“Oh, sorry, didn't mean to keep her from you. I -,” he started, but Jameson just walked away, pulling Tate along beside him.
“I see your manners haven't improved,” she growled at him.
“Why would they have?”
When they were back on the dock, she yanked her arm free and surged ahead of him. He lengthened his stride to keep up with her. She was still refusing to look at him, but he could tell that something was different. She had made some sort of peace with his little ploy. He figured he was safe, at least for the night. She wasn't going to run away quite yet.
“So what, I'm a prisoner, now? I have to stay locked in your stupid boat?” Tate snarled as they walked up behind his yacht.
“Of course not. But Sanders has been worried. I had to find you, or he would've driven me insane,” Jameson explained.
She stomped down the plank. He had thought maybe she would comment on his boat, on the style or size, but Tate didn't say anything. She continued moving, striding across the deck. Sanders was coming out at the same time, and the relief was obvious on his face. Tate steamed right up to him.
“I'm very happy to see you. I was so worried that -,” he started, when she slapped him across the face.
Jameson was shocked, but he didn't hesitate. He immediately moved between them, grabbing her by the wrist in case she tried to swing again. Sanders looked completely bewildered. He had a hand pressed to his cheek, where she had hit him, and his eyes were huge as he stared at her. Tate glared right back at him, struggling against Jameson's grip.
“You're a traitor! You told me not to make you choose, but it's kinda obvious you already had your choice made! I never even stood a chance! Traitor!” she yelled at Sanders. His jaw dropped open.
“Hey!” Jameson barked, and everyone's attention snapped to him. He forced Tate backwards, out of reach of Sanders. “None of this was his fault. I asked him to help me. Apologize to him, now,” Jameson growled, glaring down at her.
She burst out laughing, and he was surprised.
Someone's gotten braver since I saw her last.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she cackled. Jameson nodded.
“You can hit me all you want, but if you touch him again, I'll throw you off this fucking boat,” he warned her. Her laughter escalated for a moment.
“Ooohhh, what a threat, being thrown off a boat I don't even want to be on,” she hissed.
Before Jameson could respond, Sanders whirled around and left the deck. Disappeared inside, walking so fast, he was basically jogging. Jameson could see the shock on Tate's face, and then it fell away. Replaced by sadness. Guilt. He let go of her wrist.
“Whatever kind of relationship you think you have with Sanders, you should remember, I am practically his father. The only family he has got anymore, so of course he is going to help me when I need it,” Jameson warned her. Her bottom lip trembled, and she continued staring at the door Sanders had gone through. “But you should also know that Sanders would never do anything to hurt you, even if it meant disappointing me. If he brought you here, even under false pretenses, it's because he thought it was for your own good.”
Tate still refused to look at him. She strode towards the doorway, ignoring his existence. He let her go. There were only so many rooms on the boat, she would find her own.
Jameson sighed and sat down heavily in a cushioned deck chair. Things hadn't gone as badly as they could have, but they sure as shit hadn't gone well, either. Sanders had warned him that her feelings hadn't changed, that she was trying very hard to hate him.
It didn't matter to him. Two months was a long time. During the short amount of time they'd spent together, Jameson had grown ridiculously attached to the stupid girl. All his preaching and ranting and warning, telling her repeatedly that she should never expect him to be anything more than he was – he should've listened to himself once in a while.
While he had been so busy trying to warn her away, he hadn't even noticed himself falling into her. Now Jameson couldn't tell where she began and he ended. The thought of Tate dying, it hurt his heart. Being away from her for two months, not allowing himself any contact with her …, it had been difficult. Jameson was forceful and impulsive by nature – not tracking her down and simply demanding that she forgive him, demand that they go back to the way they were; it had all been hard.
He hadn't seen her in two months, but the moment he had seen Tate walking towards him, it was like no time had passed. Suddenly, he was right where he needed to be, and any questions he'd had about what he was doing, any doubts he'd had, flew out the window. Good or bad, wrong or right, Jameson needed Tate. He wasn't exactly sure when it had happened, but it had happened, all the same. No point in denying it.
Now, all he had to do was convince her that she needed him, as well.
No one ever said hell was an easy place to live.
*
Around two in the morning, Tate couldn't take it anymore. She threw back the covers. Her room was nice, with a queen size bed, but even better – it was one of the furthest rooms from Jameson's. It was the first one she had looked in, when she'd huffed off to go to bed.
But she hadn't been able to fall asleep. Guilt was eating her alive. She couldn't believe she had hit Sanders. She felt like she had hit her own child. She climbed out of bed and didn't bother to put on any pants, just tip toed out into the hallway in her tank top and underwear. It wasn't like it was something Jameson or Sanders hadn't seen before; if anything, it was actually like getting back to normal.
Tate had figured the big door at the end of the hall, the one that would lead to a room directly under the bow, was Jameson's quarters. She tried the room next to hers, but it was empty. She tried the room across the hall next. Turned the knob as slowly as possible, then pushed the door open an inch. Tried to peer inside to see if there was a lump on the bed.
The sound hit her first. She couldn't tell what it was for a moment, then it hit her. Right across the face. Someone was crying. Tate slid into the room and quietly shut the door behind her. Didn't even think about it, just went to the foot of the bed and crawled up it till she was right next to him. Sanders was laying on his back, so she pressed herself against his side. Wrapped her arm around his chest, her leg around his leg.
“I'm sorry, Sanders,” she whispered. “I'm so, so, sorry.”
“No, no, you don't need to be sorry, ma'am, I shouldn't have ..., I didn't realize you'd .., tomorrow, I'll -,” he started in a jerky voice, but when he said 'ma'am', reverted back to calling her by a stranger's title, her heart ripped in half. She pressed her hand over his mouth.
“I do need to be sorry. I really, really do. I never should have hit you. I love you, Sanders. I love you so much. I was just mad, I shouldn't have done it. I'm so sorry,” Tate breathed, pressing her face into his shoulder. She felt his hand come to rest on her arm, patting at it tentatively.
“It's okay, Tatum. Everything will be okay. I promise.”
Sanders didn't handle any kind of contact well. She knew that; even handshakes were difficult for him. So a slap, she knew that must have been like a gun shot. A bullet, ripping right through his psyche. She knew his past, knew the kind of abuse he had been through, and still. Tate was the one who pulled the trigger.