Unsettled (Chosen #1) (14 page)

He laughed. “My parents are stricter than that. I can’t even kiss a girl on the couch in my parents
’ house. But your parents know I’m here, Lizzie. I talked to them when you went to sleep. They know you’re sick. They know I’m not going to take advantage of you in your state,” he said as he flung his arm out to scan my body. “Come here and let me hold you.”

I crawled back into bed. “Why
did you wake me up, then? I thought I heard you say my name.”

He was quiet for a moment. His body tensed
but I was too tired to look at him. I just waited for him to answer. He sighed and pulled me closer. “I’m glad to be here with you. It’s nice to sleep in a bed on a frame.”

“Why does it seem like you wanted to tell me something else? You paused for a long while and yet you told me something I already knew
.” I laughed.

“I’ll take a cab to the train station in the morning but I really wanted to stay with you tonight
,” Teagan said, nuzzling into my neck.

“Don’t waste your money on a cab. I’ll drive you
,” I said, enjoying his face so close to mine.

“No, you’re sick.”

“I’m sure I’ll be better by morning. I want to drive you to work.”

“We’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning.”

“
Sure,” I said as I nodded into my pillow, not giving a fucking shit about anything but his hands over my side and my lavender scented pillow.

“Good, now let’s get some sleep. I set your alarm clock
,” he murmured. I could feel his heart beating really fast and I knew he wanted to tell me something important. Was he going to ask if we could have more after this summer fling? It seemed like he was getting a little more attached than just a tryst.

“Hmmm…” He chuckled and pulled me closer.

All thoughts of Monday morning’s confusion on whether or not he still wanted to be near me were lost. He was worried about me after only two days and now he was there with me in my bed, snuggling up to my hair, and falling asleep with me in his arms. I felt the weight of that morning lift, and I cursed myself at over thinking our relationship. Teagan wasn’t an asshole that just turned on a dime. He genuinely cared for me and wanted to be near me as much as I wanted to be near him. Knowing he wanted to be with me even when we weren’t drinking and having sex was sobering. Instead, we were sharing an intimacy that far surpassed any physical attraction. We were lovers, sure. But in reality, I knew we were so much more.

Twenty
-One 

Dirty

The next morning, Teagan woke me up with a kiss to my forehead. When I opened my eyes, he was already freshly showered and dressed in his work clothes. I got up and threw my legs over the bed.

“You’re ready?” I asked, squinting up to him with one eye.

“Yes, baby. I have to get to town. I packed you a bag. Come to the apartment and sleep there. Do you still have your key?” he asked.

“Yep. I
’m really tired. I guess I could head over there, if it’s okay with you,” I said. Just thinking about all that driving was giving me a ridiculous headache.

He touched the back of his knuckles to my cheek. “I worry about my American girl.
Come stay with me. It’s the last night until I get back from New York on Monday.”

I smiled over to him as I started throwing new clothes on. I didn’t care that I hadn’t showered in two days. I could take a shower at his place. He didn’t seem to mind my scent all night, since every time I
awoke, his arms were clamped around me. I grabbed my bag, my purse, and my keys and we headed down the stairs. Mom was sitting in the foyer, reading a magazine, and looked up. Her smile was bright and I gave her a cursory morning nod.

“Morning,” Teagan said. “I
’m stealing Lizzie away for the night. I promise that she’s in good hands and I’ll make sure she feels better.”

“That’s okay, Te
ag. You don’t have to take care of me. I don’t feel sick anymore. Mom, I’ll call you later. It looks like the flu is gone.”

“Oh, Lizzie. That
’s so great. I’ll head out for work today, after all. Call the office if you need anything,” she said as she gave both Teagan and me a hug.

After dropping Teagan off at his building downtown, I took Commonwealth up to his apartment. The streets were busy and I had to stop at every red light. Business people and tourists crossed the streets, never looking up from their maps or newspapers
. I sighed at the blatant pedestrian-ruled city. Everyone was a shithead there when it came to getting on their way.

I pulled up
to the side of the road and walked across the street, not caring if cars were coming. As I hit the sidewalk, I laughed that I, too, was a shithead.

I unlocked the door with my key
, and both a familiar and disgusting scent had me stepping back into the hallway of Teagan’s apartment building. Eww. I hadn’t been there in days, so obviously no one was cleaning up after themselves. I always did the dishes and scrubbing to get beer and cigarette burns out of the carpet. I washed the bathroom every chance I could. But their place was a fucking disaster, and I could hardly breathe in through my nose. I noticed a ton of dishes piled in the sink and throughout the kitchen. At least four cases of empty beer bottles were strewn around the living room, and disgusting hurling equipment and clothes were laid out over every piece of furniture. You could literally see the clothing trail from Freddie’s room to the bathroom, dirty underwear and all. I immediately felt gross. How had I stayed in that apartment all those weeks? Did I ever notice how God damn disgusting the place was?

I went to the kitchen and called Teagan’s phone at work.

“Teagan Gallagher,” he answered in a tired Irish accent.

“Hey
, Teag. It’s me. I’m here at your place, and this fucking hole is probably the most disgusting place I’ve ever seen.” I scowled.

He chuckled under his breath. “Well, you sound back to your normal self again. We haven’t had a
girl around in a few days, so I guess you’re probably spot on.”

I scoffed at him loudly. “Did you make me come here to pick up after your filthy
Irish arses?” I asked with the most terrible accent I could muster. I was better at it when I was drunk or pissed, as the guys called it.

“No, no
, baby. I didn’t know it was that dreadful. I’m sorry. I’ll make the guys pick up their shit when we get home from work,” he said, still laughing.

“Yeah, that’s in like
nine hours, Teag. I can’t be here. It’s tough to breathe without vomiting all over your dirty underwear.”

His voice became
sober. “Lizzie, don’t leave. I only have tonight with you before I head out. Just stay or go walk in the park. Go buy yourself something. I have some bills in the front pocket of my jeans near my bed. Just don’t leave,” he pleaded.

“Umm. I guess I can head over to the bookstore for a while
, but sincerely, this place is a wreck. You guys did a number on it while I was gone,” I said with a frown, scanning the area of his room.

“Thank fuck,” he said. “I really want to be with you tonight, ok
ay?” he asked.

“Ok
ay, Teag. Anything for my Irish boy,” I said with a smile.

We hung up a few minutes later after talking about the meetings he had that day and how he would be
away from his phone. After I stepped back from the receiver, the phone rang and I smiled.

“Do you miss me already?” I asked.

After a brief silence, an Irish female voice came over the receiver. “Hello, I’m calling for Teagan?” the girl inquired.

“Oh. I
’m sorry about that. I thought you were someone else. No, no. He’s at work,” I said. “Can I give him a message?”

There was a
nother long pause.

“No, that’s okay. I
’ll ring him later,” she said and hung up. Sister? Friend? Certainly Irish.

I went to Teagan’s room to pull out the cash from his pocket and found a letter stuffed in an envelope with his name and address written on it. I
gazed at it a bit, and while my curiosity was immense, I stuffed it back into his pants before my eyes landed on the drool on his pillow. Something inside me went to fucking hell and I threw myself towards the bathroom and started to throw up the cup of coffee I had that morning. I heaved and heaved until I finally could get up and wash my face. This place was an outlet for germs, and hell if I was going to be there, sucking in more flu. That place was probably what got me sick in the first place.

I grabbed my keys and bag and left. I
didn’t call Teagan, knowing he would talk me out of leaving. I drove myself home and went up to my neat, pristine room and played my guitar for the remainder of the afternoon.

After several successful sessions of playing, I went downstairs. No one was there
so I went to the couch and lay there, listening to a thunderstorm looming in the distance. I sat there, staring at nothing at all. I felt completely vacant. Teagan and I were on a path to nowhere and I knew it. The more I fostered the connection, and the more interest he gave to me, the more I knew I wouldn’t be able to let him go. He was my life that summer and nothing else mattered, especially me. Every waking moment, I thought about the night we met, the night we first had sex, the night he was possessive over me with Freddie. But first and foremost, I thought about his proclamation that he was my boyfriend to my oldest and dearest friends. I crawled on the leather couch and lay there, listening to the foreboding thunder and rain before I fell back asleep.

I awoke sometime later to Conner shaking me.
“Hey, Lizzie, wake up. Teagan is on the phone. I told him you were sleeping but the guy doesn’t give up. He said something about a letter and you not being at his place. He must have called like fifty freaking’ times. Dude, this guy seriously has it bad for you,” he said, holding the phone up to me.

I smiled. “
The feeling’s mutual,” I whispered before I took the phone from his hands.

“Hello?” I said in
a weak voice.

“Lizzie! How are you? Where are you?” he asked.

I laughed. “You called me, remember? I’m home. I got sick again at your place and just had to get out of there.”

“Why didn’t you leave a note or something?” He sounded really frustrated and I felt bad for him. There was nothing I could say. I got the hell out of there and I
’m not even sure I locked the door when I left. Fuck.

“I don’t know
.” I sighed. “I’m not really up to party tonight. I’m going to watch a few movies and hang here with my brother,” I said as I looked at Conner with a bowl of popcorn on his lap, flipping through the pay per view list.

There was a long pause. “Well, then, I guess I
’ll see you next week when I return,” he said firmly.

“Okay. Seriously, have a great time
, and by the time you get back, I’ll be all yours until you leave.” I laughed.

“Sounds good, Lizzie O’Malley,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, and Teag, before I forget, some girl, an Irish girl, called you while I was at your place earlier. She said she would call you later. Just to let you know.”

There was yet another
pause. Pausing on the phone is so frustrating. It was the worst thing to have a conversation with the dead end of the line.

He finally said,
“Yeah, okay. It must have been my sister. I’ll try to ring my house before I leave tomorrow night. Our flight is at eight, by the way, so I won’t be able to call you tomorrow. We’re going to pack and head for the airport right after work,” he said.

“
Okay, well, have fun,” I said.

“Get better, baby. I
’ll miss you,” Teagan said.

Twenty-Two

Bared

Friday morning, I woke up bright and early, ready to head out to my
second summer session English Composition class. I had to submit a term paper and I was really confident I had done a good job on a personal memoir of music and how songs transported me back to certain times.

I heard my mother downstairs, making a lot of noise in the kitchen. As I rounded the marble breakfast nook, I was excited to see she had the waffle maker out and a huge pile on the table.

“Yummy,” I said as I gave her a side hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Do you feel like eating?”
she asked brightly.

“Oh ye
ah, these look delicious, Mom. I can only eat for a few minutes. I have a term paper to run into school,” I said in a rush, spreading butter and syrup on the waffles.

She grinned at me with the most pride I
’d seen in years.

I smiled back and started on my waffles. Teagan came to mind and I
thought about how certain songs already reminded me of him. “Round Here,” by Counting Crows and pretty much anything by David Gray. I shrugged my shoulders to push the thought of Teagan out of my head for what seemed like the hundredth time in the forty-five minutes I’d been awake.

After the fourth bite, my mouth started to salivate and I became breathless, like I was going to have a panic attack. My mom looked
at me, and as she started to say something, I ran to the downstairs bathroom and threw every little piece of waffle up.

“That’s it!”
she said in a scream that made me wince. “You’ve been sicker much longer than Conner was. You’re going to see Dr. Collins today.” She started to fumble around with her address book.

“Ok
ay.” That was all I could say. I was so sick of being sick. It was never ending, and I was malnourished and weak. I felt great the day before and that morning, but maybe I just ate the waffles too fast.

I could hear my mother making an appointment for me on the phone
, and while I was washing my face, she yelled through the door. “I have an appointment for you at one, right after the doctor gets back from lunch. There won’t be any wait. Can you get to school and get to the appointment on time?”

“Yes,
Mom. Thank you,” I muttered.

Dropping off my paper to my professor and
telling her I had a doctor’s appointment was refreshing because of all the lame excuses I had come up with when I was too damn hung over to make it to class, this one was actually true.

When I got to Dr. Collins’ office, the rain was starting to come in again and I pulled on my black trench coat. It wasn’t waterproof, but I felt like it shielded me to some degree. I signed in with the receptionist and she made it a point for me to say hello to my mother. Jesus, this was such a small town. But
a small town in a big city wasn’t always so bad.  I felt comforted knowing my mother had set up the appointment, and I was going to finally get some medicine to feel better.

As the doctor’s assistant took my blood pressure, temperature
, and weight, she reassured me everything looked normal and told me to go into the first room on the right. I asked her if I should disrobe and she shook her head.

“This is just a flu consultation, honey
.” She smiled.

A few moments later, Dr. Collins came in and gave me a warm smile.

As I shook his hand, he looked me over and said, “Lizzie, you’ve grown into such a nice young woman. I know I’ve been around a long time since I remember when you had teeth missing and pigtails.”

I laughed and returned his warm smile.

“So, what seems to be going on?” he asked.

“Well, I
’ve had the flu now for more days than my mother finds necessary. I throw up, sleep a lot, and have occasional diarrhea,” I said, barely self-conscious about being completely honest with my doctor.

“Well, you don’t have a temperature, so no infection
.” He looked down at the chart.

He whipped his head up and gave me a look that I couldn’t comprehend.

“Lizzie, are you sexually active?” he asked in a quiet voice.

I could immediately feel my face warm. Never in my dreams
did I imagine Dr. Collins asking me about sex. He was my freaking pediatrician, for fuck’s sake. I had an OBGYN, so was this really his business?

“Lizzie?” he asked.

I smiled and he nodded.

“I
’m going to have one of the nurses come in and explain how to use our pregnancy tests. Just lay back a minute and I’ll have her come in. It is improbable, as I am sure you’re careful, but it’s just a start so we can figure out what might really be going on.”

He headed out the door and my heart started to race. Pregnancy test? What a laugh. There
was no way I was pregnant. Teagan and I had been completely careful, and when the condom did break, I made sure to count my ovulation dates to confirm I was way out of that window of possibility. I must have gone over that in my head ad nauseam because I can still rattle off that the 19
th
through the 23
rd
were my fertile times.

A nurse came back in with a cup and showed me to the bathroom, instructing me to pee in the cup. I nodded, feeling so stupid for giving
any thought at all to being pregnant. I returned the cup to the stainless steel shelf in the bathroom and headed back to the room I was assigned.

After a half an hour, I was in full panic mode. No one had
returned to the room. No one came to take my temperature. I was pacing the room and I knew I was leaving marks in the tiled floor. I stilled when I heard a light knock. Dr. Collins came in with the nurse that had given me the cup.

He pa
tted the chair next to him and looked at me with a smile.

“Elizabeth
, you don’t have the flu, honey. You’re going to have a baby,” he said.

I shot straight off my chair and started breathing so hard, the nurse raced over to start rubbing my back.

“No. I’m not. We’ve been safe. We…”

“Lizzie
, we did two separate tests and you’re pregnant. Do you know when it could have happened?”

I stuttered out something incomprehensible and shook my head.

“Lizzie, I would like to do an exam to see how large your fetus is. That will give us some timeline of how far along you are,” he said. “Put on this gown and leave it open in the back. Both of us will be back when you’re ready.”

I started shaking
. Thoughts and words could not even come close to leaving my chattering teeth. All at once, I felt hot and extremely cold, and I swayed back and forth for several minutes. I stood with the gown in my hands and stared at the blank white wall of the doctor’s office then I started to cry. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t get pregnant. I didn’t get pregnant. I was not pregnant. There was a light knock on the door and I immediately jumped. I had no idea how long I had been standing there, fully clothed, but I immediately yelled out, “NO!” I didn’t know exactly what I was saying no to. The doctor coming in, the doctor not coming in, me being pregnant, me not being pregnant. In that instance, nothing made any sense whatsoever.

I opened the door and flew pas
t the nurse and the doctor. They looked dumbstruck and I shook my head all the way down the hall, past the reception area, and out into the humid downpour in my hometown. I stood outside my car, my hands trembling to find my keys. They dropped into a muddy puddle and I sank down against the car, my whole body encompassed by the water. I couldn’t feel wet. I couldn’t feel the car. I couldn’t feel the blood that ran from my palms as my nails bit into them. A car drove by while another was trying to back out of the parking lot and a loud horn brought me out of my trance. I grabbed the keys from the water, stood up, and plunged into the car. Holding the steering wheel, I had no idea where to go.

If I went home like th
at, my mother would know, and she absolutely could never know. If I went to Teagan’s work like that, I, well, I really didn’t know what to do or say. If I went to a restaurant, I couldn’t eat, and for fuck’s sake, I was going to be sick again. I opened the car door and heaved.

The car ride to Teagan’s didn’t take long enough. I knew he wasn’t there. I knew I wasn’t going into th
e apartment that would forever change my life. But something inside me felt the need for him to call me baby, for him to cuddle against me, for him to call me his American girl. Maybe then, I would be able to take a deep breath.

When I parked at Teagan’s apartment, the rain was coming down so hard that the instant I stepped out, my fully clothed body felt like I was standing in a steamy shower. I walked down Commonwealth Avenue in a trance, not caring what people thought or the huge splashes of water that cars s
prayed over my body. I shook but I wasn’t cold. I was shocked. Shocked into a complete oblivion that I’d never felt before and the knot in my stomach about having to say the two words to anyone made me even more rigid as I took in the view of the wet sidewalk.

I looked down at my watch and saw that it was
four. If I didn’t catch Teagan before he left for his flight, I wouldn’t get a hug or a word from him for three days, and I didn’t know where I would be in three days. I wanted to be numb. Number.

I pivoted and started back up Commonwealth to Teagan’s
apartment. As I started to become aware again, my whole body shook in anticipation of what he might say. It made me walk faster. Would he want this baby? Would I move to Ireland? Could we be parents together? I was more than “in like” with him and I knew he felt the same way so would this change anything? When I got to his stairs, I sat down and let the rain pour down on me as I thought of the alternate answer he would give me. Get rid of it. That’s what made the most sense. He would tell me to get rid of it.

The T came to a stop at Cleveland Circle and I looked up to see some of the guys running to the apartment to get out of the downpour. I knew when Teagan
’s eyes finally landed on me and I quickly stood up to meet him. He was standing across the street, pivoting his eyes from the oncoming traffic to where I was. He looked perplexed but calm. I cringed and waited.

The other guys breezed past me, muttering shit about me being crazy for sitting out in the rain and asking what happened to my key. I smiled
at them and nodded. Teagan came to a full stop in front of me. Beads of rain poured down his head, into his shirt, and onto his pants. His shoes were already drenched.

“Come inside, Lizzie. You
’re all wet. God, you’re fucking soaked through. What the hell happened?” he asked.

“I…I just came here to tell you something then I
’ll leave,” I said, shaking uncontrollably.

“Jesus, Lizzie. You have to come inside
.” He pulled me up from underneath my arms. He pressed my body to his as he fished out his keys and unlocked the door then pushed through the slightly opened door to the apartment. I immediately noticed how clean it was and smiled on the inside, thankful that I had a distraction from myself for an instant.

“It…
It… looks really… good in here,” I said, still chattering.

Teagan pulled me into his room
. Cian was packing a duffel bag and he turned around to see us. When he actually looked at me, he cleared his throat and said, “I have a phone call to make.”

Teagan locked the door behind him and immediately started to strip me of my clothes. I furiously shook my head as I tightened my arms around my trench coat. I didn’t want him to touch me before he
knew what I knew. I was dripping rain into his carpet but I didn’t care.

He closed his eyes in frustration
, and when he opened them, he gave me a firm look.

I whispered, hardly audible to my own ears. “Teagan, I’m pregnant
.”