Chapter 14
ZARIAH
NOT EVEN CLOSE
The game ended three to two. The Gladiators lost.
Three to two. And it was my fault.
The medical staff on site were positive Montoya had a broken nose, but they were more worried about the potential whiplash, and he was sent to the hospital.
In tense silence, the team waited in the hotel lobby. An hour and a half passed before the rest of our crew came through the doors. Sémajuste arrived with his assistants in tow, Montoya hidden behind him, his face bandaged.
I pushed up from the chair. “Montoya!”
He gazed at me with this empty look in his eyes before continuing on with Sémajuste. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Go after him? Not go after him? I tugged anxiously at my sleeve, watching them leave.
Bear was the only one to follow them, but he was careful to do so from a distance. He waited to take the next elevator, giving them some space.
I was right on his heels. “Are you going to his room?”
Bear grunted in affirmation.
“Should I—I don’t know—get something from the gift shop? I don’t know what to do.”
Bear pressed the button for the elevator. “Not now, Zariah.”
“But you’re going?”
“Because Montoya’s my kid. He and I are close.
” He walked into the elevator and I knew that he was right about his friendship with Montoya.
When Montoya and I went out for lunch, he didn’t last five minutes without talking about Bear.
The click echoed from Bear pressing the button to Montoya’s floor.
“He doesn’t need just anybody heading upstairs. ”
“No, Bear…” I winced. “I—I was the one who told him to go for it. It’s my fault that—”
Bear stuck out his hand to stop the elevator, but it wasn’t an invitation aboard. He gazed at me, his face impassive, his lips pressed together.
I flinched under his stare, and he finally allowed the doors to shut again.
“Stay here, Zariah.”
The doors closed and the rest of the team dispersed from the lobby without a word.
Elijah turned in early for the night but most of the Gladiators left to get drunk, the disappointment prominent. I didn’t know what to do. I wandered the hotel. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t sleep. My steps were heavy until I came back to the empty lobby, gazing out the window.
The deep-blue pool outside was abandoned. Empty cabanas and lounges were covered up—all except for one. Denali was stretched out on it, unmoving, staring at the water. His hands shoved in his hoodie’s pocket, and it took me a moment to realize what was so different about his face.
He was wearing a pair of black frame glasses.
This was the closest he’d looked to my Denali and my heart twinged at the sight of him.
I opened the door, goosebumps rising. It was colder than I thought. I rubbed my arms, coming close, my voice quiet among the crickets chirping in the bushes. “Hey?”
Denali’s eyes darted to mine before he whipped off his glasses. He slid them in his pocket. “Hey.”
“I…” I paused, confused. “I’ve seen you with your glasses before.” I waited for him to put them on again, but Denali gazed at the water, unmoving. God, I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I bit my lip, sinking into the chair next to him. “Denali?”
He made a noise at the back of his throat.
“I—I’m sorry about the game.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Not your fault.”
“No, it is,” I admitted, twisting my hands. “It’s my fault. I goaded Montoya into going out there. I—I thought he needed that push and it’d be like in the movies when that's the catalyst he needed, and he’d score and everybody would—”
“It’s not your fault. Montoya and I already discussed his place on the line-up. He should’ve listened.”
Denali’s voice was so frigid and unfeeling, I was momentarily speechless. I didn’t know this Denali. He’d always been overeager, cuddly, the boy who had a big grin on his face when he tied my skates before practice. Denali wasn’t a cold person, and I didn’t know how to respond.
But he couldn’t shut me out, he had to listen. “He’s just a kid—”
“He’s eighteen, he’s an adult. He’s old enough to know better.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“He knew exactly what he was doing.”
My words came out faster. “Give him another chance—”
“Why would I? Besides, it’s not my call, Sémajuste saw that, our entire team saw that, everybody saw that—”
“Montoya’s not the one who messed up—that’s on me.”
“Riah—” Denali sat up, his shoulders tense. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a moment. “Zariah. You know the story. The Gladiators threw a party, and we had some friends outside the team over.”
I tensed up. The silence layered between us, waiting for someone to break it. I’d heard everything about that night. It was the last party of the summer for the Gladiators.
The party where Elijah made the biggest mistake of his life.
“Elijah heard some rumors about a football player, and they got into a fight. I don’t know what they told you, but it was bad.
Elijah hit him over the head with a bottle.
” Denali’s voice deepened. “You watch the movies and you think it just knocks them out—no. The glass shattered. Elijah could’ve killed him. ”
It was the line my brother had never crossed before.
When Elijah hit that football player, King, he thought it was justified. He heard rumors about King’s past and thought he was going to hurt a girl at the party. Elijah thought he was dangerous. But the rumors turned out to be just that—rumors.
Elijah almost killed him over nothing.
“Montoya was the one who told Elijah all that bullshit,” Denali muttered. “Montoya provoked him because he thought it was funny." His jaw clenched. "He’s the reason Elijah lost control. I can’t forgive Montoya for that. And now this?”
That was why Denali didn’t like Montoya, why he avoided him on campus, at practices, on the rink…
I had no idea Montoya had such a big role in Elijah’s incident, but I couldn’t muster up the anger for it. Montoya was too young. I couldn’t blame him for this. If Elijah didn’t know what he was doing, that same sympathy could be extended to Montoya.
Everything became clear.
“Montoya told Elijah and Elijah fucked up,” I said slowly. “So Montoya’s at fault.”
“Yeah.”
“I told Montoya and Montoya fucked up,” I finished. “So it’s my fault.”
Denali’s eyes hardened. “No.”
“It’s the same thing—”
“No.”
“How?”
He turned to face the pool again. “I don’t know but it isn’t.”
“You’re picking favorites,” I blurted out.
Denali remained stiff and cold. “So what if I am?”
“If you’re going to be upset with someone—”
“No.”
“You were angry with me for five years,” I insisted, a crack in my words; it hurt just saying that. “What difference does it make? It’d be so easy for you—”
“Easy for me?” Denali swung over the chair, now inches away from me. “I’m not angry at you, Zariah. I never was.”
“Of course you were—”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he interjected.
“Don’t tell me how to feel. I was never angry with you.
Because—because angry would’ve meant I never wanted to see you again.
If I was angry, I wouldn’t have stayed by my family’s phone, waiting for you to call, to say it was a big mistake. I was never angry—I was hurt as fuck.”
I faltered. “I—I—”
“I could do it with everybody else. I’ve been angry at Elijah! But you’re not on the same list as them, you’re not even in the same conversation. I won’t pretend like you are. They don’t compare to you. Not even close.”
I leaned into him when he shifted back, but when he cut the distance between us, I didn’t move away. I could taste his cologne. There was something breathtaking in this moment. The air crackled with tension. I could feel it in my fingertips, the hush before the lightning strike.
It’d always been one of my favorite things about Denali. The craving, the longing that poured off him. I never had to question how much he wanted me, because the devotion was so transparent.
Was. Had been.
Right?
Something shifted inside me, ignoring the warning bells ringing in my skull—a single question I couldn’t let go of.
Did Denali still have feelings for me? After all this time?
That was terrifying enough but another question loomed ahead, one I couldn’t face.
Did I have feelings for Denali?
I didn’t want to think about my answer for the Denali five years ago. He shoved past my boundaries and made me feel invisible. I’d loved him and that love hurt because of how small he made me feel.
But this version of Denali didn’t make me feel small at all.
The timbre in his voice didn’t minimize me, and even when he interrupted me, his body language said anything but that he wanted the conversation to end. The subtle tilt of his head, the conscious decision to move closer. The look on his face as he drank in my words left me dizzy.
Denali was so focused on me, like nothing else mattered.
I was still cautious, still wary of the bear trap I’d already stepped into, but the allure was staggering.
If this conversation was different, what did that say about Denali?
I knew the boy, but who was this man?
Warning bells flashed louder but I didn’t care. That same craving simmered under my skin.
Denali was so close. So close.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and the hairs on the back of my neck rose—the lightning strike was coming.
Denali’s going to kiss me.
The realization made my heart stutter, but I didn’t move. I was spellbound while Denali kept his eyes trained on my lips. When he leaned forward, I leaned with him.
One kiss wasn’t bad—one kiss wasn’t bad at all.
Just one.
Denali’s eyes flickered to mine.
He pushed up from the lounge chair in sudden jerky movements. The trance was broken.
Neither of us said anything, I couldn’t move my mouth to speak. Denali shoved his hands back in his hoodie’s pocket, facing away from me. “I—” He took an unsteady breath. “I’ll talk to Coach. It’s—it’s only the first game. Not even in the season. We’ll—we’ll figure it out.”
With long strides, he left for the door, and it closed behind him.
My heart thrummed like a hummingbird, too fast to be real as I tucked myself against the pool chair, a hand at my throat. Holy fuck. Holy fuck.
Denali Maddox almost kissed me.
And I almost let him.