Page 40 of Thunder

Andy was clawing her way to the surface. She recognized the name. It was Thunder, he was having a nightmare. Her eyes finally obeyed. She blinked to clear them and threw off the blanket.

“Goddamn it, man, why didn’t you listen?” It wasn’t exactly the same as before, this was different.

After she grabbed his hand, she soothed his brow. “Thunder, it’s me. Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.” Andy felt helpless when he continued to babble and flail about. It seemed so disjointed. “Babe? Come on, open your eyes.” She switched sides so she could hold his left arm still, so he didn’t tear his stitches. Andy continued to brush his forehead and hair back with her other hand. It seemed a soothing thing to do.

The anguish had finally gone from his voice, and his face relaxed. A small smile turned his lips up ever so slightly and it warmed her heart. She’d done that. Calmed him. Helped him through a storm. Andy had often questioned her ability to be soft and emotional, feminine. Thunder’s smile and eased posture proved otherwise. She was falling—had fallen—hard for that man. A man she knew little about, but it didn’t matter.

When it was right, it was right. She hoped her brain injury wouldn’t matter to him. For the first time in three years, she felt it didn’t matter, period. That was something he gave her. His presence gave her confidence in that. Maybe Whiskey’s tale had something to do with her new attitude or Lexi pushing her.

Either way, she would not toss it all away. Like the saying goes, never look a gift horse in the mouth. It wasn’t a metaphorical mouth that crushed her heart, but a very real one. One that brought pleasure, but also pain.

“Melissa? It’s you.”

The relief in his velvet voice broke her heart. Maybe she could’ve handled him calling to another woman if she hadn’t just pulled her own heart out to examine it. She was too raw. Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.

“So glad,” he breathed. “Missed you.”

Andy found that place once again. Locked her feelings behind the wall. No way was she going to abandon Thunder, but she wouldn’t be starting a relationship with another inaccessible man. Even if he thought he was ready, it was glaringly obvious he was fooling himself.

19

THUNDER

The hot water pounding down his back felt like heaven. He double-checked the watertight bandage before tilting his head back and letting the water soothe him.

Tension zinged through his mind, body, and soul. Not because of the shooting or having to tell Andy about claiming her. It was his fucked-up dreams. That was the primary reason he never took pain meds. They messed with his memories.

The moment Heisman took the bullet meant for him was as vivid as when it’d happened. He heard the pop, felt the blood pouring through his fingers while he tried to staunch the flow. He admonished his friend for not listening.

When he turned to see if they were still in danger, like he always did, his memory had shifted. Instead of seeing Tiny take out who he assumed was the shooter, he watched as he lowered his smoking gun and smirked. His voice was surreal when he proclaimed, “It should’ve been you.”

He’d tried to pull himself from the nightmare. He felt more than heard Andy calling him back, but instead of reaching for her, another feminine hand reached out to him.

Then he was lying in his bed at his old house, questioning everything. Nothing made sense except the one thing that did, Melissa. He just gotten home from losing Heisman, and she was there, the perfect loving partner. How he had missed her then.

“That was the biggest lie of all.” He scoffed to the empty bathroom. That was a time which had only played back in his mind once before last night. Thunder tried to understand why. The only time he gave it any thought was when he had finally figured out their game. So why last night?

No matter how he dissected it, he couldn’t hit on a reason for it. All his thoughts and dreams of Melissa were not flattering to say the least, so why?

He was grateful Andy hadn’t been there when he woke up. He couldn’t imagine…. His hands stilled in his hair as suds ran down his face. Andy. The reason he was remembering the one moment he needed Melissa more than anything, she’d been there. Not for him, but for her later deception. He exposed his throat, and she’d dragged the knife across it.

Vulnerability. He was at the most vulnerable he’d ever been… until last night.

Andy. He was letting down his walls and that scared the holy shit out of him. He finished up his shower and toweled off.

Thunder looked at himself in the mirror. Nothing was the same. Him, the woman, the way it felt, nothing. Needing to acknowledge that on a different level felt imperative. “She’s not Melissa, and she’s never going to be.”

It felt freeing and terrifying at the same time. Freeing because he accepted his words as fact. He wouldn’t make Andy pay for something someone else did. Something he had no reason to believe she would ever do to him.

Terrifying because he heard her in his room. The clink of dishes being placed on the table. If she’d heard him before they talked, it might taint everything.

“Hey, Thunder. You still in the shower. You okay?”

Whew, she hadn’t heard him if she thought he was still in the shower.

“I’m good, babe, just getting dried off.” He pulled on a pair of sweats and stepped into his room where the smell of burgers and fries hit him causing his stomach to growl.

The smile she gifted him punched him right in the chest. It concerned him when he noticed it didn’t reach her beautiful eyes.

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