“What happened when you saw Tey?”
Diana and Kim made eye contact. They weren’t so sure anymore if Colleen was ready to hear about him.
“Spit it out,” Colleen demanded as she cleared their plates and wiped down the counter.
“I was talking to this super-hot guy. We had this crazy connection, you know? One of those butterflies in your belly and sparks flying between you the second you meet.”
“I’ve never…” Kim started, but Colleen interrupted.
“I was like that with Teyler.”
“I know, sweetie, but what I wanted to tell you, was that it seemed like he’s moved on. I was with my roommate. Her best friend, Becky, goes to UConn. She said they hooked up and that Teyler is with a different girl every night off season.”
Colleen sucked air in through her nose and let it escape through her mouth to not find herself sprawled on the floor.
She had been wishing that he’d ride up on his black stallion and yank her behind him to ride off into the sunset. She imagined them making love again on the beach under the sun, only this time, they’d return to get their daughter before they’d ride off into their happily-ever-after. How fucking stupid of her.
While she’d been suffering through hours of labor, her body in so much pain, she’d thought she was going to die during childbirth and had told Georgia she could have her bedroom and belongings, Teyler was fucking his way through his college campus. Miles had told her to stop being so dramatic and that if anyone was getting her room, it was him. While she was suffering to bring their daughter safely into the world without drugs, Teyler had been having fun at school with other girls. Skinny, pretty girls, the kind of girls he deserved.
“You’re not even going to come home after school. Why do you want my room?” Colleen had asked her brother.
“Because I don’t want that little brat to have the best room in the house.”
“You’re such a dick, Miles,” Georgia had whined.
“I’m in fucking labor here. It hurts. Can we not argue for like ten minutes?”
Colleen hated thinking about Teyler with other girls in the best of circumstances. Under the conditions she currently faced, it was torture. But Colleen was the one who stopped the phone calls, stopped responding to Teyler’s letters, and had told him to move on. She lied and said she wanted to move on. She hadn’t and doubts that she ever will.
“This happened last year, but you’re just now telling me?” she asks her best friend.
“You didn’t seem ready to hear it then, but we think it’s time for you to move on. Maybe date a little. Taylor’s getting so big, she’s going to start at Lollipop Preschool in like a year. You deserve a life, Coll.”
“I have a life,” she defended.
“You have Taylor, your mom, and the shop and that’s great, but don’t you want a relationship?” Kim asked.
“I’d give anything to have that feeling with a guy again, you know like I said I had with…”
Colleen looked at Diana as she finished her sentence for her. “Jake, am I right? It was Teyler’s best friend you were talking to?”
“I…I didn’t realize then but, yes, his name was Jake. Holy shit! He’s on the team and I can see him again. Like on TV and shit?”
Colleen laughed sadly. “Yeah, but trust me, it’s not the same.”
But watching Teyler Walker was all Colleen had left.
He’d turned into a typical athlete who was using his celebrity status to get pussy, but when he looked at that camera during his games, she’d never think anything differently than she has. She knew Teyler Walker was still thinking about her.
“Don’t ever mention his name to me again,” Colleen ordered. “If you go there, don’t tell me. If you run into, fall in love with, then get engaged to Jake, don’t invite me to the wedding. I don’t want to talk about dating or other guys. This is my life. I made my choices and I’m fine with them.”
After her friends returned to their campuses, Collen had watched Teyler finish out his season playing in the NCAA tournament while she watched their daughter play on the carpet in front of the television in her childhood home and she missed the man from her past.
14
Present
Falls Village, Maine
With Callan Black and Jordan’s relationship crashing and burning after he finds the notebook she’s been keeping about him as her case study, Colleen and Teyler are once again forced to find time alone because Callan has returned to being Teyler’s roommate above Spill the Tea. They take long walks on the beach at night, holding hands and telling each other everything they missed during the decades they were apart.
Teyler leaves out the abundance of women he went through. He knows Colleen’s self-esteem can’t handle the truth of his past. She’s only now just beginning to be semi-comfortable in her own skin. She’s lost some weight, but that’s not what it’s about for him. He loves her. Her, not her body, even though her curves turn him to steel faster than he used to make it back on defense. All Teyler wants is a long life ahead of him with her by his side. He wants her healthy and happy, able to enjoy life and feel good about herself. He’ll continue to do whatever it takes to make her see her beauty, inside and out.
Colleen sugarcoats how lonely she’d been and how empty her life was without him. It wasn’t his fault; it was her doing so why make the guy feel bad about the way she lived since they were last a couple? It’s over now, in her past, and Colleen is trying her hardest to forget the cold, lonely nights she spent alone, crying in her bed and thinking about the lucky women laying in Teyler’s warm arms.
Holding hands, they arrive at their sunset yoga class and lay their mats side by side.
“I have a surprise for you if you reach your goal tonight and hold your plank for five reps at six seconds.”
“Oh? I’m intrigued, Mr. Walker. What kind of surprise are we talking about?”
“If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a surprise. All I’ll say is I’m really proud of your hard work and I want to reward you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
At the end of class, Colleen one ups Teyler and pulls off six reps each for eight seconds, her hard work paying off when his whole face lights up with pride. “I think I’ve earned my prize,” she purrs into his hard chest.
“Oh, you certainly did. Come on, let’s go,” Teyler says as he gathers his belongings and reaches out to carry hers as well.
They make their way in the opposite direction of her home. Colleen smiles when she realizes where they are.
“Have you been by yet to see the house you stayed at that summer?”
“Possibly,” Teyler says with a naughty smile.
“And did you think about that one time?”
“Very much possible,” Teyler states as he pulls Colleen into his front and presses his growing erection into her abdomen. “And it’s also very possible that I was forced to take matters into my own hand while I hid in a bush. You can see what that memory does to me.”
Colleen laughs at the scene that must have been, then even more so at the thought of Teyler getting caught red-handed and the media shitstorm that would have created. With Callan Black as wrapped up in his melancholy over breaking up with Jordan again, he barely cares if Teyler is mobbed by fans. Not that anyone in Falls Village would do that. It’s a small town and everyone knows everyone else’s business, Colleen the most from listening to her customers at Spill the Tea, but they also respect each other’s privacy when it counts. Teyler doesn’t need the security of Callan’s services, but he holds the guy to his job because he likes having him around and knows Callan needs a friend.