizza for dinner in front of it.  Jo made everything else go away; all the dark, nasty bits of his life seeming like nominal annoyances that were pushed back by the shining aura she generated.

             
She insisted on scrubbing down the kitchen, leaving it just as they’d found it. And then he took her to bed.

**

              It was raining again, the drops pattering softly against the window, horizontal slats of pale light from the streetlamp were stained with raindrops as they fell across the bed. The pillow top on the mattress and the thick clouds of the covers added another dreamy layer to the surreal sensation of being tucked against Tam’s side, her head resting on the point of his shoulder. She was so comfortable she thought she might just fall into an unending sleep, becoming some sort of conglomerate object with Tam and the bed.

             
“Thank you,” she said, continuing to trace aimless patterns across the bare hardness of his chest with her fingertips.

             
“For?” His voice was satisfied and full of sleep.

             
Jo rolled her eyes. “For this weekend. Don’t play dumb.”

             
“Maybe I’m not playing, maybe I really am that dumb.”

             
She pushed up on an elbow and saw that he was staring at the ceiling, grinning. “I was trying to thank you.” She gave him a light smack on the shoulder that made him chuckle.

             
“Only you would thank somebody for banging you.”

             
“That’s not why I’m thanking you.”

             
His mouth fell open in pretend shock. “Way to kill a guy’s ego.”

             
She smiled, but shook her head. “And here I was trying to be serious.”

             
A shriek of laughter pealed out of her as he grabbed her arms and pulled her down in one quick, fluid motion. He rolled over on top of her, braced with his hands on the mattress on either side of her head. His hair, hopelessly mussed, tickled her forehead as he leaned in so close their noses were almost touching. He was still smiling, but in a different, warmer, more serious way.

             
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said and pressed another of those clinging kisses to her lips that left her head spinning.

             
“But I want to,” she countered when he pulled back. Her hands were on his shoulders and she slid them up the back of his neck and into his hair. She still couldn’t believe how sweet he was to her, with her. How was he even real? “I need to because…”

             
Some very small, cynical part of her brain, that she guessed had been the root source of her pre-teen tomboy, told her there was no such thing as perfect moments or meant-to-be. But the whole rest of her brain was fixated on Tam poised above her, his blue eyes boring into hers, and how there was no other word to describe it aside from “perfect.”

             
“Because?” he asked, bumping his nose against hers.

             
When she said it, she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. “I love you,” she said, and he kissed her.

**

              Beth Walker couldn’t stop wringing her hands together. She sat at the kitchen table, chicken hissing in a skillet of oil on the stove for Sunday dinner, and stared at the black rolling suitcase that Jo had taken with her to prom Friday night. Megan and Claire had dropped it off a half hour ago along with the news that Jo had fled the hotel room and not returned. The two little bitches had shrugged off Beth’s frantic questions; they didn’t know where she’d gone and hoped she was okay.

             
But Beth had talked to her twice the day before. Jo had answered her cell, chipper, as if nothing were wrong. She’d said she’d been at the hotel with the girls, that they were painting nails and watching chick flicks on Pay-Per-View. Beth had been so convinced – her daughter was responsible, Claire’s mother was one of the chaperones staying at the hotel with the kids, nothing bad would happen…

             
But who was lying?

             
The neatly packed suitcase in her kitchen made her think Jo, and that was something she didn’t want to think at all.

             
Two thumps of heavy car doors closing echoed like gunshots in the drive and Beth jumped to her feet, moving to check the chicken as a cover for her sudden fright. A moment later, the back door swung open and in came Jo – dressed in blue track shorts and a white t-shirt she’d never seen before – and Tam.

             
“Joanna!” she burst out before she could stop herself. “Where the hell have you been?”

             
Jo held up her hands, palms out, as she crossed to the table and slipped her evening bag off her shoulder. Tam lingered in the doorway. “At prom,” Jo said. “We talked this morning, remember?”

             
The suggestion she had somehow forgotten pissed her off. She gestured wildly toward the suitcase with her dripping tongs. “Then explain that to me!”

             
Her daughter glanced at the suitcase, and then at Tam, then at her. “I lost my bag Friday night,” she said with a smile, “yeah, it was a whole mess. I had to buy a toothbrush at the gift shop. The girls swung me by Walt’s place on the way back so I could borrow some clothes. Tam was house sitting for them so he offered to bring me back.”

             
Beth knew her five children well. When it came to lying and wheedling and being a jackass in general, Mike had a monopoly on causing her grief. Jo was her sweet one, her gentle one, who loved animals and baseball and who never, ever lied to her.

             
But Jo was lying to her now, and it broke her heart.

             
“Your friends said it was in the limo,” she said woodenly, “they just dropped it by.”

             
Jo’s face lit up with relief. “Oh, good! My favorite shoes are in there.”

             
At the door, Tam was fiddling with his keys. “I’m gonna head out,” he said, tossing them a wave and reaching for the doorknob.

             
Suspicion peaked in Beth’s gut. “Do you wanna stay for dinner, sweetie?” she asked him. “Since you had to drive Jo all the way here.”

             
“No, thanks, Mrs. Walker.” He gave her a tight smile and slipped out.

             
It was the first time he’d ever refused her cooking, and she had a feeling, as she watched Jo unzip the suitcase and begin digging through its contents, that it was because he was no longer refusing something else of hers.

**

              “…I’ll be there before five. Yes. Thank you, doctor.” Tam flipped his phone shut and chucked it onto the seat next to him, disgusted. Melinda’s condition was “tenuous” as the doctor had put it. The concussion wasn’t worrying them, but she had been very dehydrated and one of the nurses had suggested a psych consult; in other words, they didn’t think she was capable of taking care of herself and that Tam wasn’t doing a good job.

             
Her doc – Dr. Rubens – looked about twelve years old, little rectangular glasses perched on his I’m-better-than-you nose. He was a righteous little prick.

             
But if Melinda was with him, she wasn’t at home, lying in wait for Hank to come circling back.

             
Plus, Tam needed to take care of something this afternoon.

             
He turned right at the next intersection, slowing to a crawl as he entered the long, winding drive of the high school. The building loomed, sprawling and brick, up ahead on his right. He drove past it, weaving between the handful of cars that dotted the lot on a Sunday evening. He followed the drive around behind the main building, down to the bus lanes and then, the soccer fields. If Jordan had been successful in his mission, he would be –