Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
WELLS
I’m shaking with anger. All the ways for this to come out, and it’s at my father’s hand. Fucking typical. For once, I wish that I was at home with my family, so that I could finally let loose on my parents and tell them exactly what I think about their ass-backwards, narrow-minded, greedy ‘values.’
I turn to Kellan, wishing desperately that I could take his hand. Let him feel that I’m still me. That he’s still him. But I’m met with crumpled features that make him look like he’s in agony. “Kellan–”
He clears his throat and refuses to make eye contact. “I need to go make the rounds now. Carter, it was great to meet you. Mr. and Mrs. Wellington, I wish I could say the same.” And then he leaves our group quickly.
I watch to see where he goes, hoping that I can catch up with him in a minute.
I have to handle something first. There’s no time to waste, so I turn my attention to my parents.
I’m trying to be cognizant of the fact that this is an event for Carter’s college hockey career, so I don’t raise my voice.
“What the actual fuck is wrong with you two?”
My mom lifts her hand to her face, like she’s been slapped. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly. You never do anything. You just let Dad bully and push and needle until he breaks people down and gets his way. Plausible deniability is a beautiful thing.”
My dad glares at me. “Bennett, you will not talk to your mother that way.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “I go by Wells, which you know and choose to ignore over and over again. And wow is that rich, coming from you. I’ve never met someone who shows less respect for other human beings. We’re all just playthings to you that you think can be bent to your whim.”
His green eyes, similar to my own, flash with anger.
“Interesting that you have no problem letting me pay for your lifestyle with the fruits of my decades of hard work, yet you love to judge how these things are afforded.” The set of his mouth lets me know he thinks it’s some sort of gotcha. Fucking pathetic.
“Becoming a corporate raider with the tens-of-millions that you inherited simply by being born into an already rich family doesn’t make you a smart businessperson.
It just makes you a shitty human.” I’m trying to not attract attention, but it’s hard.
I’m seething inside, and I feel like steam is probably wafting off my head right now.
Still, he may have just ruined the best thing in my life, and there’s no stopping me now.
“You started life with more money than most people could ever fathom. You think that makes you good at what you do?” I scoff.
“You’re the definition of failing upward.
Delusional enough that you truly believe your guaranteed success somehow means that you have it all figured out and are therefore in a position to levy judgment. ”
He crosses his arms over his chest, and I can see that I’ve struck a small chink in his armor. He leans forward, voice menacing when he says, “You have a lot of fucking nerve for some pansy tutor.”
I smile back at him. “Good. Show me the real you. Show everyone.” I look around, noticing that a few stares have turned our way.
“You have a gay son and a son who loves hockey and happens to be really damn good at it. And unlike you, it’s something that he had to spend his whole life learning and succeeding at.
But sure, I’m so sorry for the wrongs that the universe has committed against you. ”
I shoot Carter a sympathetic stare, but I’m surprised to see that he looks like he’s having the time of his life, watching this play out.
“You will be in London the day after your last final. You will never speak like this to me again or you really will know what it feels like to be left out in the cold. End of discussion.”
I laugh then. A boisterous laugh that I can’t control when it bubbles up.
“London? I’m not going to London. Not a fucking chance.
Ban me. Ex-communicate me. Kick me out of whatever fucked up ‘family’ we have.
I’ve tried so hard to make you proud of me, but you don’t want that.
You want submission.” I stand up straighter, my hands clenched into fists at my side.
“And I’ll never fucking give that to you. ”
I give my parents one last withering stare before I quickly scan the crowd to find Kellan. I need to make things right with him. Explain that regardless of how things started between us, I’m all in.
But he’s already gone.
Kellan is a hard man to track down when he doesn’t want to be found.
He’s not at his apartment, unless he really is hell-bent on sitting inside with all of the lights turned off and ignoring me.
He’s not with his mom and brothers–though I did have to talk Tara out of calling search and rescue when she realized that I was on the hunt for him.
I’ve been driving around for an hour hoping that he responds to one of my half-a-dozen text messages. I look down at my phone again, but the screen is blank.
Where the hell would he go to get away from everything? And probably, in some way, to punish himself for what he discovered tonight.
I’m sure that he’s confused as hell, but on top of it all, he’s hurting.
The look on his face earlier tonight made it hard for me to breathe.
All I’d wanted was to wrap him up in my arms and soothe his worries away.
Because the Kellan that did those things to me when he was younger was a kid in pain.
He’s not that person anymore, and I can’t imagine what knowing who I am is doing to him.
Or the pain that it’s bringing back from all of those years ago. Which, as fucked up as it is, gives me an idea.
It takes me another twenty minutes to finish the drive to Warwick.
I drive by the high school which is dark on a Saturday night.
He’s not there. My next stop is the ice rink where I watched my brother play earlier this week.
It’s open, but there aren’t any games tonight judging by the sparsely filled parking lot.
I don’t think he’d want to watch families and teenagers skating around to soothe his hurting heart.
No. Deep down, he’d want to go to a place that would make him feel like shit. I put my car into drive, knowing then where I’m heading. It only takes me about ten minutes to cover the few miles to his family’s old apartment, where he lived throughout high school.
It’s after eleven p.m., and this isn’t the kind of neighborhood where people hang around outside after dark. I pull up against the curb and scan the weather-worn building. I wonder if Rick still lives here. God, I hope not. I’m not sure what Kellan would do to him right now.
Next to the building, off to the side and illuminated by a single light is a small playground that I feel like I could get tetanus just from looking at. But I see one of the swings moving, a hulking figure shifting back-and-forth.
When I get out of the SUV, I’m hit with an icy blast of cold air. I love this man, but of course he couldn’t be tending his wounds in a place with heat. And like the glutton for punishment that he is, I see that he’s only wearing a hoodie over his dress clothes from earlier tonight.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” he asks when I’m within a few feet of him.
I answer him honestly. “I’m not sure.”
He looks up and finally meets my stare with tortured eyes. “But you’ve known this whole time? Since I walked into your office in October.”
I nod. “And my dislike of you was real and immediate, when I thought that you were still that person. But you aren’t, Kellan. I know what you did when we were younger, but that’s not who you are.” I take a step closer, wishing that I could touch him. “And once I saw that…”
He cradles his head in his hands. “What do you want from me, Wells? To torture me? Did you want to make me fall in love with you so that you could smash my heart into a million pieces?”
God, that feels awful to hear. My response is immediate as I take another step closer.
“Kellan, no. That’s not at all what this was.
I figured I’d make your life difficult in the academic sense and try to push you around a little bit as payback for when we were younger but I never expected…
” I’m struggling to find the right words, but I realize that Kellan has already given them to me.
“I never expected to fall in love with you either. The dumbest thing I’ve done since I met you is try so hard to fight it. ”
“So, that’s what your whole hot and cold thing was about? I knew that you hated that you were into me. I just didn’t realize how deep it went…” He’s so beaten down, but I refuse to let him think that us coming together was a bad thing.
“Can you stand up and look at me, Kellan? It’s my turn to be brave for both of us now.
” I wait until he stands up from the swing, and I close the couple inches of space between us so that I can hold his head in my hands.
I look at him when I say, “We both just said ‘I love you’ to the other for the first time, and I’m not going to let that go unmentioned. ”
He’s still silent, but I can wait him out.
This is too important to push him while he’s processing everything.
Finally, he speaks, and I, for the first time, understand the true meaning of waiting on baited breath.
“I do love you, but god… what I did to you when we were kids? I was fucking awful, Wells. I’m disgusted with myself.
I can’t believe that I ever hurt you like that.
I can’t believe that I ever hurt anyone like that. What does that say about me?”
I run my finger along his cheek. “It says that you’re a good person who got a little lost along the way.
” After what I know about him now. What he’s gone through.
The love and care and devotion that he gives to others.
He’s incredible because of what he’s been through and how he’s grown as a person, not in spite of it.
“I’m in love with you, Kellan. Whether you end up across the country as some hotshot rookie or whether you decide to become car salesman of the year at a local dealership. ”
He lets me wipe away a rogue tear in his eye at the same time he says, “What about London?”
“Besides the fact that my dad’s a complete asshole and I’m pretty sure what I said to him when you left has officially closed that door, I have one really big problem with London.”
Finally, I see the smallest hint of a smile work across his lips, and it’s a beautiful sight. “And what’s that?”
“They don’t care nearly enough about hockey.”
He leans forward then and kisses me then, and it feels like coming home.
His perfect lips. The cold mingling with the warmth of his cheeks.
The stubble on his jaw that makes every brush against my face electric.
Our breath is coming out in visible puffs when we finally pull back, and he rests his forehead against mine. “I love you, too, for the record.”
I smile. “I know. And I also know that you’re the one who got us here.”
He gives me a matching grin. “So, you’re saying that I’m actually the one in charge?”
I laugh and pull him in closer, our bodies melding together.
I want to touch him everywhere. I can’t get enough of him as my hands are trying to find their way to skin that’s difficult to reach with his layers of clothing.
And it’s so goddamn cold that I can barely feel my nose.
“Can we get out of here? Head back to my apartment?” For as long as I still have it, at least.
He’s standing outside like it’s a beautiful summer day, and it’s clear that he has no plans to move until I give him what he wants. “I need to hear you say it.”
I wrap my arms around his solid torso, loving every second of it. I’d do anything for this man. Give him anything… including power that was never really mine to begin with. Once Kellan came back into my life, it was all his, whether I was willing to accept it or not.
I lean forward and give his bottom lip a playful nip before admitting, “You’re in charge,” because I know with every fiber of my being that he’ll take that responsibility so seriously that there’s not a chance in this world that he’d ever use it to hurt me.