Thirty-Four
Phoenix
April
I lean against the threshold of Kason’s doorway and watch him tap away at his keyboard while sitting at his desk. Probably working on a paper, if I had to guess, even though his workload isn’t knowledge I’m privy to anymore.
We’ve barely spoken in the past three weeks since the blow-up in Nashville, although not for my lack of effort. Even though I have no clue what I could say to make my deceit sting any less, especially since I’m still trying to do everything I can to make it right.
But he’s made it perfectly clear he has little to no interest in talking to me right now.
His opting to stay home after the incident at the St. Seb’s game for spring break—a decision not made lightly—should have been my first clue that the silence between us wouldn’t just get better with time.
It was a fool’s wish to think a little time apart would do the trick, and I knew that.
But damn if I didn’t hope he’d return from Nashville with even an ounce of forgiveness.
But nope. Since the break, he’s either not home when he knows I am or stays holed up in his room with the door locked on the off chance we’ll be there at the same time.
I know, because I knock and wait to see if he’ll talk to me. Every night, only to be ignored and walk away empty-handed.
That is, until tonight.
Tonight, I got home from practice to find his door wide open, and that could mean one of two things: he’s ready to attempt a conversation…or he didn’t realize the time and forgot to close it before I made it home.
I’m really hoping it’s the first.
“You got a second?” I hedge, the words nearly getting caught in my throat.
His shoulders stiffen and fingers freeze over the keys, and my stomach drops at the sight.
There’s never been a time he’s reacted to me this way before.
Even in the worst of our fights over the years.
But all hope must not be lost, because rather than telling me to get fucked or kick rocks or any other variation of that sentiment, he turns in his chair and faces me.
There’s a hollowness to his expression, and it’s one I know well. It’s the one when you feel like you’re missing a vital part of your happiness. It’s the same one I’ve been wearing these past few weeks too.
“I guess, yeah.” He clears his throat before nodding toward his bed. “You can sit if you want.”
The tiniest bit of relief starts seeping through the anxiousness wreaking havoc on my nervous system. A minuscule amount, but it’s still there as I cross the room and sit on the edge of his bed.
I roll my tongue along the inside of my cheek, searching for words to convey my thoughts and feelings. Anything to help him understand how and why we ended up here.
But it all falls flat, so I say the only thing I can at this moment.
“I honestly don’t know where to start other than I’m sorry, Kase. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He gives a slow, solemn nod while looking anywhere but at me. “So you’ve said before.”
God, he’s not planning to make this easy. Then again, he could put me through my paces only to tell me to go kick rocks, and it would still be merited.
“Me saying it now versus weeks ago doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Doesn’t mean it makes what you did any less shitty,” he replies dryly.
Only from the way he cocks his head, he’s more confused than anything.
“I just don’t get why . Why keep all the secrets?
Why lie to me? And if you tell me it was because you didn’t want to hurt me… ” He trails off, shaking his head.
“That really was why,” I whisper.
“And I’ve told you time and time again, Phoe, I don’t need a fucking protector.” A hand rakes through his hair as he tries to dial in his frustration. “And in the end, you hurt me worse with all the lies and secrets than by just being with Holden in the first place. You know that, right?”
My teeth scrape over my bottom lip before whispering, “Yeah, I do now.”
“So then tell me why.”
“You want a whole ass list of reasons?” I ask, giving him a wry smirk—anything to lighten the mood, even fractionally.
“I mean…” He trails off and gives me a shrug. “Might as well, at this point.”
With a long exhale, I line out all the shame and embarrassment from the first time Holden and I got together.
My state of mind when it happened, my out-of-character actions, and the fact that he’s Kason’s teammate.
The fact that Holden acted like the whole thing never happened—even if it was because he didn’t know it did.
I put it all on the table for Kason, and when I’m done, all he does is shake his head.
“None of those reasons are good enough for you to have kept it from me, Phoe. And even if you didn’t want to tell me back when it happened, you still should have told me the night you stopped me from going home with him.”
I nod, his point more than valid. “Yeah, maybe I should have. Except by the time the two of you started talking, it kinda felt too late. Months had passed, and it was like my window of opportunity to say, ‘hey, I fucked your teammate after having a shit week’ had closed.”
“So naturally, becoming a human chastity belt was the better option?” he asks, and I don’t miss the hint of a smile on his lips.
“Maybe not, but I honestly was coming at it from mostly pure intentions.” I offer a gentle smile and shrug. “I didn’t want you to feel like I did after sleeping with him the first time. So easily forgotten and discarded. Which, at the time, is exactly what I thought I was to Holden.”
He nods before murmuring, “And that’s exactly why you should have said something.”
“But would you have listened? I mean, really, Kase? Would it have changed your mind?”
Because I don’t think it would have. Kason can be one of the most bull-headed people I know, and from the look on his face at this moment, he knows it too.
He offers me a shrug. “I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
I give him a half-hearted smile as silent understanding passes between us. There’s no way for us to know what could have happened, and we can’t go back and rewrite history to figure it out. All we can do is take what’s happened, learn from it, and move on.
Move forward. Hopefully in the same direction.
“I truly am sorry; I hope you know that.” I rake my fingers through my hair before releasing a long exhale. “But you’re right about one thing; this is bigger than Holden. This is about the toxic codependency we’ve fallen into over the years.”
“I don’t want to be.” A solemn expression crosses Kason’s face, and his head drops to his hands before continuing. “But you said it yourself; you’re my comfort zone. My security blanket. And if this has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t be anymore.”
The same bout of anxiety I’ve been feeling for weeks now starts infiltrating my thoughts all over again.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I mutter. “Not one fucking bit.”
“If we want to salvage this, I think it’s the only way.”
I hate knowing he’s right, considering no part of this feels like the right thing.
“Why does it feel like we’re breaking up right now?”
He lets out a choked laugh and shakes his head.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say breaking up. I don’t want you to think I’m writing you out of my life for this, ‘cause that’s not the case.
But we can’t be like we were, and I do the work I need to do.
Constantly looking to you and having you around isn’t healthy for either of us.
I…need to be on my own, you know? So do you, otherwise we don’t stand a chance at getting past this. ”
“So we’re just…” I pause, searching for the words I need, only to come up empty.
“We’re on a break,” Kason supplies, and I can’t help how my lips curl up in a grin at his Friends reference. After all, it’s one of the many things we bonded over through all the passing years.
“Just don’t go finding a new best friend on this break, okay?”
A second round of soft laughter leaves him, and he shakes his head again. “Not in this lifetime, Phoe.”
Another bout of silence falls between us, this one a lot more comfortable than the last. And though it might take a while for it to happen, I think this will work.
I think we’re gonna be okay, but only if he can get past one crucial thing.
Kason’s eyes study my face, and it’s more than apparent he can still read me like a magazine when he asks, “Why do you look like there’s something else you wanna say?”
Goddamnit.
I know saying what’s on my mind right now is a significant step in the right direction for me. But retraining my brain to put my own priorities first has been a huge learning curve, and this is a perfect example of that.
My fingers trace over the stitching on his bedding, the bumps and ridges offering me a strange sort of comfort when I speak.
“One of the things Holden kept telling me through this whole thing was that I needed to learn how to choose me. Choose who or what makes me happy, you know?” I wet my lips, and a wry laugh slips past them as I lift my gaze to him.
“And though I know you don’t want to hear this, Holden makes me happy, Kase. ”
“So you’re choosing him, after all.”
I’m silent for a moment before I say, “No, I’m choosing me.”
From the way he frowns, he’s not entirely following.
“You’ve always been my number one, but it’s time I’m my own number one, Kase.
” I scrub the back of my neck awkwardly.
“I fell in love with Holden. No matter how much sense it doesn’t make, no matter if it all blows up in my face, I love him.
He looks like the rest of my life, and I’ll never forgive myself if I throw that away. Not for you, not for anyone.”
There are plenty of reactions I’m expecting from Kason at my declaration, and most of them aren’t pleasant. So when a single word comes from his lips, hinted with a smile, I don’t know what to make of it.
“Good.”
I blink at him, almost sure I heard wrong. “I’m sorry?”
“I said good. ”