ENEMIES(95)

It was a few hours later. His hair was wet. He’d recently showered. No sweatshirt this time, just a Kings shirt and a hat pulled low. I loved that look on him. Loved how it highlighted his square jaw, how when he clenched it, he made me salivate, my body starting to ache.

I almost sighed. “I wanted to hate you.”

The air around him had been restless, edgy. Like he wanted to fight, but had no target to take it out on. It grew calmer, more pensive at my statement. He didn’t come over. I wanted him to come over, but he sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward. Elbows on his knees, but his head was turned to me. He was watching me.

He was waiting. Listening.

“I knew you’d be like a god down here, and I wanted to hold onto that hate from when we were kids. ’Cause I did. I hated you so much. Because of him, because of his obsession with you and what he did to me. He got worse once he found out about you, but it wasn’t you. You’re talented. I mean, you’re so talented, but my head, all the crap I went through, I was half-blaming you for him. But it was never you. It was him. He was sick, and I never wanted to burden my dad with what I went through. That’s another reason I never went home. I didn’t want to take that to him, but coming down here, being here, being with you, coming out on this end of the whole process, it hit me tonight.”

My heart squeezed, but it was a good squeeze. It was the kind of squeeze you only got to feel a handful of times, and maybe not even then, if you weren’t lucky.

“I am so fucking proud of you.”

His head lowered.

I kept on, whispering to the dark room. “I am proud that I know you, that I knew you before, that I’ve seen you bring yourself to this stage of success. Most guys, with your family how it is and was, most guys might not get here. They might party, drink, not be so focused. But you. You were only focused. That’s what you did when you left me behind, isn’t it?”

His shoulders rose, paused, and dropped. I heard a soft swear from him.

Yeah. Yeah, I was right.

“You focused. You trained. You sacrificed. I know you didn’t party. It was always football only, wasn’t it? All to get here, to get where you are today.”

His voice was low. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” His tone grew rueful, regretful, “Maybe. All I know is that it was never because you were beneath me. I was in sixth grade. I think I knew it could’ve been you and I looked into the future and I knew you’d pull me. I wouldn’t be so focused, whether it be school or football or… You would’ve tempted me. I would’ve wanted to be with you all the time, experienced life with you, and I knew I couldn’t. I knew even then that I’d have to decide which way to go, and I couldn’t go the route that you traveled because it would’ve been all you. Training. Football. I needed that. I needed to leave, get out of my house. We had money, but we had shit for happiness. Money gives you security. It just pads the walls so you can wallow in how fucking unhappy you are. My mom’s been dying a little bit every fucking day. You’re right. What you said. She is an alcoholic. My dad—he’s not a bad guy, he’s just… All he cares about is maintaining their life. He’s blind to anything else. Keep the company going. Grow it if possible. Keep my mom alive, literally, and that comes in different forms, but not believing your dad, trying to make your family go away, that’s what my dad was doing. He was trying to keep his family together, though he was wrong. He was fucking wrong, and trust me, he’s seen the light.” He moved to me, his arms coming down on both sides of me. He was looming over me now. “I’ll never let another person hurt you.”

His eyes were glowing, almost glittering from a small bit of moonlight shining through my window.

And they were kind. I saw how kind they were, and my heart folded. I was gone. Donzo. The L word was coming and I couldn’t stop myself.

“I fucking love you.”

Him.

It was him who said it, and he said it fiercely. He said it as if his life depended on me knowing it.

My heart was folding all over again, jumping up, doing a skip, hop, and a somersault, and my knees were just boneless. I could’ve melted into the bed.

I raised a hand, cupping the side of his face. “You do?”

I had a tear there. It was falling. I was helpless from stopping it from falling.

“Yeah.” Just as fierce, with every bit of conviction as the first one. “I fucking love you.” His hand raised, cupping the side of my face, but mine was steady. His was shaking. “I love you so much that it’s ripping me apart, knowing what you went through. Knowing I couldn’t be there to help take some of that pain away, but I can’t go back in time. I wish I could. You have no idea how much I wish I could, but I can’t. All I can do is make it right from here on out, from today and forward.” His head dropped. He moved more over me, his forehead resting on mine, and he whispered again, so fiercely that I swear it was starting to heal old haunts. “I love you and I want you to let me love you and I want to make you mine. My woman. Just mine. All mine. I don’t care what you want. I can’t let you be someone else’s. Mine, babe. Mine.”

He was waiting, not letting himself fall down on me, but I just pulled him the last bit toward me.

I needed him. “I was going to tell you that I love you. That I didn’t care what you were planning for your future, because I am your future and that I loved you and that was that, but you beat me to it.”