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And I wasn’t his secretary.

"Hope Carter, you better open this damn door girl!" a familiar female voice demanded from the other side of the door. "Don’t make me climb in through the window in my condition," she added. "Because I'll do it! But I'll have to kick your ass once I'm done."

Practically falling off the couch in my bid to get to her, I rushed into the hallway and threw open the front door.

And there she was.

Teagan Messina, standing in my doorway, looking like a tiny, pregnant halo of blondness.

"Iknewit," she hissed, brown eyes narrowed and locked on my face. "I fucking knew something was wrong." She shook her head, as if mentally scolding herself. "You need to tell me who did this to you, so I can go cut a bitch."

"Oh, Teegs," I choked out as I threw myself at my best friend. "I'm in so much trouble.

****

There were no words to describe how much I had missed Teagan Messina.

Sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee in my hands, listening to my best friend rant and rave and plot violence was the closest I'd come to feeling at peace in a very long time.

She was the one for me – in a non-lesbian way, of course.

She was my person, and because of that, I found myself telling her everything.

I started at the beginning, feeling the need to explain myself to the one person I knew wouldn’t judge me for falling in love with another man.

After all, Teagan was the one person who'd been with me through it all.

She had comforted me through my grief when Jordan ripped my heart apart all those years ago. She was witness to the extraordinary amount of pain I'd lived with for almost a decade while I waited for a man who never came back.

I explained how I had felt inside when Hunter had burst into my world all those months ago and how his friendship had set alight a fire inside of my heart. A fire that had been out out for many years.

I told her about how unsure I was in the beginning– how untrusting. I'd never had a man whostayedbefore.

But he did.

I tried to pinpoint the moment our friendship had turned to something more than platonic, but I couldn’t find it. Try as I may, I couldn’t find the memory in my mind that told me he was just a friend. I guess deep down inside, Hunter had always beenmore.

I explained in great detail the night I finally allowed my heart to succumb to the feelings I had been so desperate to deny.

And then, I told her the things I couldn’t possibly tell my family when they demanded I did just that. Every tiny, horrible detail. Even the inconsequential ones no one could possibly care about. Like the smell ofCarl, and the sensation of his touch on my skin. I told her about the way I had wanted to floated out of my own body.

Then the crash of relief that had floored me when Hunter stormed into the kitchen, and that intoxicating rush of adrenalin and power that had come over me when I watched him take that man's life.

I let it all out.

How it felt in his arms, when he was filling me up, making me feel safe and loved and cherished. Her uncle helping me. Hunter's kisses. His hands on my body erasing the painful memories and sensations. How I wanted to throw myself into his arms and have him never let me go. How I had decided then and there that my life was attached to his and no amount of guilt or grief could sway my decision.

And then I told her about Jordan. The drugs, and the pain, and the emotional blackmail.

How he'd seen Hunter that night.

How he had vowed to go to the police if I didn’t cut all contact with him.

I begged her to understand my reasons for needing to keep Jordan safe. I willed her to see where I was coming from.

We both knew how Hunter dealt with threats, and I couldn’t let that happen. I prayed for her to understand that there was something inside of my heart that refused to give up on Jordan Porter. That what I was doing right now kept both mensafe.

And then I made her promise to never tell a soul what I had told her.

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