Chapter 30
Rhys — Past
It was April, and things between me and Marcus were sappy and I didn't even care.
We held hands when nobody was watching. We texted all day and half the night.
We spent every free hour at his place or mine, tangled up in each other, losing track of time the way that only happened when you were somewhere you actually wanted to be.
We were in love and it was the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me — best because it was him, worst because I had to pretend every day that it wasn't. Still hidden. Still no end date from him on when that changed.
But I was floating. Genuinely, embarrassingly floating. The kind of happy that made you stupid. The kind that got in your bones before you understood what it was, that rearranged things quietly without asking, that made every ordinary moment feel like it had been lit up from the inside.
I loved him.
Not the easy kind. Not the this is nice, let's see where it goes kind. The kind that made you naive. The kind you didn't see coming until you were already completely inside it and there was no version of you left that existed before it.
I was so naive.
Like I said. Stupid.
The party was at someone's house — one of those off campus places that showed up in a group chat with an address and no other context, thrown by someone none of us probably knew and all of us showed up for anyway.
The kind of party that existed specifically to make you forget you had practice in the morning.
It was a good night.
That was the thing I kept coming back to.
The part that made it worse. It was completely, genuinely a good night.
The team was loose and loud, someone had a good playlist going, the kind that built right without anyone noticing.
People were dancing badly and not caring.
Cups everywhere. The warm press of too many bodies in a space that was a little too small for all of them.
Marcus kept finding excuses to be near me.
That was how it always was in public — we were careful, always careful, but he was magnetic and I was drawn to him like a piece of metal, and we'd developed this whole language of almost. His hand at the small of my back for one second as he moved past me in the crowd.
His mouth near my ear to say something that absolutely could have been said at normal volume.
The way he looked at me from across a room, just for a beat.
Little moments that didn't mean anything to anyone watching and meant everything to me.
I was happy.
Really, actually, completely happy.
We'd had one too many shots by midnight — Marcus's idea, always his idea — and he was drunk and loose beside me, laughing at something someone said, and every few minutes he'd glance over and find me already looking and smile like he couldn't help it. I couldn't help it either.
He leaned close eventually, mouth near my temple.
"Come upstairs with me."
I was already moving before he finished the sentence.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd, laughing the whole time, shushing me every time I laughed too loud. Which made me laugh louder. Which made him grip my hand tighter and hiss Rhys, I mean it while clearly not meaning it at all because he was grinning the entire time.
Up the stairs. Down a hall. First empty room he found.
He pulled me in and closed the door and the party noise dropped to a muffled thud and it was just us and the dark and his hands finding my face immediately, mouth on mine before my eyes even adjusted.
He was different when we were drunk. Freer.
Less careful. He kissed me like he wasn't thinking about anything except the kissing, slow and deep, one hand sliding into my hair and the other pressed flat against the door beside my head.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in closer and felt him smile against my mouth.
"God." He pulled back enough to look at me, eyes ravenous, slightly unfocused in the best way. "You're so fucking hot. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate at practice?"
"Do you think it's easy for me?" I pulled him back in. "You literally yell at me during drills and I find it so hot. It's a real problem, Marcus—"
He laughed into my neck and then bit down lightly, which effectively ended that sentence. I tipped my head back and his mouth traveled up my throat, taking his time the way he always did when he wanted to take me apart properly.
I had my hands in his hair. He had me pressed against the door. He kissed my neck. The corner of my mouth. Then back to my lips, voracious that time, eating me alive, the patience dissolving with every touch of our lips.
"I want you," he murmured against my mouth. "Right here. Right now."
"Marcus. That's a fucking terrible idea."
"I know." He kissed me harder. "But I really don't care."
"We're at a party with everyone—"
"Nobody's coming up here." Low. Right against my skin in between kisses. "Please, baby. I need you."
Every coherent thought I had. Gone.
"Fine." I pulled him back up to my mouth, kissing him once more, deep, before I reached down for my belt. "Help me, it's stuck—"
The door opened.
Light from the hallway cut in — sharp and sudden, a narrow cone of it landing directly on us, illuminating everything. Me with my hands at my belt. Marcus right there. Both of us frozen.
One second of complete stillness.
Then a voice. Tommy, one of the wingers, and someone shadowed behind him in the doorway.
"Marcus? Is that — what are you—"
"Fuck."
Not my voice. Marcus.
His hands shoved me. Hard. Both palms flat against my chest, pushing me back so fast I stumbled, catching myself against the wall. By the time I looked up he was already moving — three steps, four, to the door, putting the entire room between us in under a second.
The door slammed.
The sound of it cracked through the room.
Then silence.
I stood in the dark with my back against the wall and my belt half undone and the place on my chest where his hands had been still warm from his touch.
I heard his voice in the hall. Muffled through the door.
Calm. Easy. Already managing it, already building the story, already putting distance between himself and what Tommy had just seen.
I didn't move for a long time.
Just stood there in the dark while the party went on below us and Marcus's voice got further away and something cold settled into my chest.
Not panic.
Not even hurt.
Just the quiet devastating knowledge of someone who had just seen exactly what they were to another person.
And understood, finally, that those two things were never going to be the same.
I texted him a million times.
No response.
And that’s when I started to panic.