Chapter 17
17
GAVIN
T he heat was unbearable.
I had no idea who I was or where I was. I just knew I was being burned alive.
And then, like a switch had been flipped, it all came rushing back to me in a jarring tangle of memories and awful emotions that made my stomach turn.
But the medication I was taking was doing something, because now when I woke up, when I came back to reality, I didn’t feel the undercurrent of apathy that had hummed through my veins for years. I didn’t wake up with an all-consuming numbness that was quickly overshadowed by self-hatred and a sickening, gut-churning remorse. They were still there, but the intensity had lessened.
I was still angry, though. And I wasn’t sure all that remorse would ever fade.
I blinked my eyes open and immediately fixed them on the big arm over my chest.
No. I was dreaming.
But the light puffs of breath above my ear were real. The press of his expanding chest into my arm as he inhaled was real. The heat of him, the weight of him. Real.
And the way he smelled…
Fuck.
Being with him like this felt like a distant memory that was coming sharply into focus.
I turned my head and found myself staring at his Adam’s apple, then dragged my eyes down to the hollow at the base of his throat, then over his partially exposed clavicle.
My heart was knocking against my ribcage, pumping all the blood it could to my dick.
Fuck.
I turned my head away from him.
I fucked up.
I fucked up while I was fucked up.
I knew I was fucking up, even as I was doing it, and I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
Beck Bowman had gotten under my skin, and I couldn’t get him out.
For the past three weeks, I’d been closer to Beck than I had in ten years, and it was fucking with me. It was reawakening all these fucking feelings that I thought I’d excised from my soul.
Apparently not. Apparently everything that I’d endured with my dad hadn’t changed a thing. It had only put a thin sheet of paper over a boiling geyser that was just waiting to burst.
I was getting hard around him now. All the time. Whenever he touched me, whenever his hands lingered just a little too long, whenever his face came just a little too close, whenever he laughed at something, whenever he looked at me.
He was the only person who’d ever looked at me like that. Like I had more to offer than just disappointment.
He was giving me all his attention, and I didn’t deserve it, but that didn’t stop me from letting him. It didn’t stop me from wanting it. From greedily taking it, soaking it up like I’d been starved of sunlight ever since he’d moved away.
I wasn’t handling it well. I needed an escape. I needed a distraction. I needed to just not think about Beck fucking Bowman for ten fucking minutes!
So. I’d taken a few extra painkillers, and then I’d really fucked up.
God, I was a fucking mess.
For three weeks, he’d been breaking down my walls with a sledgehammer, hitting them over and over and over again until they started to fracture, until it was beginning to feel like maybe he actually wanted me here. Maybe he really did want to help me because it was me. Maybe he could help me.
He was such a comforting presence that I knew, when he was around, everything would be okay. Because Beck would handle it. Beck could handle it.
But he was also distracting, and I hated the constant stream of thoughts that kept swimming through my head when I was around him.
Which was all the fucking time.
So yesterday, I paid close attention to where he went after he got my pills out and when he put them away. He had such a heavy step that it wasn’t hard to follow the sound of him moving through the house. I heard him go out toward the front, heard a door shut.
The only door on the main level that wasn’t the front door or the basement door belonged to the foyer closet. So I waited until he was in the shower, and then I searched that closet and found them in one of his boots.
I only took three. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice, and maybe he still didn’t know, but I was sure he did, with the way I’d acted.
I asked him to jerk me off.
I called him Becky and begged him to never leave me again.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck .
I’d been sitting on that shower floor, waiting and waiting and waiting for him, the fear that he’d abandoned me again mounting higher with each passing minute he didn’t show.
The humiliation and the shame over what I’d done would never go away. But there were other emotions swirling in that terrible mix. This great, awful fear that he would leave me again was like a black hole drawing me into its gaping maw, and there was nothing I could do to stop it or escape it. Nothing to hold onto.
Except Beck.
And despite every twisted up thing going through my mind, the strongest feeling of all was relief that he was holding onto me now. There was a security in being wrapped up in him that couldn’t be compared to anything I’d ever felt in my entire life.
It was like I’d been holding my breath for ten years and could finally let it go.
I used to be the one that would hold him. I used to be the one that would pull him into my chest and curl myself around him. Until college, I’d always been bigger than Beck. When he had nightmares about finding his dad—which was a lot, in those early years—I’d climb into his bed and hold him until he fell back asleep, sometimes telling him stories, sometimes humming a song while I played with his curls. I would stay there with him until morning. It had never felt wrong, doing that. For so many years, we only had each other.
Until one day, he was just gone. The only thing I had left of him were my memories, and even those started to fade over time, despite how desperately I clung to them.
I looked down at his arm again, at the hand that was loosely wrapped around my ribcage. I could feel him pressed against my hip, could feel his dick even through the blanket because he was always wearing those fucking sweatpants.
I’d only ever had moments like this in my dreams. But then I would wake up alone.
A knock at the door made me jolt, and I shut my eyes and pretended I was still sleeping. My heart started to race, a surge of panic making me want to jump up and put as much distance between Beck and myself as possible because what if it was my dad, what if?—
“Beck?”
Anya’s soft voice drifted over to me and I didn’t realize that I’d tensed up every muscle until I relaxed into the bed.
“Crap,” she whispered. I heard light footsteps on the carpet, and then she said, “Beck. Wake up.”
Beck shifted beside me, momentarily pressing his dick into me a little more, and fuck. A wave of heat rolled down my spine and sparked in my balls. “Mm,” he hummed. I felt the vibration of it through his chest against my arm, heard his long inhale.
“Your phone keeps going off, I don’t know if it’s important or not. And the food’s ready,” Anya whispered. “And why are you cuddling him? Are you guys, like…you know.”
Fuck.
“Fuck,” Beck murmured near my ear, raising goosebumps on my arms. I felt him start to move, the heavy weight of his arm sliding across my chest until his broad palm was over my sternum.
And then it was gone, and then he was gone, sliding off the bed to follow Anya out the door.
And, like they’d been waiting for his retreat, all that despair and remorse slithered right back inside with an intensity that had me rolling onto my stomach and burying my face in the pillow.
It smelled like him. Stupid ocean breezes and dumb fucking sunsets.
I needed to get over this and get out of here. It was fucking with me too much. Beck was something I could never have, I knew that, and it was a cruel twist of fate that I was stuck with him now.
I had to leave, to go back to the homeless shelter, go back to my life before Beck found me. That was where I belonged. Because this life…it wasn’t meant for me.
I was never meant to have someone like Beck, and I would only make his life harder. I was a fucking burden, and he was too nice to say that. He was too nice to ever kick me to the curb, so I would just have to do it myself.
I still felt a little sluggish from the pills, but I pushed myself up anyway. Beck had left my crutches by the nightstand, thank fuck. I needed to put some clothes on first, though.
I grabbed the crutches and made my unsteady way to his dresser, pulled out some socks, sweats, and a long-sleeved shirt and sat back on the bed to dress. I left the extra sock on top of the covers.
How the fuck was I going to get out of here without him noticing?
I looked over at the windows and the bushes right outside them, then glanced at the door. It was wide open. If I closed and locked it, that might give me a head start.
Or Beck would just break it down like the behemoth he was.
Fuck the door.
I moved to one of the three windows and pulled the blinds up, unlocked it, then shoved it open. Popped the screen out as quietly as I could. It clattered against the side of the house before I could catch it, and I stopped to listen. To see if Beck had heard.
No footsteps charged down the hall, so I balanced on one foot while pushing the crutches out the window, then brought my bad foot up and over the ledge until it was hanging out. I was able to get my other leg out, then slid to the ground while picking the crutches back up.
Fuck yes.
Squeezing through two bushes over mulch on crutches wasn’t easy, but I did it without falling on my face, and then I was wobbling across the front yard, and by the time I reached the sidewalk, a resolute calm had settled over me.
Beck lived kind of far from the homeless shelter, but it was fine. I could probably make it there before it got too dark. Or too cold.
I hoped.
Fuck, was I finally free? I glanced back, and Beck’s house was five houses away now. No sign of Beck yet.
Maybe he wouldn’t even come after me.
I wanted to be happy about that possibility, but the only emotion it stirred up was a soul-deep disappointment, and I fucking hated that.
Fuck Beck, fuck my foot, and fuck me .
And fuck, I was out of shape. I’d barely even made it down the street and I was out of breath, my armpits felt bruised already, and my good leg was shaking.
Jesus Christ, could I get any more pathetic?
The farther I walked, the more it was sinking in what I was doing. What I would be depriving myself of. What I’d be walking back into.
I didn’t give a shit about the depression meds, but it was too bad I couldn’t take the painkillers with me.
Whatever. I’d endured worse.
When I made it to the end of the street, I glanced back again, and did a double take when I saw Beck stalking down the sidewalk.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said, my stomach turning over. I ignored the relief—the excitement —that started humming through my chest, faced forward again, and moved even faster—which wasn’t very fast at all. It was pretty pointless, honestly, and I knew that. Didn’t stop me from trying to get away, though.
“Gavin!” he called. Oh, he sounded mad . Really fucking mad.
“Shit,” I panted, hobbling even faster. At this point, I was just being a stubborn bastard.
Someone was walking their dog across the street and had slowed down, glancing back and forth between me and Beck, watching this car crash in slow motion.
Fuck off, rubbernecker.
“Gavin,” Beck growled, and shit, he was right behind me.
So I stopped and swung one of my crutches at him.
Of course he swatted it out of the way, like it was a fly. It landed in the grass of someone’s front yard.
“Fuck off, Beck! Just leave me alone!” Now I was just holding onto one crutch with both hands, trying to stay upright.
Beck grabbed the front of my shirt— his shirt—and got in my face. His eyes were pinched at the corners, his lips drawn back from his teeth as he berated me. “You are a fucking child. Where did you think you were going, huh? How far did you think you could make it on crutches with no shoes? No money? No meds? No food? What are you fucking thinking?”
That’s right. Remind the man who had nothing just how much nothing he had.
“Fuck. You,” I seethed. “I don’t want to stay with you anymore. I don’t want your pity and I don’t want your help. I can do this on my own.”
His jaw was clenched so tightly that a muscle was jumping in his cheek. My eyes were drawn to it, to the clean-shaven skin, then up to the birthmark near his eye. I always thought it looked like Italy.
“No, you can’t,” he said, the anger fading a bit, something soft in his eyes as he stared into mine. “And I don’t actually believe that you want to leave.”
Oh, that pissed me off. Because what the fuck did he know? I snapped my head forward and bashed my forehead into his nose, making my vision wink out as he yelled.
I was still seeing stars when he grabbed me, but I struggled against his hold, kneed him in the gut, and then we both fell hard onto the sidewalk.
“You fucking—stop!” he gritted out. And in about two seconds, he had one giant leg over my shoulder from behind, pushing it against my neck, and then slid an arm under that leg until he locked his hand onto his opposite wrist around my neck. He started pulling back with his arms, pushing forward with his leg, causing an unbearable pressure on my chest and neck that made me want to tap out.
He’d put me in a fucking Koji clutch.
“You son of a bitch. I taught you that fucking move,” I wheezed out, trying to rip his hand away from his wrist and break his hold.
“Yeah, thanks,” he growled.
“Is everything okay?” someone called.
The fucking rubbernecking dog walker.
“Everything’s fine, Mrs. Grady!” Beck shouted back. “We’re just practicing!”
“Hel—” Beck pulled and pushed even harder, shutting me right the fuck up.
“Okay, well…if you say so,” Mrs. Grady said with a healthy amount of doubt.
“Yep, have a nice evening!” Beck said.
I reached up with my free arm, grabbing Beck’s calf and trying to shove him off me. “Stop,” I panted. “Stop, I can’t breathe.”
He fell for it and let go of me immediately.
He was way too fucking nice.
I shoved his leg away and punched him in the back of the thigh. I only got one in before he grabbed my wrist and hauled it back, scissored his legs on my arm, and pulled up.
A fucking arm bar now?
“You asshole,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“I will break your fucking arm,” he ground out. I believed him, but I also didn’t, and part of me wanted to test his limits. See how far he would go. How far I would go.
I honestly wasn’t sure where my limits were these days.
I tapped his leg twice and said, “Okay. Okay, I’ll stop.”
He pulled up just a little more, making me think for a split second that he really would break my arm, then let me go. I shoved his legs off me and just lay there, panting and staring up at the clouds. The sun was starting to set, so they were a little orange. A little red.
I could see Beck out of the corner of my eye, just sitting beside me with one leg bent at the knee, his forearm resting on his thigh as he breathed heavily.
“Anya made your favorite,” he said between breaths.
“My favorite what?”
“Food. Chicken parm.”
I looked over at him. His face was turned toward me, his head resting on his arm. He looked tired, and not from just now. There was a tiny bit of blood coming out of his left nostril.
My chest tightened, and then I turned my head so I could look up at the sky again. “Sounds good,” I conceded.
“Good,” he said, pushing to stand. He gathered my crutches, then held his hand out to me. With a sigh, I took it, letting him pull me up. He handed me my crutches and neither one of us said a word as we walked back to the house.
“So you were Beck’s teammate?” Anya looked at me expectantly. We were all sitting at the kitchen table, like we were a fucking family or something.
When she’d asked me the other day what my favorite meal was, my initial response was eat shit . But she was just as annoyingly persistent as Beck, maybe even more so, and wouldn’t leave me alone until I told her.
I hadn’t eaten chicken parm in a long time, and this might be the best I’d ever had. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“Yup,” I said, glancing at Beck. He’d inhaled his food, as usual, and was leaning back in his chair, one hand resting on the table, one arm slung over the back of the empty chair beside him as he watched me.
I was surprised he’d never told her about me. I was also hurt, but I tried to ignore that. I was still pissed at the bastard for making me sit down at the table with them. They liked to eat together, and I wanted no part of it. Except he’d told me I couldn’t have any of the food if I didn’t sit with them.
So here I was.
“What was jail like?” Anya had her elbows propped on the table and was resting her chin on her hands now. Christ, she had no tact. Or maybe her curiosity just overrode everything when it was at the helm.
“Anya,” Beck warned.
“Jail fucking sucked, that’s what it was like. You’re stuck in a tiny cell with another person, you have no privacy, sometimes there’s toilet paper, sometimes there’s not, you eat food that tastes worse than shit, and there’s nothing to do. Anything else you wanna know?” I shoveled another forkful of chicken into my mouth and tried not to moan. It was so fucking good.
“Yeah, what?—”
“Anya, come here,” Beck said, pushing back from the table to stand.
“But I?—”
“Now, Anya.” He walked out of the room as she grumbled, shoving her chair back and following him.
I could hear them whisper-shouting in the family room.
Jesus, this sucked. Where the hell were her parents? Where was Beck’s mom? Why was Beck stuck taking care of a teenage girl?
Anya trudged back into the kitchen with a pout on her face, Beck right behind her.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked him.
He glanced at Anya, and they shared a look that made me feel like an outsider. Well, I was an outsider. But I hated the jealous current running through me right now.
“She left,” he said tightly.
“Ah,” I said. “Where’d she go?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s me and Anya now, and we’re good.”
“Yeah, she just wanted to go drink all the time with her loser boyfriend,” Anya supplied, and Beck groaned.
“Goddammit, Anya. What did we literally just talk about ten seconds ago?”
“Well he asked where she went and you didn’t really give a good answer!” She threw her hands up, as if she was fed up with him.
“So how can you afford to live in a house like this?” I asked.
“For fuck’s sake,” Beck muttered.
“My dad died, left me the house and a lot of money. I would trade it all in a heartbeat if it meant I could have him back, but…” Anya shrugged. But I could see the sadness written in every line on her face, and I felt bad for her. “Anyway, I’m glad we got to stay here.”
Beck was hanging his head in his hands. I kicked his foot under the table, and he snapped his head up to glare at me. “Can you get me more chicken,” I said, pushing my plate toward him. I’d get it myself, but it wasn’t exactly possible to hold a plate and use crutches.
“I’ll get it?—”
“No,” he growled, keeping Anya in her seat with just a look. His eyes flashed back to mine. “If you say please.”
Fuck. This. Guy.
Fuck him so so so so much.
I rolled my lips between my teeth as I stared into his eyes. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to give him what he wanted. But I really wanted more chicken, goddammit.
He stared at me. I stared back.
“Say please, princess,” he said. Anya giggled.
I was going to kill him.
“Please,” I said through clenched teeth.
Beck didn’t smirk at me, didn’t act smug like I thought he would. His eyes softened and he gave me a small smile that zapped me right in the heart.
“One or two pieces?” he asked as he took my plate and got up.
“Two,” I said.
I watched him walk that big body to the island counter, his shirt straining over the muscles in his back and shoulders.
His strength and physique made me feel like shit about myself, honestly. I’d lost so much of my own muscle mass that it was like looking at a stranger in the mirror. I hated it.
When Beck was walking toward me, my gaze was drawn to the obvious bulge of his dick in his sweatpants, and I swallowed hard before ripping my eyes off him.
He came and stood right beside me. I reached for the plate, but he pulled it away.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Thank you,” I grated out.
He slid the plate in front of me and sat back down.
The food was worth the humiliation.
After dinner, I sat on the couch for a while. I was just staring at the TV, not really watching anything when Beck came in and sat next to me. He didn’t say anything for a long time, just sat with me, so when he finally spoke it startled me.
“What happened today was my fault, and I’m sorry,” he said softly, shocking me to my core. I whipped my head toward him, stunned. What the fuck was he apologizing for? Everything that happened was my fault, not his. Jesus, he was way too good for this world.
I had been terrified all evening that he would bring up what I did. What I said. I wanted to forget it ever happened, forget that I’d acted like a desperate whore as I begged him to touch me.
To never leave me.
My throat felt too thick, and I curled my hands into fists.
Maybe I could just apologize and be done with it. Maybe then he wouldn’t bring it up.
Fuck.
I licked my lips and said, “Don’t be fucking stupid. It wasn’t your fault, Beck. I’m the one who took those pills. I’m?—”
Shit. I couldn’t say the word.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” I finished, staring at the coffee table.
He sighed. “You’re at a really delicate point right now and I shouldn’t have left them?—”
“Oh, fuck you! Delicate,” I spat, turning to face him now. “Stop trying to take the blame for things that aren’t your fault. Jesus Christ, always a fucking martyr. It was me who took the pills. It was me who did that. Not you. And it’s me who will fuck up again and again and again. Never you.”
Beck’s eyes were taking in every inch of my face as I went on my tirade, and by the end of it I was seriously hot and breathing raggedly.
“Why did you do it?” he asked quietly.
I was not about to share that with him. Ever. I said nothing and leaned back into the cushions, letting my head fall back.
“All right,” he conceded. “You know…you can talk to me, Gavin. You don’t have to carry everything you’re going through alone. And I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you never let me. I don’t know how to get through to you, or how to make this better. I wish you would just let me help you.”
“So your mom ditched you, huh?” I said.
I was the world’s biggest piece of shit, and unfortunately, Beck had stepped in me.
My skin began crawling with hot shame as soon as I said it, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself. Beck’s words were like acid, burning through the walls I’d put up and I couldn’t let him see that there was nothing behind them.
That I was nothing.
He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, there wasn’t anger and exasperation like I’d been expecting. His tone was almost solemn as he said, “I know you just do that when you’re feeling uncomfortable or hurting, so I’ll give you a pass this time. But you don’t have to keep attacking me when you get overwhelmed. I’m not ever gonna snap back or deliberately hurt you, Gavin. You’re safe with me.”
He sighed as I struggled to breathe. “And yeah, she left us. After Anya’s dad died, her addiction got worse and there was barely any of her left. She took off with some guy she met online a few years later, so now it’s just me and Anya.” He paused, then added, “And you, I guess.”
Then he got up and left the room.
I felt like maybe I might start crying, so I grabbed my crutches and ran away to the bedroom.
The way Beck could see right past every front I put up was disturbing. Terrifying. But he’d always been able to see me, hadn’t he?
And knowing Beck wasn’t living this happy, normal life like I’d imagined all this time was not the consolation I thought it would be.
Beck was right, earlier. I didn’t really want to leave. Being here had provided a level of stability that I hadn’t had in years, and it eased this anxiety I didn’t even realize was constantly with me. I was always on alert at the homeless shelter, always on the defensive. I’d been like that ever since going to jail, really. Probably even earlier than that.
And he was right again when he said I couldn’t do this on my own. I’d been trying for years and look where it’d gotten me.
So, no. I didn’t want to leave the comfort of Beck’s house. I just wanted to escape myself and everything he was making me feel.
Except I wasn’t sure I’d ever get away from that.