Chapter 17 #2
Jonah shifted. “Sorry, what? He was stalking you?”
I passed a hand down my face. “Yeah. It was silly bullshit at first. Accidentally running into me at the market, texting me and pretending like he was trying to message someone else, then trying to start a conversation. When I blocked his number, he got a burner, and it kept going.” I dug my fingers into the grass until I felt dirt.
“Then the threats started. He said he had a video of me when I was naked and crying about my limp dick. He kept saying that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d release it to the public. ”
“Oh, what the fuck,” Jonah breathed.
I grimaced. “I didn’t give in, obviously, but he got more…persistent. I thought maybe if I waited it out, he’d get bored and stop texting, but then he, ah…he showed up at the club the boys and I were at after our last game in New York.”
Jonah sucked in a breath. “Are you serious? Did he hurt you?”
“Mm, no. It freaked me out. Badly. But Vanya was there with me. The Glaciers had a game that night too, and he ran Hunter off.”
“Thank fuck. But obviously, it didn’t stop.”
“No,” I whispered. “It got worse. He pretended to be an Uber driver to try and pick me up after a game. Twice. Vanya was there for those too.”
“Holy shit. I can’t believe Vanya didn’t tell Alexio about that shit!”
“I asked him not to,” I confessed. “I thought if I kept ignoring it, he’d go away.”
“Oh my god. You are smarter than that, Micah! You know guys like him don’t—”
“I know,” I snapped, more harshly than he deserved because he was right.
I did know better. I softened. “I know. But I was freaked-out, and I knew if he released the video, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
I can barely handle life right now as it is.
I didn’t know how to fix it without ruining everything. ”
Jonah was quiet for a while. I heard him shift a few times, heard a few bits of grass being pulled from the ground.
Then he took a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?
Not just about this guy, but about the other stuff too?
Every time I made jokes about you…every time I told people you were, well, not the way you are, why didn’t you correct me? ”
I bit my lip hard enough that it stung, and then I let it go. “It was easier to let everyone think that.”
“Even me?” He was hurt, and I felt even worse now.
“If I told you the truth,” I answered softly, “you’d want to punch anyone and everyone in the face who called me a slut. You wouldn’t have been able to keep any of it a secret.”
“I…yes. Okay.” Jonah let out the smallest laugh. “You’re probably right.”
“Not probably. You would have fought for my honor, then everyone would have to know that I was some guy who’d only fucked like two people, who couldn’t get hard—”
“If there’s nothing wrong with living in your slut era, there’s nothing wrong with the other side too,” Jonah said, cutting me off. “And there’s no shame in what happened to you, Micah. None of that was your fault. You know that, right?”
I knew he was right. About all of it. My therapist had been saying those same words for years.
But he also didn’t have to live with the weight of it.
He understood what it felt like to be infantilized and mistreated, laughed at and used like some kind of experiment by people with a disability fetish.
But he didn’t know what it was like to have his power taken away.
To be pinned down. To be gagged and laughed at and made to feel entirely helpless.
He didn’t know what it was like to carry that with him and to let it shape every fucking experience after.
To relieve it every time someone touched him.
My relationship to sex, and to my body, would always be different thanks to that.
I’d found Vanya, and he made me feel good. He made sex feel safe. But being with him hadn’t changed me. It hadn’t made me into a different person. I knew deep down there would be days where I couldn’t give Vanya what he wanted.
That my body would still just…not perform in the way I wanted it to. I wasn’t going to be some raging, horny hockey player ready to fuck Vanya anytime he wanted. And Vanya didn’t let me feel like I was wrong or broken. He gave me the space to give and take what I needed.
“Micah? Tell me you know that?” Jonah asked.
I realized I hadn’t said anything. “No. No, I do, but…I’m still struggling, okay?
And I didn’t think I could handle trying to deal with everyone’s questions, and their apologies, and all that other bullshit.
And I know for goddamn sure that I will not be able to handle the world knowing personal things about me if he releases that video. ”
“So we make sure he doesn’t release the video,” Jonah said, like it was that simple. Like it was just some thing I hadn’t thought of.
“It’s not that easy. He’s dangerous,” I said.
Jonah cleared his throat. “Dangerous how?”
“He’s unpredictable.” I began to shake again at the thought of what he did to my house. To the average person, they might have seen it as some ridiculous prank, but I knew for a fact Hunter didn’t.
He knew what he was doing.
He knew how badly that would ruin me. He knew how that would destroy what little safety I felt in my own home.
“Micah—”
“The truth is, I don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s progressed to breaking into my place and rearranging everything.”
Jonah swallowed thickly. “What?” The word came out a ragged whisper. “What do you mean rearranging everything?”
Pressing my hands over my face, I took in a ragged breath.
“He moved my kitchen table like eight inches. He rearranged every single thing in my kitchen and peeled all my talking pen labels off my stuff. He put my couch on a different wall, he put my bed in the center of the room and moved my dresser. I didn’t get as far as the bathroom before I lost it, but I can only imagine what he did in there. ”
“I will kill him.” Jonah’s voice was shaking. I heard him swallow so thickly it clicked in his throat. “I will flay him alive.”
“He’s not worth the prison sentence, Jonah. I promise you, he’s not.”
Jonah was silent for a moment, and then his hand found mine. He squeezed my fingers gently, and when he loosened them, he didn’t let go. “I’m still pissed at you. I’m pissed at you for last year for not telling me this shit was going on back then, before it got this bad.”
“I know—”
“I’m pissed at you for acting like an ass instead of just coming clean so we could help you.”
“Jonah—”
“I’m pissed as fuck that you let me say all that shit about you and sex for all these years…”
“In my defense,” I said, cutting him off, “you didn’t actually have to say all that shit about me and sex.
That was your choice. Even if I was fucking anyone who crossed my path, you didn’t have to help make it my whole identity.
” Now my voice was trembling because the truth was, even if everyone knew, it was too late.
I was the fuckboy of the PPHL. My reputation had been started by me, fueled by everyone else, and embraced by the fans. I didn’t want to have a big coming-out moment. I didn’t want to do a bunch of fucking PSAs.
I didn’t want to have to explain to everyone I knew that they got it all wrong because that sounded exhausting and maybe even worse than enduring the snide comments and bad jokes about my dick.
Jonah cleared his throat and removed his hand from mine. “I thought…I thought you didn’t care.”
“I didn’t. Not always. At first, it was like a mask, you know? It’s getting harder to handle it now.”
“I’ll stop, but everyone else…”
“I know. And I know I need to fix it. I guess I just…” I raked both hands back through my hair on a ragged sigh. “I guess I want to be able to choose when I talk to people about it. I don’t want to have to make a panic statement because that dickhead released a video about me.”
Jonah’s next breath was ragged. “Hear me out: I know prison sucks, but he won’t be able to release shit if we kill him.”
I couldn’t help a small laugh. “Yeah. But even leaning on the whole disabled thing, we’ll probably have to serve a long time, and we’d definitely get kicked out of the PPHL.”
Though, now that I said that aloud, not playing hockey ever again didn’t sound like the worst idea. And that was…new. Or maybe not new, but I was definitely acknowledging it for the first time.
My stomach twisted.
“Anyway…”
“Who are you staying with?” Jonah asked. “Obviously, you’re not going back to that place. I mean, you have to fucking sell it now and move.”
I was grateful he couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks as heat crept up into my face. “Ah. Well…I mean, I’m staying here—”
“You and I both know you’re not staying with Caleb unless you have to. He’s a fucking pain in the ass.”
He was. He’d been hospitable as much as he was willing to be, but I could tell he was ready for me to get the fuck out. And I could go back to Vanya’s, but that was another bag full of angry hornets I didn’t want to open.
He was making me feel things.
He was making me want things.
He was giving me everything I hadn’t realized I’d needed, and I was pretty sure he’d marry me tomorrow if I asked him to. But I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t be complete and utter poison to him.
“Micah, if you’re sleeping on a fucking park bench,” Jonah started, dragging me out of my thought spiral.
“No. I’m figuring it out, okay?” I tried not to snap at him, but I couldn’t help it. I was anxious and tired, and there was a house full of my friends who were demanding answers. And I had to tell them something. “What should I tell the boys when we go inside?”
Jonah sighed loudly. “Nothing. Everything. It’s your choice. I’m sorry I pushed you into a corner on this, but you’re my best fucking friend and my brother, and things were supposed to get better after we talked, and they didn’t. I shouldn’t have forced your hand, but…I was scared.”
“It was a dick move, but I think I needed someone to push me.” Jonah was the only person I’d admit that to. “When you and Alexio first started your thing, I wasn’t ready to face how bad I knew my life was going to get. I think I’m ready to admit I need help.”
Which meant telling the people I loved.
Which meant coming clean with pretty much everything.
“I’ll go with you,” Jonah said quietly.
“You’re such a nosy fucking bitch,” I said as we climbed to our feet. “You just want to hear what everyone says.”
He burst into laughter and swayed into me as his cane found the path, and I let him guide us back toward the house. “Yeah, but that’s part of my charm.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, bud, sure. It’s all charm.”
He said nothing, but I knew he was smiling, and in spite of all the chaos, it warmed me to know that at least one of my brothers was actually happy.
The talk went as well as I expected, and better than I’d feared it would. It came with a lot of apologies for the things people had said over the years and stumbled questions about why I’d let them all believe the lies about me.
Jonah attempted to shame them for giving me shit about being slutty when slut shaming was wrong, and after what felt like some after-school PSA about verbal bullying, we moved on to the topic of Hunter and what to do next.
“Well, I have rope and an SUV,” Tucker said.
“And I’m a lawyer,” Killian added. “I can’t defend us all, but I know people.”
I held up both hands. “Boys, seriously. No. We’re not going to murder him.”
After a quiet beat, Amedeo asked, “What is your plan? You can’t possibly allow this man to torment you for the rest of your life. I mean, he’ll probably get bored after a while, but not before he’ll cause you more pain.”
He really was the sweetest fucking guy.
“I don’t know. I need a moment to gather my thoughts and to figure out what to do with my condo.
Obviously, I’m going to put it on the market and talk to someone about how I can get a residence that’s not, you know, listed or whatever.
” I ran a hand down my face in frustration.
“Which is going to take forever, but I can do some long-term rental, and—”
“Micah.”
My head turned toward Jonah. “Mm?”
“I’m getting frantic messages from Vanya. He says he needs to see you right now.”
“Christ on a cracker.” I leaned to the side, feeling for my phone, which I’d left on silent. I had to deal with him. They were supposed to be back from their roadie today, and while he’d left me alone the entire time they were gone, I knew I’d have to face him eventually. “Tell him to call—”
Before I could get my words out, my phone began to buzz, and I knew it was him. I took a breath and prepared myself to answer it, trying to come up with some kind of code so I didn’t give us away.
Though by their silence, they probably all had some idea by now.
“Vanya?”
“Where are you? Is very serious,” he said. There was something in his voice. Something like…fear? Maybe anger?
“What’s wrong?”
“He was at my house,” Vanya said. It took me a moment to realize who “he” was.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he was at my house. Is destroyed. Two floors flooded, third-floor walls ruined. He leave a note behind.”
Holy fucking fuck. “Vanya—”
“So I go by yours again and is the same. Ruined.”
The blood in my veins went ice-cold. “Where are you right now?”
“In car. Coming to you. Where you are at?”
“Caleb’s,” I said quietly.
“Am five minutes away. Be there soon.”
The line went dead. There was no tenderness in his tone this time. No kindness. No sign of him having missed me or wanting to see me. He was angry.
He blamed me.
And it was just as well. If I’d handled Hunter the right way a long time ago, Vanya wouldn’t be in this mess.
This was all entirely my fault.