Nic's Devotion: An Endless Series: Book One (51 page)

     I went to grab her hands but she shuffled sideways her
face still distressed and now suspicious… and thoughtful. Damn!

     She looked over at Seth who smiled but it couldn’t
completely cover up the ‘oh shit’ expression underneath it. He really needed to
work on his guiltless visage.

     “The truck.” She swung her gaze back to me accusingly.
“He took your truck away.”

     Her accusation actually had me breathing easier; she
only thought he took my truck. “Yeah,” I admitted. “His name was on the lease
so he had it canceled.”

     Carrie narrowed her eyes and I realized that I gave in
too easily with my confession. “That’s not all though, is it?” She accused.

     Did I say I liked having a smart girlfriend, because it
sucked right now? “Carrie…” I said taking a step toward her. I needed to
distract her before she figured it out.

     Carrie sidestepped again, her eyes moved back and forth
in thought before zeroing in on me again. “When you talked about him before you
said he would cut off your credit cards and other stuff, even your trust fund.
Did he do that?” She was wringing her hands tightly in front of her.

     Shit, what do I tell her? If I told her the truth she
was going to blame herself and who knows what she’d do. There was no fucking
way I’d let her break us up. “Carrie…” I repeated in a placating voice.

     Her distressed blues suddenly crackled with anger,
something I wasn’t accustomed to seeing from her. “Don’t you lie to me. You
already did once saying something had gone wrong with your truck. There should
be no lies between us. There’s already a surplus of other stuff going on around
us without adding those.” She cried angrily.

     Was it wrong that my cock was getting hard seeing her
like this?

     “You’re right.” I said my shoulder’s slumping in
regret. And she was. She was my other half, the most important person in my
life, and I shouldn’t be keeping secrets from her. “Let’s go up to my room and
I’ll tell you everything, okay?”

     She looked like she was wavering between complying and
yelling at me more. I wisely held my grin at how damn adorable she was. This
was serious.

     “Okay,” she acquiesced with pursed lips. Her gaze
flickered over to Seth and her face flushed further. “Morning Seth.” She said
softly walking out the door.

     “Morning Carrie.” He returned loudly with a grin my way
since she was already out of the room. “You are one lucky bastard.” He said in
a softer grumble shaking his head.

     “No argument there.” I stated following Carrie
upstairs.

     She walked in my room and sat on the bed with her hands
clasped in her lap. Stepping in I shut the door behind me and went to squat
down in front of her setting my hands on her knees.

     “I’m sorry for lying to you. I never should have done
that. My first thought is to always protect you, even if it’s from bad or
upsetting news.”

      The anger in her eyes softened but she still held
herself stiffly. “My first thoughts are to protect you too but I wouldn’t lie
to you. There are already so many outside forces pulling at us that we need
each other that much more. Lies will only hurt us. I can see that you might
have thought I would step away to protect you because I’ve talked about doing it
before, but I spoke to you about it and we discussed it. I hate that you’re
going through difficulties with your father because of me, I hate that he’s cut
you off, but I wouldn’t freak out or run away because of it…again.” She
grimaced faintly. “I want to be there for you.” She looked at me pleadingly.

     I felt about three feet tall right now. Her words were
humbling. I thought I was protecting her, and I had also been a little afraid
that she might run to protect me, but instead she was just showing me more of
her determination.

     I wrapped my arms around her waist and laid my head on
her lap. “Babe, you humble me. All I can say is that I’m sorry again. I admit I
was
afraid you would want to put distance between us in some misguided
attempt at fixing my problem.” I raised my head to give her a stern look. “Not
that I would have let you. I also wanted to keep this from you because you
didn’t need any additional stress in your life.”

     She smiled and raised her hands to my hair, smoothing
her fingers through it. “You wouldn’t believe the reservoir of strength I have
inside of me knowing that you stand beside me and love me. I could take on the
world” Her smile dimmed. “I don’t like that I’m causing problems with your
family though.”

     I shook my head firmly. “This thing with my father is
more about a power struggle than you being in my life. He’s been doing this my
entire life. But I’m not going to let him control my life. The man’s an
unemotional robot who only cares about himself. So I don’t want to hear any
more thoughts about you causing problems for me. They were there long before
you came into my life.”

     I leaned forward to kiss her and she met my lips in a
profusion of emotions neither of us could contain. The kiss started out rough
as we exorcised our fears and stress over everything happening in our live. I
gripped her head firmly and her fingers tightened in my hair as we bit and
sucked at each other aggressively. After a time it gradually gentled as our
love for each other prevailed over the fear.

     I pulled away grudgingly, knowing if we kept going I
wouldn’t be able to stop. And it would end up being really loud. Still gripping
her head I gazed into her eyes intently. “I love you, and I make you this
promise that I will never lie to you again.”
At least not anything big.

     She smiled and there was a wicked lift to it. “And I
promise I won’t break up with you just because you don’t have any money.”

     I grinned at her jab. “You are the best girlfriend
ev-er.”

Chapter
Forty-three

Carrie

     It was Monday afternoon, and I was back in my dorm room
after my first therapy session. It had gone well and I liked my new therapist,
Dr. Cynthia Vane. I’d unloaded everything I’d been dealing with all week from
the article to the Curt incident. I’d even told her about the problems Nic was
having with his father. I had to get another perspective on the thoughts
running around in my head.

     Dr. Vane had listened and given me some good insight
and said that what I’d proposed could be good for me, but told me that whatever
I did decide to do I needed to do for myself and not for someone else…and that
was the sticky part.

     Was what I was thinking of doing for myself or for Nic?
There was no guarantee that what I did would change Nic’s circumstances, but
could it help me in my healing?

     I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes trying to
recall my father. I had no pictures of him, and I had a hard time evoking his
image…unless I went online for news pictures. All I had were the emotions he
stirred up; fear, love, anger, resentment, youthful adoration, guilt. It was a
collection of mixed feelings that left me confused. Would I ever be left with
just one instead of all of them, or would I just have to reconcile that they
might have to coincide together.

     Most likely it would be the later. I truly believed my
dad had loved me. However, he also had a dark and ugly character flaw that I
was coming to believe…or hope…he had tried for a long time to repress, but during
a night of heavy alcohol consumption he lost the battle and ended up attacking
me. That night I’d done the only thing I could; I protected myself. If he loved
me like I think he did he would have wanted me to do that.

     Whether any of it was actually true I’ll never know. My
feelings told me it was and that’s all that mattered. 

     Silent tears rolled down my face at my loss, but also
because of the freeing of some of my soul.

     Sitting up I reached for the phone.

Chapter
Forty-four

NIC

     “Hey, is that Carrie on our porch?” Evan asked from the
front seat.

     I frowned looking out the window as Seth pulled into
the driveway. Sure enough that was Carrie sitting on our front steps. She stood
up as we pulled in and I was jumping from the vehicle even before it stopped.

     “What happened?” I asked rushing up to her.

     “Nothing.” She held up her hands in defense as I came
barreling up to her.

     I halted in front of her looking her over. She didn’t
look injured or otherwise distraught; well, except for her knee jerk reaction
to me rushing up to her. I pulled her in for a hug. “Shit, seeing you here when
you should be at work had me thinking something was wrong.”

     Carrie’s schedule was relatively unvarying; Monday
through Saturday three or four to eight pm. It was almost religious, and
something I really wanted to change. At the moment I couldn’t and since it was
almost half past six on a Tuesday she should be at work.

     “Did they call you off?”

     Emotions wavered over her face. “Not really…I called in
because I needed to show you something.” Her gaze shifted behind me and I knew
it wasn’t just to give the guys a small wave. She was nervous about something
and avoiding my stare.

     Carrie had been acting a little off for the last couple
days. I’d put it down to my error in judgment and stress, but now I wasn’t so
sure. “Not that I’m not thrilled to spend more time with you, but why would you
have to call in to work just to show me something? It couldn’t wait until after
work?”

     Her hands were clenching telling me she was getting
worked up at whatever it was. “What I want to show you starts at six-thirty.”

     My eyebrows shut up. What? “Uh…that’s pretty specific,
but okay. Is this like a surprise, and if it is is it good or bad?”

     “That’s hard to say.” She prevaricated as her gaze
shifting away again. 

     The guys tromped past us into the house carrying four
boxes of pizzas. Carrie smiled nervously at each one of them as they greeted
her. I herded her inside the house after them. I was going to have to get a key
made for her because I didn’t like her having to sit on the porch waiting for
me if something like this happened again.

     The guys headed for the kitchen and food. I was
starving too but I needed to find out what was up with Carrie first. She headed
for the living room and walking up to the television turning it on.

     “You want me to watch a show?” I asked confused. Why
would she take off from work just for a TV show?

     She walked over to sit on the couch flicking another
nervous glance my way. “It’s a pretty important show. I know you’re probably
hungry and the program doesn’t start for another five minutes, so why don’t you
go grab your food.”

     I stared at her with rising disquiet. She really wasn’t
acting like herself. I could see that she wasn’t distressed, she just
seemed…edgy. Walking over I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Okay. I’ll grab
something and be right back. Do you want some?”

     She grimaced slightly. “No, I’m not really all that
hungry at the moment.” 

     Walking into the kitchen the guys all gave me inquisitive
looks around mouths stuffed with pizza with all the toppings. “She took off
work to show me something on TV.” I shrugged in confusion. Seizing a paper
plate I loading it with four slices. Noah pushed over two water bottles and I
stuck them under my arm.

     “What time is the show?” Landon asked before taking
another bite of pie.

     “Six-thirty.” I answered. Seth frowned but stayed
quiet. “What?”  

     “She didn’t tell you what show?” He asked.

     “No.”

     He went silent again but still held onto his frown. His
quiet contemplation wasn’t doing much for my already heightened tension.

     “What?” I pressed irritably.

     “The news is at six-thirty.” Evan put forth for him. 

     I froze for a second as I processed that. The news. Did
Carrie want me to watch the news? The only reason I could come up with for that
was because they were going to do some story on her…or me…or us.

     I jolted out of my deep freeze in alarm. “Fuck, you
don’t think they did a news story on her, do you?”

     Seth’s expression was worried. “I hope not.”

     My gaze tracked the rest of the guys. Their faces held
similar expressions of apprehension. With no further delay I headed back to the
living room.

     Carrie was still sitting on the couch and the news was
indeed starting on the channel. Mother Fucking Damn! Sitting down I plopped the
pizza and waters on the coffee table and looked at her in concern. She gave me
a small smile that I could see held nervousness, but I couldn’t see any real
distress. Her knee bumped mine.

     “Aren’t you going to eat?” She asked looking at my
food.

     I was actually afraid to put anything in my stomach
right now. “Carrie, did the news station do a story on you?” I could hear the
tightly held anger spilling out at the thought of fucking reporter’s tearing
into her life.

     Her smile tightened. “Uhm…they…I” Her eyes shifted and
widened as she looked over my shoulder to the doorway. I could hear footsteps
shuffling slightly behind me telling me the guys were standing there. I didn’t
turn to look though because my attention was captured by what was being said on
the news station.

    
“Up next we have a live interview with a Miss Carrie
Harper who’s been in the news recently.  The story’s being reported on her have
been citing a news article from four years ago claiming that Carrie was charged
with killing her father and being institutionalized for it. She’s come forward
for her first ever interview to correct the information being reported about
her. Also joining us is a Dr. Mona Mathew’s of Briar Green Hospital the tending
psychiatrist who treated Carrie during her stay there. Stay with us after these
commercials to find out her story.”

    
The show cut out to a commercial and I turned to
look at Carrie in complete astonishment. “Holy shit. What did you do?”

     Her eyes stared at me in apprehension. “I’ve been
getting calls from some reporters asking me about my story…” She must have seen
the increased anger on my face because her hand came to rest on my knee. “…and
I decided that I’d tell my side rather than them writing the same abridged
story from four years ago. I don’t want your name attached to the type of
person they’ve been portraying.”

     “Carrie, I told you I don’t give a shit what other
people think.” Dammit! I can’t believe she put herself through an interview
just for me. I didn’t want her thinking she needed to do that. Hell, I’m pretty
sure I impressed upon her that I absolutely didn’t want her doing anything like
that. 

     Her hand tightened on my knee and she smiled. “I know
you don’t, but I care what other people are thinking about you, just like you
care what people are thinking about me. This interview will fix this for both
of us. The public will finally hear the real story about what happened to me and
not have to piece together their own from the erroneous information they’ve
been supplied.”

     Anger strangled my gut; that reporter’s had been
hounding her, that she’d felt like she needed to do this, that she’d done it
alone, that she had to do it at all. However, before I could say anything…and
not really certain what I would have said…the news came back on.

     Carrie’s hand remained on my knee as the female
reporter popped onto the screen and began addressing Carrie’s past and the
articles. Then Carrie herself was on the screen with Dr. Mathews, and I have to
say she looked great…Carrie that is…although, Dr. Mathews looked good as well.

     Carrie’s expression on the screen appeared serene as
she relayed the true events of what occurred the night she defended herself
from her father’s attack, but whenever the camera spanned out I could see that
she was holding tightly to Mona’s hand for support.

     It was only a ten minute interview but it seemed to
last forever and was very difficult to watch. My anger was pushed back as my heart
bled that she had to relive that whole thing again, and I could see that she
hated having to label her father an attempted rapist. When the reporter asked
Carrie about her family life and how she viewed her father at present Carrie
repeated the same thing she’d told me. That her father had never once tried
anything before that night and that her memories of him were loving ones. She
even went on to say that she believed deep down her father had tried to repress
his predilection until alcohol had weakened his resolve. The reporter asked
Carrie if she forgave her father for what he tried to do to her and without
hesitating Carrie replied ‘
yes’
. 

     Nothing was said about her mother and I knew Carrie
must have made that a stipulation of the interview. Carrie was still protecting
her mother after all she’d done.

     However, the reporter did bring up Carrie’s involvement
with me asking how I was handling all the publicity. This was the only time
Carrie’s composure cracked. Her face on the screen contorted faintly like she
was holding back tears. She said that I supported her completely and praised my
family for raising such an accepting and compassionate son.  

     Had she said that to get a dig in at them or in hopes
of tugging on their heart strings? If it was the second she hadn’t caught on
yet that neither one of my parents had a heart.  

     “Damn.” Landon whispered from the doorway after the
interview finished.

     I’d forgotten that the guys were standing in the entry
way. I’d told them an abridged account of Carrie’s story, I’d had to tell them
something after her mother had surprised her that day at the stadium spouting
all her craziness, however, hearing the actual tale from her was especially
poignant and profound. Shit, I remember how I felt the first time I heard it,
and they still didn’t know the whole of it. They didn’t know how she’d almost
wasted away in the hospital, or how she’d had no one besides Carl, and that
he’d possibly saved her from committing suicide.

     I looked back at Carrie for the first time since the
interview began trying to keep my face expressionless. She was staring at me in
trepidation. “Tell me that you didn’t do that for me in an attempt to get my
father to change his mind?” I asked in what I thought was an incredibly mild
and composed voice. It was difficult when all I wanted to do was shake her if
she had indeed done it for me…albeit I’d do it gently.

     I heard shuffling and knew the guys were giving us time
alone.

     Her hand, which had remained on my knee, lifted and she
clasped them together in her lap. “I can’t say that you weren’t in my thoughts
because everything I do I somehow factor you into it. I did it for me foremost
because only a fraction of the truth was publicized and it portrayed me as the
villain, and it did cross my mind that it could possible aide you as well. On
the other hand, and to be absolutely truthful, if it would have been harmful to
you I wouldn’t have done it.”

     How could I argue with that? It was the same way I
thought about her. She was my heart and every decision I made I considered her
first.

     Reaching out I scooped her into my lap making her
squeak in surprise. Pinching her chin gently between my fingers I stared into
her eyes intently. “I think you might be minimizing the significance of my
troubles in your decision as it’s highly coincidental that you did this two
days after hearing what my father did. You should have told me what you were
planning, but I’m sure you realized I would have argued with you. Didn’t we
just have a conversation Saturday about being truthful with each other above
all things? I have to say, you doing this behind my back feels like a lie.”
Carrie’s expression went white with guilt and it made me feel like a shit even
though I felt like it needed to be said. “That aside, I am so damn proud of
you.”

     Carrie swallowed. “So…you’re not mad at me?”

     “Oh, I’m fuming.” I refuted heatedly. “I’m your
boyfriend. I should have been there by your side giving you support. I should
have been the one your hand was clenching tightly. I’m glad you had Mona, but
Carrie…it should had been me.” I stated emphatically unable to keep the hurt
and anger out of my voice.

     Carrie’s eyes filled with tears and she flung her arms
around me burrowing her face in my neck. Even through my anger and hurt I
rubbed her back soothingly abhorring her distress.

     “I’m so sorry. You’re right, and I wanted you there so
badly. I knew you would fight with me about going public right after I found
out about your dad’s actions, but I convinced myself that it was all my
decision, my problem. When I talked to Mona and my therapist about it they said
I should be certain I was doing this for myself, and I did before I made that
call to the reporter.” Carrie leaned back looking me with tear-filled eyes. “I
won’t lie; the thought of going public only came to me because of the trouble
you’re having, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed like the
right thing to do. I deliberated for hours making sure I wasn’t doing it just
for you, and it finally came to me that I needed to do it for me. I was
admitting to the world and myself that I wasn’t to blame. I loved my father,
but he was responsible for what happened. I’ve felt so guilty about killing
him…but it’s not my fault…it’s his…it’s his.” 

     She stuffed her face back in my neck sobbing, ‘
I’m
sorry’
, repeatedly. Any lingering resentment I had liquefied into agonizing
sympathy at her suffering. I think her repeated apologies were more for her
father than me. I knew she’d felt guilty about killing her father, but after
all this time I hadn’t realized it was this severe. And even though she was
acknowledging it I don’t believe she truly accepted it, not in her heart. It
also wasn’t something anyone could convince her of. Carrie had to come to terms
with it herself, and that would take time. If she’d had family and friends to
lean on and love her when it had happened she might have recognized it by now,
but she hadn’t at the time.