Torn (Thornton Brothers Book 4) Read online

  I got off the stool and walked over to my bag, grabbing the keys from the pocket. “Come on,” I said, dangling them in front of Peta. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Peta picked up her own bag from the ground and turned it over. Three boxes of tests fell to the floor. “Way ahead of you.”

  “I’m not coming in while you pee on it.”

  Peta laughed and hugged me tightly. “Thanks,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For being you. I’ve missed you so much, Ren. I don’t like you living in the city. I think you should give up this illustrious career in marketing and photography and come back and make coffee with me.”

  “Believe me, after the reaction we had to our presentation today, it’s very tempting.” I tugged on her hand, leading her in the direction of the bathroom. I waited, leaning on the other side of the door until she came out again, eyes a little clearer and a white tester held in her hand. “Three minutes. Why didn’t I buy the one minute one?”

  We flopped back onto the couch. The voices of the cooking contestants filled the space with distracting chatter as we waited.

  “I’m sorry to put this on you,” Peta said, her hand clutched tightly around the test so she couldn’t peek.

  “Sorry?” I replied. “I’m pleased you came. I know I’ve been a sucky friend lately.”

  “No more than I have,” Peta replied. “But I'm sorry because, well, you know.”

  “This is about you, not me, Peta. So don’t you dare apologise for that. You know how I hate it when people try to protect me from anything to do with pregnancy.”

  “I know, it’s just—” her voice cut off in a strangled sob. “I’m not sure if I can do this. I’m not sure if I can go through it all over again. I mean, I love my babies, I really do, but four? I never wanted four.”

  “How do you think Shrek would take it?”

  “I’d say he’d be thrilled. But even though he’s the one that looks after the kids the most, he’s not the one that has to grow them inside him for nine months.”

  I glanced at my cell phone, noting the numbers on the clock. “It’s time.”

  Peta’s knuckles were as white as the tester they were wrapped around. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “You know the test doesn’t make you pregnant, it only confirms if you already are.”

  “Okay, smart alec. I’m just not sure if I want to—” Before she finished her sentence she ripped her fingers away and left the test exposed in her hand, covering her eyes with the other. “You look. I can’t.”

  I peered down at the little clear window. “What does a blue cross mean?”

  Peta’s eyes flew open, her hand dropped to her throat, and she let out a sigh of relief. “Oh my goodness, you scared me!”

  “No cross.” I grinned and patted her knee. “You’re not pregnant.”

  “That was mean.” Peta looked at the other two tests she had completed at the same time. None of them showed as positive. Her body slumped as relief overwhelmed her and tears sprung to her eyes again. “Why am I so bloody emotional then?”

  I just shrugged.

  “I feel so stupid,” Peta said, flopping back on the couch. “I got myself all worked up, yelled at Shrek that I needed a break and drove all this way for nothing.”

  “I’m nothing?”

  “Don’t make this about you.” She grinned, a little of the normal Peta rearing her head. “What now?” she asked, looking around the room as if noticing it for the first time. “Your house is shitty.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It is. Drink?”

  Peta’s eyes lit up. “What are you offering?”

  Wandering into the kitchen I pulled open all the cupboards trying to find a bottle of wine. In the end, I admitted defeat and called Sadie, instructing her to come home loaded with wine as soon as possible.

  10

  LAUREN

  “I have arrived!” Sadie announced as she walked through the door, arms filled with bottles of wine, red, white and pink. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got everything,” she declared.

  Peta took one of the bottles from Sadie and held it to the light. “Right now I’d drink anything.”

  I got the glasses from where they always sat, easily accessible in the closest cupboard, while Sadie unloaded the bottles onto the bench one at a time.

  “Are you planning on us having a big night?” I asked, laughing as bottle after bottle was lined up in a row.

  Sadie screwed up her face. “Why wouldn’t we? Have you got anything on in the morning, because I sure haven’t?”

  The night started off slowly enough, polite conversation over sips of wine, but the more wine that was consumed, and when the retelling of Peta’s pregnancy scare had been told in as many ways as possible, our words began to slur and the topic of my relationships dominated the conversation.

  “Wait,” Sadie said, holding her hand in the air as she took another sip. We were all piled on the same couch, feet tucked up under our ankles, drops of wine spilt on our clothes. “Who is Derek and why do we hate him?”

  Peta high-fived Sadie, though I wasn’t sure why. “Derek was her high school sweetheart. The love of her life until she found him humping his assistant on the desk. She literally walked in on them.”

  Sadie looked at me wide-eyed. “No way!”

  I laughed, now able to look back on it with amusement. “His pale, hairy arse was up in the air, clenching and unclenching. It took about two minutes of me just staring before my brain registered what was happening.”

  “No shit,” Sadie said in amazement. “And then what?”

  “What do you mean, then what?” I asked, confused.

  “And then what happened? Did you drag him off her? Did you yell, scream, kick, punch?”

  “I closed the door.”

  “You fucking what?” she screeched.

  Peta’s eyes gleamed as she nodded. “She shut the freaking door. I’m not kidding you. There she was, confronted with her fiancé humping some bitch and she just walks back out and shuts the door. She just left them to it!”

  I shrugged and took another sip of wine. “Not a lot I could have done to stop it at that stage.”

  “I would have freaked.” Sadie took another mouthful of her wine, only this time it was a gulp. “I would have kicked his arse.”

  “I didn’t see the point.”

  “The point? The point was to show him you wouldn’t put up with that shit.”

  “I found out later it had been going on for months, right under my nose.”

  “But you let him finish!” Sadie exclaimed. “You could have at least denied him that. Did he know you walked in? That you saw them?”

  I shook my head. “I confronted him at first, asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell me.”

  Sadie snorted. “Pussy.”

  “I was in shock.”

  “You were a pussy,” Sadie repeated, punctuating the words.

  “But then Gabe came and took all her pain away,” Peta sung.

  Sadie lifted her eyebrows while talking with her mouth pressed to the wine glass, making her voice echo strangely. “Ah, I always wondered how you two met. You weren’t exactly what I would have pictured as a couple.”

  There were times that I forgot that Sadie didn’t know all the details of my life. I only met her when I started dating Tyler. The Lauren that existed in that perfect Tyler bubble was the only Lauren she knew.

  “It was all my fault.” Peta sighed. “I hired her and Gabe trained her. The rest is history.”

  “Well,” Sadie said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Not exactly history.”

  “It is,” I declared, strong and determined in my new-found drunkenness. “Gone is the old Lauren who flopped from man to man, letting them make her life decisions. Look out world, the new Lauren is here.” My voice petered off at the end, contradicting my strong start.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Sadie said, choosing to ignore my weak
declaration. “You went from Derek, who you’d been with since high school, to Gabe and then to Tyler?”

  “There were breaks in between,” I corrected.

  “And another little dalliance with Derek in there too,” Peta added.

  “Oh,” I cried, a little distracted and rather drunk. “Dalliance. I like that word.”

  “You went back to him?” Sadie gripped the sleeve of my shirt, her red stained lips set in an incredulous line.

  “She did,” Peta confirmed.

  “The guy fucking cheated on you, in front of you, and you went back to him?”

  “We were supposed to be together forever. We were engaged. We lost a child.”

  “Oh, shit.” Sadie’s voice dropped with remorse. “I didn’t know.”

  “It was years ago.” I didn’t tell her the full story. I didn’t tell her that the reason Derek went into the arms of his assistant so willingly was because I couldn’t give him what he wanted.

  “Fuck Derek,” she shouted.

  “Not anymore!” Peta half yelled, half laughed.

  “But back to the story, you went back to Derek but you obviously didn’t stay with him.”

  “I should have never gone back to him. It was complicated. It—”

  “It was Gabe,” Peta finished for me. “He and his body were just too damn sexy. It took her ages to agree to be with him, though. She had this thing with his age and—”

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “I don’t blame her. He’s a decade younger.”

  “But,” Peta held a finger in front of Sadie’s mouth, “he loved her. He was good to her. She deserved a little happiness.”

  “Oh, I’m not denying that,” Sadie agreed. “But Lauren never belonged with Gabe. She and Tyler are a far better fit.”

  Peta lifted her eyes and twisted her mouth in a way which indicated she didn’t agree.

  “Don’t tell me you think Lauren and Gabe are better suited?” Sadie twisted her head to face me. “Please tell me you don’t believe that. Tyler adores you. You should see him without her. He’s miserable. He does nothing but work now. Nothing. Well, apart from workout but that doesn’t count. He’s in his office at six-thirty every morning and doesn’t leave until at least nine at night. Then he goes home and drinks himself into a stupor.”

  “He does not,” I snorted.

  “He does too. He says you’ve turned him into an alcoholic.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about him,” I shot back, scared by the overwhelming longing for Tyler that rippled through me.

  Sadie held up her hands, her wine glass tipping lopsidedly, the dark liquid threatening to spill once again. “Your rules, not mine. Personally, I don’t know why you just don’t forgive the guy and get on with it.” She saved the wine from spilling by tipping it down her throat.

  “Because he can’t move past the fact that I was with Gabe before I was with him, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I can’t go back and change my past even if I wanted to. I can’t make Gabe disappear. I can’t avoid him. They’re brothers. I was sick of feeling worried when I was around him. I was sick of being made to feel guilty when I’ve been nothing but loyal to Tyler from the moment we started dating. I was loyal to him while I was still with Gabe, for fuck’s sake.”

  Peta ran her hand down my back as I leaned forward and covered my face with my hands.

  “I’m just so sick of feeling guilty. I felt guilty for not being able to give Derek the child he wanted. I felt guilty for wanting Gabe when he was so much younger than me. I felt guilty for breaking his heart and falling for Tyler. I felt guilty when I was with Tyler. And I felt guilty when I saw Gabe while I was with Tyler. I’m just so sick of feeling guilty and I’m sick of missing Tyler so much it hurts.”

  “Well go back to him!” Sadie declared as though it were the simplest solution in the world. “If you love him that much and he loves you, surely you can work through this.”

  “But nothing’s changed.” I lifted my head from my hands. “The weekend away proved that. He gets jealous of Gabe and lashes out at me. He can’t control his reactions to his feelings, he told me that.”

  “Stop,” Peta ordered, holding a hand over each of our faces as she sat between us. “There is entirely too much soul searching and not enough drinking going on here. From now on, all conversation regarding men is strictly prohibited.” She settled herself, snuggling back into the couch, glass of wine in her hand. “Now, tell me more about Slag.”

  We talked and drank and danced into the wee hours of the morning. When I woke the following day with a dry mouth and rolling stomach, Peta was already up and in the kitchen. I inhaled deeply, unsure whether the aromas were encouraging or subsiding my nausea.

  “You have virtually no groceries in the cupboards,” Peta said as a greeting.

  “Good morning to you too,” I replied. “We mainly eat takeout. Sadie’s cooking skills make even my cooking look good.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “She burned pasta.”

  “How on earth did she do that?”

  I shrugged, and plucked a strip of bacon from the pan. “Beats me.”

  Sadie waltzed down the hallway, her smile all sunshine and butterflies, wearing a skimpy pair of shorts and a tank top despite the chill in the air. “Morning!” she greeted. “It smells divine in here.”

  “It’s all Peta.”

  “Duh,” Sadie replied. “We’ve lived together long enough to know it was Tyler who cooked most of the meals at the loft.” She looked around the kitchen, bewildered. “What is that smell?” She sniffed, her nose twitching in the air. “It smells like…” She stalked through the kitchen. “Yes! Coffee.” Grabbing the pot she lifted a mug down and filled it to the brim. “I didn’t even know we had a coffee machine.”

  “It’s a coffee filter and I found it at the back of that cupboard over there.” Peta pointed to a cupboard as Sadie took a sip, not caring as the hot liquid slid down her throat.

  “Well fancy that,” Sadie said. “I've never even seen that cupboard before.”

  The three of us sat down at the table and ate together. It was the first time the table had been used for its intended purpose since I had moved in. Smudge twisted around our feet, smooching until Sadie relented and gave him a piece of bacon. “I hate you,” she muttered, as she stroked his head.

  “So what’s our plan?”

  “Bed,” I groaned, rubbing my temples.

  “You staying?” Sadie asked Peta.

  Peta shook her head. “I’ve got to get back home. I kind of left in a bit of a state. Shrek will be worried and I told him he wasn’t to call. Poor guy.”

  “You going to tell him?” I asked, tearing a corner of toast with my teeth.

  “About the almost baby?” She nodded. “Yes. And then I believe we will be having a conversation that involves sharp objects and his testicles. If yesterday has taught me anything, it’s that I’m done having children. Three is the perfect number for me. No need to add any more.”

  Once breakfast was finished and the dishes done, Peta packed up her belongings that had been scattered around the house at various stages of last night’s festivities and waved goodbye. I found tears welling in my eyes again. I had forgotten how much I missed her.

  The rest of the day consisted of laying on the couch and watching television. Sadie popped in and out, though I never bothered to ask her where she was going. I tried not to think about Tyler. I tried not to wonder how his visit with his mother was going.

  I tried and I failed.

  I went to bed early, head still thudding in pain, slight nausea still in my gut. I didn’t know how Sadie did it. She managed to drink more than me and still bounce out of bed fresh as a daisy.

  I drifted asleep easily and was surprised when I woke to a blackened room, the only light coming from around the curtains. Our streetlight was especially bright. Something had woken me but I wasn’t sure what. I rolled over and grabbed my phone off the charger, noticing
the little flashing light. There were three missed calls. All from Tyler.

  The time read 1:03am and his calls had come through in the minutes previous. I was just about to dial my voicemail to get his message when my phone started to vibrate with another call.

  “Hello,” I answered when Tyler’s image popped up. Gone was the profile picture from his social media account. In its place was a black and white image I had taken of him getting out of the shower. It was a close up of his face. Stubble dusting his chin, hair wet and flopped over his eyes. Dark brows hunched over dark eyes. It made my heart lurch every time I looked at it, which was more often than I cared to admit.

  “You answered.” His voice was flooded with relief.

  “Is something wrong?” I couldn’t think of a reason he would be calling in the middle of the night.

  “I need you,” his voice broke.

  “Is everything okay? What’s happened?”

  Tyler cleared his throat, dislodging the emotion stuck there. “I need to see you. I just can’t—I don’t know what to do, what to think. I need you, Lauren. Please come over. I would come to you but I shouldn’t drive.” There was a moment of silence, then he added, “Please.” And it was the tone of that word, so desperate, so pleading that had me getting out of bed and pulling on some clothes.

  11

  LAUREN

  I pressed the buzzer at the bottom of the elevator. I had never pushed it before, never needed to. A sound echoed through the exposed lower level of the building and the door clunked as it released in order for me to enter.

  My foot tapped impatiently as the elevator rose to the top level, and I slid the door open when the lift jerked to a stop.

  Tyler was sitting on the couch, face covered by his hands when I stepped into the open space. His head lifted at the same time as he rose from the couch, striding over to me and wrapping me in his arms. He breathed in deeply as I tried not to melt into his embrace.