Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

“I do, don’t you?” she asked.

“Uh… I don’t know him very well… or I didn’t,” I evaded.

“True, noticed that,” she murmured. “You’re tight with all the brothers but not Shy. Thought it was because of that huge crush you had on him ages ago but, whatever. Bottom line, he’s a good guy.”

Tyra didn’t know about what Shy did to me, no one did. I shared everything with Tyra but not what he’d done. I didn’t even tell Natalie about that, and I shared everything with her too.

That was how much it hurt.

I’d loved him. It was a young, faraway love, but sometimes that was the most intense kind, or it was when you’re young and you love someone from afar. He’d crushed me, so bad I couldn’t even reexperience it by sharing.

So I didn’t.

When I didn’t speak, Tyra did.

“I like him. Your dad likes and respects him. He’s great with your little brothers, he’s actually great with all the brothers’ kids. He’s smart. He’s funny. He works hard and he’s loyal. Your dad says that if Dog or Brick wanted to step down as his lieutenant, he’d ask Shy to step up.”

I stared at her because this shocked me. That was huge coming from Dad.

She kept talking. “Says he’s loyal to the Club in a way that the recruits who didn’t live through what the other brothers lived through when your dad was cleaning up the Club aren’t because they weren’t tested. They don’t know how to be. Shy is, though, according to Tack. Shy’s all about his brothers, the Club, the family, so I’m not surprised he took care of you, Tab. Any of the boys would do that for you, not just for your dad.” She grinned. “Though, not sure any of the boys would put up with you singing a song from Les Mis. That shows your dad is right. Shy’s more loyal than the rest if he put up with that.”

I rolled my eyes.

She ignored my eye roll and asked, “What’d you sing, ‘Master of the House’?”

I rolled my eyes back to her.

“ ‘I Dreamed a Dream,’ ” I answered, and her grin faded.

Dad had never seen Les Misérables. Dad would never see Les Misérables. Dad got a funny look on his face when I told him Jason was taking me to see Les Misérables. To Dad, a man taking his woman to a musical did not say good things. When I told him, he opened his mouth to say something, caught sight of a “smiling-so-big-I-knew-she-was-in-danger-of-laughing Tyra, fortunately shut his mouth, and said no more.

But Jason had a mother and three sisters who were into musicals in a big way. They dragged him with them and Jason went, but he did this under duress.

But not Les Mis.

“Sweetheart,” he’d said, “I saw The Pajama Game when I was eleven and had nightmares until I was fifteen. We won’t get into what Cats did to me. But Les Mis, Tab, everyone has to see that.”

It meant so much to him I went, and I had to admit I didn’t get it through the first act. Jason had decided I needed to “experience” it, so he didn’t tell me anything, and since they sang all the time, even the dialogue, I couldn’t catch it all and I had no idea what was going on. Luckily, there were some kick-butt songs, or the first act would have been wasted on me.

At intermission, Jason saw the error of his ways, filled me in, and the second act rocked my world.

Dad loved me, but he was never going to listen to musicals with me.

Tyra loved me, and she didn’t care about musicals, but she listened to it with me in my car all the time when we were off shopping or to lunch or whatever we did.

She’d heard “I Dreamed a Dream” lots.

She knew what I was saying.

“Oh, Tabby,” she whispered.

See?

I flopped to my back, stared at the ceiling then moved just my eyeballs to her to see she’d shifted closer and was resting on a hand in the bed beside me.

“It felt good,” I told her, and she smiled.

“Of course it felt good, honey. Shy’s a nice guy who took your back and listened to you sing a sad song. It was what you needed and he gave it to you.”

“No,” I whispered and held her eyes. “It felt good waking up in his arms.”

Her smile faded again.

“Oh, Tabby,” she repeated in a whisper, and I put my hands over my face.

From behind them I said, “It was messed up, crazy, wrong.” I pulled my hands away, looked into her troubled face, and let it all hang out. “It was wrong, Ty-Ty. It was… it was messed up. I forgot.”

“You forgot what, honey?” she asked gently.

“Everything,” I answered, rolling to my side and getting up on a forearm. “Everything, Ty-Ty. I was crying when I fell asleep and Shy was holding me, but somehow when we were sleeping he tucked me under him, tucked me close, and I woke up and all I felt was warm. Warm and safe and loved and right. That was all I felt. All I thought. All that went through my mind was how good all that felt.”

“Is that bad?” Her tone was still gentle but now also cautious.

“Yes,” I hissed.

“How?” she asked carefully.

“Jason didn’t hold me.” She closed her eyes and opened them when I carried on, and I did so thanking God I could talk to Tyra about everything, “He was loving and he could cuddle but not, you know, in bed. He was a hug-and-roll guy. After we, uh…” I let that hang then went on, “He hugged me, let me go, then rolled away. He was sweet about it but that just wasn’t his thing. He liked to sleep in his space and he left me to mine. I’d never had that, not ever, not from a guy, not until I got it from Shy and I liked it. It felt good. No, it felt great.”

“Tab—” she began, but I was on a roll so I blathered on, talking over her.

“It gets worse,” I shared. “Even after I woke up feeling safe and right, it didn’t all crash over me. It didn’t come to me at all. I looked up at Shy and he’s, well… you know, everyone knows Shy’s really good-looking, but asleep, Ty-Ty, asleep—” I leaned toward her “—he’s amazing. So amazing, so handsome, so close, holding me, making me feel safe and loved and after he’d been so cool with me the night before, I kept forgetting. Kept forgetting everything and I, oh Tyra, God help me”—my voice dropped to a whisper—“I nearly kissed him.”

After sharing that, I flopped back to the bed, put my hands over my face and let it wash over me as it did every time I remembered it, which was often, dozens of times daily for six weeks.