32. Micah
THIRTY-TWO
MICAH
I’m so screwed.
Colton is sprawled across my bed, hair mussed, lips still kiss-swollen, and my chest feels as if someone’s reached in and fisted my heart and pulled it out.
Last night was supposed to be sex—hot, stupid, revenge-flavored sex.
Then he kissed me slowly this morning as though I was the only guy on earth. And I let him. I fucking let him.
My walls are Swiss cheese now, and the problem with Swiss cheese? One more hole and the whole thing collapses.
I’m not sure when the line blurred.
It wasn’t supposed to. I told myself last night was just…lust. Need. Maybe closure, if that’s a thing we could ever have.
But the second his mouth touched my chest this morning, soft and reverent, it all cracked open.
Colton didn’t just fuck me. He made love to me .
Slow, careful, like every thrust was a confession he couldn’t say out loud. Like he meant every touch to be permanent, something I’d feel long after he pulled out and left. And I did—I felt it. I still feel it now, sinking into my bones, crawling under my skin, a brand I can’t scrub away.
I’m so fucking screwed.
Because I want to keep him. I want to roll over and drag him on top of me again. I want to hear that soft, gasped little sound he made when he came, as though I’d been the only thing in the world that mattered.
Wanting him means giving him the power to ruin me, and I swore I’d never let him do that again.
His fingers are in my hair, warm and slow, and it’s killing me. I can feel him breathing against my neck, still holding me, and pretending we’re something real. My chest feels too tight, my heart pounding in a way that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with him.
I can’t stay here.
My hand slips from his hair to the sheets. I suck in a breath that feels like it scrapes my ribs raw.
“We should…we should get up,” I manage, rough and low.
“Yeah,” he whispers, but he doesn’t move.
When I finally force myself to meet his eyes, it’s a gut punch. He looks at me as if I’m his whole world. Like he already decided what we are.
I can’t let that happen. Not when he’s still half in the closet. Not when he could crush me without meaning to.
“Micah…” he says, and it’s not a question so much as a plea.
“Don’t.” My voice cuts through the room, harsher than I mean it. I swing my legs off the bed, cleaning up before reaching for my boxers like the motion itself can save me. My back is to him, rigid, every muscle straining not to turn around and give in .
“You can’t just—” he starts, and god, I want to.
“I can.” I force the words out flat, even though they slice me open on the way. “We have practice. And we’re late.”
I hear the sheets rustle as he sits up. The loss of his warmth makes me shiver. I pull on my sweats, then my hoodie, my armor, trying to trap the pieces of myself that want to spill out all over him.
When I risk a glance back, he’s watching me.
Messy hair. Flushed lips. Eyes too soft.
And for half a second, I break . I feel every ounce of last night and this morning in my chest—him under me, around me, in me, his whispered yes, the way he made love to me as if he never wanted to stop.
Then I blink, and the wall slams back into place. “We should go,” I mutter, because if I stay another minute, I’ll tell him the truth. That he’s mine. That I’m his. That I don’t know how to stop.
I grab my bag and step into the hall before I can do something stupid, like crawl back into that bed and never leave.
The sun’s brutal out here, and the turf smells of rubber and sweat.
You’d think fall would take the edge off, but it doesn’t.
I’ve run this drill a thousand times, but today I can’t get my legs under me.
Every step feels off, as if my body’s still back in my dorm, tangled in sheets that smell like him.
And my ass is sore from having him inside of me.
It’s a reminder of the morning with every stride.
“Eyes up, Blackman!” Coach’s voice cuts through the fog. I force myself to focus, to catch the ball and pivot, but my che st is a mess of pounding heartbeats and last night’s echoes.
Colton’s across the line, running his own routes like the damn golden boy he is. Except he’s not giving me that usual easy grin. He keeps looking at me . Every time I risk a glance, he’s there—eyes locked, intent, as if he can see every crack in my armor.
I hate him for it. I want him for it.
“Micah!” Caleb barks when I almost miss the snap. He’s on me fast, voice low as we jog back to line up. “You okay, man? You’re playing like you’re concussed.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. My mouth’s dry. My palms sweat inside my gloves. I can still feel him, as if my body doesn’t understand we left my dorm room.
Next play. Ball snaps. I sprint, cleats biting into the turf, and for a second, muscle memory takes over. But then Colton cuts across the field in a blur of white and green, and I swear the world tilts. He catches my eye mid-route, something stubborn and sure in his expression, and my chest seizes.
He’s not letting me bury this.
After the whistle, he jogs up next to me, close enough our arms brush. His voice is low, for me alone. “You gonna ignore me all day?”
I grit my teeth, eyes forward. “We’re at practice.”
“Not what I asked.” His tone is too calm, too even, as though he’s settled into this new game where I’m the only one still running scared.
I pick up the pace, trying to shake him, but he’s fast today. “Colt?—”
“You can push me away later,” he says, voice tight now, “but I ’m not pretending last night didn’t happen. Or this morning.”
His words are a body check. My feet stutter before I catch myself, and I’m glad for the helmet hiding my face. Because I want to snap at him, to tell him to shut up, to keep the wall intact.
But the truth bleeds through the cracks. I don’t want him to stop. I want to see how much he means it this time. I want to know he’s not going to let me fall alone.
Coach’s whistle slices through the air, sharp enough to make me flinch. “Bring it in! That’s it for today. Hydrate and hit the showers—film session tomorrow!”
The team scatters, helmets coming off, voices rising in easy chatter. My pulse is still jacked, but not from the drills. I rip off my helmet, dragging a hand through my sweat-damp hair, trying to force my breathing to even out.
Colton’s shadow falls over me before I can escape. He doesn’t touch me—he doesn’t have to. He just leans close enough that his words are mine alone. “I’m done hiding.”
I swallow, throat dry. “What are you talking about?”
He meets my eyes, that steady gold-brown stare that used to undo me when we were sixteen and is somehow worse now. “I’m telling them. My parents. Everything.”
The ground tilts. “Colt…” I don’t even know what I’m warning him about. The fallout. My heart. Both.
He shrugs, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I’m done living a lie, Micah. I’m not letting them—or you—pretend anymore.”
I try for sarcasm, for the shield I know how to use. “Oh, sure. Just like that, huh? Gonna call Mommy and Daddy tonight and say, ‘Hey, surprise, I’m banging the guy you all think tried to take advantage of me?’ ”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away.
“If that’s what it takes for you to believe me, yeah.
I’ll tell them everything.” He pauses, then adds, “They know you’d never do that, Micah…
they knew it back then, too. It’s why they didn’t stop me from coming clean to the college.
They don’t know the whole story, but the school does…
that’s why they settled that court case and welcomed you back. ”
My chest squeezes so hard it’s almost hard to breathe. I want to believe him. I want it so bad it’s dangerous. But walls are all I’ve had to protect me, and I can feel every brick wobbling under his weight.
And then the words actually register.
They knew you’d never do that, Micah…that’s why they settled that court case and welcomed you back.
I blink at him, the locker room blurring for a second. My brain stutters, tripping over the meaning.
He…told the truth? Before I even came back? Before I could step onto this campus with a plan—no, a mission—to make him hurt the way I did?
The floor shifts under me, and for a second, I swear I might fall. Because if he’s the reason I’m even here —if he made it possible for me to return—then the revenge I’ve been clutching and holding onto like a life raft is just…smoke and lies.
A hollow thing I’ve been hiding behind.
The disbelief comes sharp and fast, like armor snapping into place. No. He’s lying. He has to be lying. Because if he’s not—if he’s been fighting for me this whole time, if he never really abandoned me—then I’ve built the last two years of my life on a story that was never true.
And that kind of truth? It’s the kind that rips a man in half .
I force my face blank, my hands steady on my bag as I pull out a change of clothes, because if I let him see the way the ground is crumbling under me, I’ll shatter right here on the locker room floor.
Colton crouches in front of me, helmet dangling from one hand, hair sweat-messy and eyes blazing. “I mean it, Micah. No more running. From them. From this.”
I lick my lips, fighting for words. For control. For a wall that doesn’t feel the same as Swiss cheese. And for the first time since that first kiss next to the bleachers two years ago, I’m not sure I’ve got either.
The locker room’s half-empty, just a couple of guys peeling off pads and joking around near the far wall. I can feel Colton’s eyes on me even as I strip down to my shorts and head for the showers.
The tile’s cold under my feet, the hiss of water a flimsy shield against my own head. I brace my palms on the wall, letting the heat beat down over my shoulders, and try to breathe.
Because my heart is still thundering, and my brain is a mess of jagged thoughts:
He told the truth.
He made it possible for me to come back.
He didn’t ruin me. I ruined me.