Broken (13 page)

“And about ready to shit his britches,” Cypress snickered, pointing at Aspen. “He looked
pissed,
and even at thirteen that was
not
a good look to come up against.”

“I was, but then I saw you,” Aspen admitted.

“But then they saw each other,” Teak continued, nodding. “And the mason boy walked into the room, hurrying the Prince inside, and closed the door. He walked over to the servant boy and kissed him before announcing that now they were
all
secret boyfriends and there would be no
more
boyfriends for the Prince or any of them. From that day forward, they were together.”

I set down my empty bowl and stared at them, one by one, smiling sadly. Something hit me then and I wasn’t mad or angry or anything else really but acceptant maybe. “That’s a great story but—”

“Cara, it’s not over,” Cypress hedged, glancing at Teak who was now in charge.

“I’m tired. I’m going to take a—”

“Get off the fucking couch now,” Teak hissed at them. They jumped up at the instant he stood with me in his arms. Then he laid us
both
down on the bigger couch. He moved behind me, on his side while I was on my back and I could see the fear and worry in his eyes. “There you go, honey. Now if you want to doze while we talk then you go right ahead.”

“This wasn’t what I meant, Teak.”

“Well we’re already here all comfy,” he cooed, leaning down to kiss my cheek. “How about a blanket? We’ll get it all snuggled in.”

“It’s August and I’m not injured or incapacitated,” I drawled, rolling my eyes at him.

He nodded, swallowing loudly before he gently kissed me again, his arm wrapping around me. “What happened? Why were you shutting down again right before my eyes? We were having so much fun and then the Cara walls were falling and it was like a crash I couldn’t stop.”

“You wanted to tell me a story, begged me too after all you guys have put me through and I let you,” I answered, narrowing my eyes at him. “Don’t you dare act like I’m being a bitch for wanting to—” I shut my mouth and looked away but unfortunately there were three of them and they were like a dog with a bone at times.

“Protect yourself, right?” Aspen asked, his eyes the ones I met when I’d turned away from Teak’s, watching me carefully. “You were shutting down because you were protecting yourself. Why, Cara? The story wasn’t done but you saw it was for some reason. What did Teak say that you finished in your head?”

“Fuck,” Cypress groaned. “From that day forward, they were together.”

“And
they
all lived happily ever after,” I whispered, burying my face, snuggling onto my side and the pillow, starting to tune them out. That was the way the story always went. I just wasn’t going to be a part of this story besides some form of collateral damage. But wasn’t that always the case? Didn’t I end up being the one people asked for help and then tossed aside when I wasn’t of any use to them anymore not caring the condition I was left in after I’d done their
favor
.

There were several reasons I lived alone in the “peace” of nowhere. Apparently I hadn’t moved to a remote enough area. I was mulling over, if Teak would really handle all the shit they broke, where I could try next when I could save up enough money. Nowhere tropical. I was the palest bitch around who got sun poisoning at the drop of a hat.

Maybe one of those underwater places. I didn’t get real claustrophobic but even being in air-conditioning too long made my allergies freak out. Basically I was too big of a pain the ass to go anywhere all that remote.

Great. Just fucking great.

“Cara, can I see you naked and be naked with you?” Teak asked as he kissed along my neck, his hands roaming my body as he moved behind me.

I froze,
completely
snapping out of my wandering thoughts before slowly sitting up and flipping us so I was straddling his lap. “I’m sorry, do you want to try
that
one again?”

“Hey, you’re back!” He sat up so fast and hugged me that I didn’t even see it coming. “Sorry, had to snap you out of it. Not that I don’t
totally
want to see you naked and be naked with you too, but now is a bad time to ask and all.”

“Is that really how you would ask me though?” I snickered, melting into his hug. Teak’s hugs were like sunshine without the burn and something you just didn’t want to walk away from or miss.

“Probably,” he mock whispered as he gave me a squeeze. “Don’t tell the guys but I’m not all that smooth.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Are my secrets safe with you, Cara?” he whispered before leaning back. My eyebrows scrunched together, not really sure what he meant. “There’s lots I’ve wanted to show you but rejection isn’t easy for anyone.”

“I don’t—” I glanced at Cypress, knowing he always spoke
me
best.

“There’s more to the story and Teak wants to tell it but what he’s saying is we weren’t keeping what we were from you to play you,” he explained gently. “It’s hard to open yourself up to someone new that you care about. You know that. We’ve never shared what we are with a human before and that’s
scary
. You were excited that I cleaned your garage out but would you have rejected me or called me a freak if you knew it had been by magic? If I had let you in and you’d seen me, that side of me, would you have hurt me?”

I thought about it a moment and nodded. “You should have waited then. I would never have called you a freak or rejected you, but I might have
freaked out
and needed to hit pause while I processed. You guys should have waited to do what you do until you told me. Doing things this way caused damage that I’m not sure I can undo.”

“What if we work a little on the plan to fix that in between telling the story?” Teak hedged, glancing between me and his men. We all simply shrugged. I don’t think he wanted to give me another chance to wig out or say
no
because he took the
maybe
gesture for a green light. He jumped off the couch with me in his arms.

“I can walk, Teak.”

“I like you here.” He gave me a peck on the lips and headed for the stairs. “Clean up her shit. No more making messes for Cara.” Then I gasped at how fast he ran, barely letting the air out of my lungs before we were up in the kitchen and I was sitting on the counter. “I told you. We’re magic.”

“You are,” I giggled, rolling my eyes.

Hurt filled his eyes and he pulled away. “Why did you do that?”

“Oh, Teak,
no
,” I breathed and grabbed his shoulders, yanking him back, which somehow put him pressed between my legs instead of us just—yeah, not sure exactly what happened there to be frank. “Teak, I was picking on myself. I’m not a girl who
giggles
. I’m not tiny or, yeah, just, you show me one trick and I’m giggling like a twit. I wasn’t picking on you. What you did was awesome, babe.”

“
Babe
, huh?” He bit back a smile and cleared his throat when I nodded. “Okay, so Cypress might be the best at explaining what we do, but I’m best healer with my crazy, wild, one of a kind gift. After you very appropriately yelled at us, I did some research. There’s a gland in the brain that even the smallest tumor on it can cause rapid weight loss and—”

“Pituitary,” I sighed, reaching up and rubbing my temples. “I know. That was the neurologist’s best guess. That’s why they wanted to open up my head. He said one had to be there but we just couldn’t see it yet which meant it was good because it was so small the chances of my survival were great but they couldn’t see it yet so it was still a fucking guess.”

“Right, but now you don’t
need
to have the brain surgery is what Teak is saying,” Aspen hedged, glancing between the two of us. “You just say you did or do or whatever.”

“My turn,” Teak snapped, shooting him an evil look. Aspen held up his hands and took a step back as Teak focused on me. “Look, I know you hate lying, honey, but it’s more a fib.”

“This is not a
fib
, Teak. I’ve never, not
ever
lied to my fans,” I bitched, crossing my arms over my chest. “Not telling them everything is different. They don’t get to know every detail of my life or there are just some things I can’t tell them.”

“Of course. But you
were
misdiagnosed, right?”

“Well, yeah, only because the doctors didn’t guess three elves were doing it,” I drawled, rolling my eyes.

“But you still
were
,” he pushed, rubbing his hands up and down my thighs. “Technically. You were misdiagnosed and the mess is going to be cleaned up. We get a PR someone to handle that mess. That’s all anyone needs to know and we ask for their continued support while you get the treatment you need.” He held up his hand when I opened my mouth. “Some TLC and time off—”

“I don’t
need
time off,” I growled, pushing him away and jumping off the counter. I
hated
this discussion because no one ever understood it. “This part always makes me sound crazy but
fuck it
. I don’t need time off. I need to write. You won’t get it. No one
ever
gets it.”

“Try us,” Cypress offered as he handed me another Sprite. I took it from him and opened it up, trying to think of where to start.

“First of all, you can’t think of writing as linear. It’s not a stop and start process.”

Cypress nodded and pointed his thumb out towards the back porch. “It’s on-going like when you mow one strip of the lawn and the blades of grass are still growing.”

“Yes,” I hedged, staring at him before glancing out back. “Your first part of the analogy is right but the design is too open. You have
all
that room where things can keep growing and growing. It’s more of a mess like when you guys moved in if it’s not tended to on a regular basis but it
can
be tended to. You have to think of it in more defined terms.” I gestured to my body. “Think of it trapped in
here
. So more like ideas and pressure building up.”

“Like the propane gas on the
grill
?” Aspen ventured, his eyes going wide.

“Yeah, that will work,” I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. “Each time I start a new series, I open the gas tank a little bit and ideas start flowing. I get them in a book and close the gas off some. But that gas still leaks because it’s still in my head back there somewhere. Now think of the garage, my author cave as my brain. Put the grill in there.”

“Are the doors down?” Teak asked, twisting hands together.

“Down,” I answered, frowning. “And each new series is its own grill, leaking a little more gas until I write a book and use some of that gas out of the garage of my brain and let it out.”

“So you’re saying all this time, these weeks and months of barely writing, you’ve had these leaking ideas and snowballing continuations of series building up without releasing any of the pressure?” Cypress whispered, his eyes wide in horror.

“Yeah, basically.” I shrugged. “It might sound crazy to others, probably does, but once you put the grill together, it’s not something I can just disassemble until the series is concluded. I can’t simply flip off my fucking brain because shit is going on. This is who I
am
.”

“Holy
shit
, Cara,” Aspen hissed, rubbing his arms. “So you’re like a ticking bomb waiting to go off that I just took advantage of in the shower because I’m a complete fucking moron and was thinking with my cock instead of my brain.”

“Wait, before you yell at him, I want to mediate something,” Teak interrupted, glancing at me. “For all of Aspen’s faults, he’s normally very observant to the way people are feeling or hints given. Did you by chance give him any signals or signs you weren’t up for being kissed? I mean, he’s a fantastic lover who always gives his partners what they want, so if you even
hinted
that there was something you wanted, he would have made sure you got it, not that I’m saying this is your fault, but you need to take that into consideration.”

I gave what he said real consideration and winced before giving the barest of nods.

“Okay, then can we agree that Aspen
definitely
needs to make amends for not remembering you were not in condition to have sex this morning, even if you seduced him as he says you did? Do you agree to that?”

“I pushed for it, yeah,” I sighed, staring at my feet. “I just—it was evil. I needed to know if I meant more than sex or if fucking me was all that mattered. I started it. But you’re right. I hinted there was much more to be done than kissing me but he still didn’t kiss me. I didn’t try or probably wasn’t all that open to it since I’m sure I seemed more confrontational in my own way. I just wanted to be wrong. I wanted him to say that me getting better was more important than what his dick wanted and kissing me was better than playing—”