Own the Wind(17)

What I didn’t expect was that he would give me exactly what I needed, be totally cool about it and also unbelievably sweet.

“Six weeks ago you were out with Natalie,” Tyra prompted, and I focused on her.

“I just needed… I needed…” I trailed off, and Tyra reached out to squeeze my hand.

“I get what you needed,” she said softly then lifted her chin for me to continue, so I did.

“It being Natalie, I’m sure you’re not surprised that our company wasn’t great company.” The look on her face told me she wasn’t surprised, but she had no response, so I kept going. “I was a little freaked, I called Shy, he came and got me, and the rest happened as I told you. The problem is, Shy was awesome, really cool, and I slipped out while he was sleeping and haven’t seen him or talked to him in six weeks, which is not cool.”

“Not sure about the not talking for six weeks part, but Shy is awesome,” she declared, and I blinked.

“You think Shy’s awesome?” I asked in disbelief.

“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.