Released (Caged #3)(51)

“You didn’t fail, sweetheart,” she whispered. “You were just a kid.”

I wasn’t going to argue—I didn’t have the energy. All I seemed able to do was hold onto Tria and try to keep my focus on how her fingers felt as they moved over my cheek, up my neck, and through my hair.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I’ll never, never let anything happen to you.”

“I know you won’t,” Tria replied. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, either. I love you, Liam. So much…”

We clung to each other—Tria’s hand against my cheek and my arms wrapped tightly around her—and I listened to her breathing for the longest time. It was soothing and peaceful, like the slow rhythm of my heart in my chest. I remembered the sound of the baby’s heartbeat when we were first at the doctor’s and moved my hand down to Tria’s stomach.

“I want to believe what you said,” I told her.

“What I said about what?” Tria asked.

“That…that you’re all right. That you’re going to be all right.”

“I will,” Tria said. “I promise, everything will be okay.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as my mind rebelled against the very notion of making such an illogical promise. No one could make a guarantee like that. There were buses just waiting to run over people. There were planes that could fall from the sky. There were tidal waves that could suddenly form in the middle of the river and drown us all.

“I want to believe you.” I looked up into her face. “I’m going to try to believe you.”

*****

Work remained good, for the most part. When I was left alone to sit at my workbench and set stones, the day went by fairly smoothly and quickly. The stones were cheap, but I still felt bad when I broke a few of them as I was relearning how to mold the metal into the right setting for the stone.

I mostly did rings, and I felt like a total shit for never giving Tria one. I was going to have to do something clever about that, but I wasn’t sure what it was going to be. I knew I wanted to make her something, but I’d have to pay for the materials, and I didn’t have the spare cash.

I selected a smaller sized bur and began to carve out the metal to fit the shape of the fire agate sitting next to me on the table. Just as I was getting ready to set the stone, the guy who swept up after-hours came over to me.

“You look really familiar,” the dude said. “I know I’ve seen you before.”

The guy had a greasy mullet and thinning goatee. He did pretty much fit the description of the usual Feet First clientele, so I wouldn’t have been too surprised if he knew who I was. I tried to shrug him off, but the guy wouldn’t take a hint.

“I just have one of those faces,” I replied with a half smile.

“What’s your name?”

“Liam,” I replied.

“You been workin’ here long?”

“Just a few weeks,” I said. “Still trying to get the hang of this.”

I waved a hand toward the workbench and hoped he’d take the hint and f*ck off. He didn’t, of course.

“I still think you look awful familiar,” he proclaimed. “What did you say your last name is?”

“I didn’t,” I replied.

“Okay…so what is it?”

Deciding the guy was never going to give up and being far too tired to come up with any sort of clever retort, I just came out with it.

“Teague,” I said. “Liam Teague.”

“Teague? Really?” the dude said with a smirk. “What are you, some distant cousin or something?”

“No,” I replied.

“But you’re related to ‘em, right?”

“I guess,” I muttered.

“Well, how?”

I put down the bur and turned to face the guy.

“I’m Douglass Teague’s son,” I said bluntly. “Now do you think you can leave me the f*ck alone?”

He laughed.

“Bullshit!” he called out. “No f*cking way!”

“Whatever.” I tried to turn back to my work, but pimple-cheeks was in my face again.

“Who are you really?”

“Jesus Christ!” I snarled. “You want a copy of the f*cking birth certificate?”

The shift supervisor—one I didn’t know, since I wasn’t on my normal shift—came up to us.

“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”

“Get this * away from me,” I growled.

“I think you need to calm down,” the supervisor said.

Calm down.

I clenched my fists against my thighs, and I fought against the urge to start beating one of them with my fists while I kicked the other one to the ground to save for later. Remembering that the opposite of fight was flight, I shoved past both of them and made my way to the men’s room where I did a little deep breathing until I calmed down. My shift was almost over anyway, so I made myself fairly invisible until it was time to clock out.

I was going to have to figure out some way of dealing with this, or I was going to end up fired from the company I was destined to someday own. I decided to bring it up with Erin in our next session, but when I got there, I discovered she already had an agenda for the day.