Chapter 34
Sam
HE’S GONE WHEN I wake up. I look at my left hand, half expecting to find an engagement ring on it as though it’s Vegas all over again. Nothing’s there, of course.
His side of the bed is cold. I sit up, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them to rest my head on my knees.
I’m done.
I have to be done. I don’t recognize the person I am anymore. I haven’t recognized myself in months.
This isn’t what loving someone is supposed to feel like.
It can’t possibly. It’s certainly not the way Mum and Dad loved each other.
Theirs was a quiet love, but it was obvious to anyone who looked at them that they were wildly in love with each other.
Even the odd boyfriend I had back home never acted as if I was a secret that needed to be hidden.
So I’m done. Part of me wants to break it off by text – keep it nice and quiet, after all – but I won’t actually do that. He doesn’t get that kind of tidiness. No more shrinking myself into being small.
The empty side of the bed stares back at me, as if to confirm I’m making the right choice.
This isn’t love.
You deserve to be loved out loud.
I shake my head. What did I expect? This entire thing started with me breaking the one rule I have. I should have known that it was never going to work.
But that knowledge doesn’t make it feel any better when I’m in my shower a few minutes later. It doesn’t stop the tears from coming. It doesn’t stop the ache in my chest, the utter emptiness that’s steadily grown. I thought last night changed him. Changed us.
On a sob, I sink to the tile. I don’t get out until the hot water is gone.
My resolve strengthens throughout the day. I take some players through their PT routines and work with others on plans to keep them from re-injury. I grab lunch with Kari on the top floor, diving into the pho she had delivered for us and letting its warmth seep into me.
Kari studies me over her bowl. “You okay?”
“No.” The admission is easy. The tears come just as easily, my eyes filling instantly.
She drops her spoon and chopsticks. “What happened? Is your mom okay?”
I choke back a sad laugh. “She’s fine. So is Ollie.”
Kari’s expression darkens. “Colin did something, didn’t he?”
I give her a sad smile. “It’s what he’s not doing.”
She slumps back in her chair. “This sucks.”
I nod and slurp a bite of noodles. “It does.”
“Want me to crush him like a bug? I can do it,” she promises. “When I’m done, he won’t be able to get a job volunteering with a local rugby rec league.”
Another laugh escapes me, almost real this time. “As tempting as that is, no. I’m going to handle it.”
Kari reaches across the table for my hand. “I love you. I’m proud of you.”
I hold on to that resolve through the rest of lunch and in the hours that follow. When I know most everyone is gone for the day, I make my way back up to the top floor, noting all the darkened offices I pass on the way to Colin’s office.
He doesn’t look surprised to see me. If anything, he seems resigned.
And that pisses me off.
Relieved, I reach for the kernel of emotion and cradle it, hoping to stoke it to a blazing fire.
“I’m sorry,” he begins.
“You say that a lot,” I shoot back, crossing my arms and standing tall. “But I don’t think you mean it.”
He leans back, his jaw ticking as he grips the chair’s armrests. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is you treating me like I’m a dirty little secret. Especially when I’m still sore from last night.”
His eyes flash. “That’s not what you are.” He says it so vehemently that I almost believe him. “That is never what you have been. Ever.”
The kindle of heat inside my chest sputters and I rush to protect it, desperately reaching for the one thing I’ve needed this entire time. “I want a divorce.”
Colin flinches. Actually flinches, his entire body jerking as though he’s been shocked.
All I do is scoff. “So that’s the word that finally gets through to you?
Divorce? I’ve said it before. Did you think I’d changed my mind?
” I step closer, still far too aware of the way his eyes roam my body.
Still aware of the way his attention makes my stomach clench. “Think you could fuck it away?”
Toxic. This is so very, very toxic. I shouldn’t want a man who doesn’t want me.
He stands, and I instinctively take a step back. His shoulders slump. “Sam. Come on.”
“No!” I’m loud, and I don’t care. “No,” I repeat, my voice steady. “We. Are. Done.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t mean!”
“Then stop lying to yourself!” he explodes.
My lip curls as I ball my fists. “You’re one to talk.
And you know, it’s funny. That’s exactly what I’ve finally stopped doing.
Waking up this morning and finding you gone, just like Vegas, was precisely what I needed.
Because the truth is that you’ll never admit what you feel.
You’re too scared. And the worst part is – the absolute worst part – is that I’ve lost myself throughout all this.
I look in the mirror and don’t even recognize myself. And that’s your fault.”
“Sam.” He’s not loud anymore. He’s quiet. So quiet.
“I want a divorce. Not after the season ends. Now.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Ollie steps into the office, his face a mask of disbelief. His gaze swings from Colin to me and back again. “Sis?”
Colin’s face drains of color. And if there was anything left of my heart to break, it shatters now. “Olls, I –” I falter.
He shifts his gaze to Colin. “Why is my sister asking you for a divorce?” His voice cracks, reminding me so much of when he was growing up that it’s devastating.
“I can explain,” I begin.
He holds a hand up. “I was asking my coach. Why is my sister asking you for a divorce, Coach?”
I finally allow myself to look back at Colin. He’s ashen, his mouth open like a guppy’s.
Ollie moves farther into the room, increasing the tension as he does. “I asked a question.”
“Olls –”
He jerks his arm away from my touch, his shoulders rising with every breath. When his eyes meet mine, they’re furious.
“She’s asking for a divorce because we’re married,” Colin finally says. It takes a bit of the pressure out of the room, but it doesn’t do a thing for my heart. I clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking and blink to re-focus my eyes. It feels like I’m wrapped in cotton.
“Explain,” Ollie demands, all traces of his normal sunshine utterly gone. When I open my mouth to speak, he shakes his head and points a finger at Colin. “You. I want you to explain.”
Colin takes a breath, then meets Ollie’s anger head on. “We met in Las Vegas. We got married and I left before Sam woke up. I thought I could handle things.”
“Things?”
“An annulment. I figured it had to be easy to get an annulment. It was Las Vegas, right?” The ghost of a rueful grin passes across his face.
My brother is silent while he lets that sink in. “You married my sister after knowing her for, what, a few hours?” He looks at me for confirmation, disbelief and anguish warring on his face.
I nod.
His voice goes soft. “And then he left you?”
I’m done lying. So I nod again, twin emotions of fury and absolute devastation swirling in my chest.
His chest heaves as he turns and closes the distance to Colin. Before either of us know what’s happening, he pulls his arm back and punches his coach, decking Colin’s cheek with a right hook that makes my stomach heave.
“Ollie!”
“You fucking married my sister and left her?” Ollie seethes, mere inches from Colin’s face. “What kind of piece of shit are you?”
Colin rubs at his jaw, his entire body coiled with tension and his face a mottled red. “You should leave. This is between me and your sister.”
“Fuck. You.” Ollie lunges again, but I reach for him. This time, it’s enough to stop him.
“Let’s go.” I keep my voice even, focused only on my little brother.
Ollie turns to me, and all I see in his eyes are memories of a father lost too soon. It’s devastating. “Come on,” I urge softly. “I’ll explain the rest.”
He relents, a soul-gutting whimper coming out of him that nearly cuts me off at the knees, and I move us toward the door with deliberate steps.
“Sam,” Colin’s voice comes from behind me.
I pause, my grip still tight on Ollie’s arm to keep us moving forward.
“Sam, please,” he rasps.
But I can’t do it. “You should put some ice on your jaw,” I say, keeping my eyes trained forward. It takes everything in me to keep walking.
We don’t speak on the way home. Ollie is tense, his knuckles blanching on the wheel.
But even through he’s practically incandescent with rage, he drives the speed limit, uses his blinkers, never curses…
never says anything. I can’t tell if he’s angry with me or Colin or both of us, but I don’t bother asking.
This isn’t a conversation to have while driving in Atlanta traffic.
It’s not until he pulls into his parking spot and kills the engine that he breaks the silence.
“Five months.” He turns toward me, his bulk looming large in the Bronco. When I meet his eyes, the same ice blue as mine and Dad’s, they break me. They’re haunted. Sad.
I meet his gaze. “Five months.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
I want to scoff. What would he have done about any of it? Quit the team? Unacceptable. I reach for his hand, threading our fingers together and squeezing. “Because there was nothing you could do. I had my girlfriends for that.”
“I’m your brother, Sam. We’re who knows how far away from home in a country that will just as soon see us swallowed whole by snakes than help us.
I should be who you lean on. I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you.
And don’t start with that ‘you only came to the States to help me’ crap,” he chides gently.
“You’re right. I should have told you,” I admit. “But you were busy with getting ready for the season, and I had no clue who he was that night. It wasn’t until I saw him at the picnic…” I trail off. It’s hard to talk with him about it.
He reaches for the handle and gets out of the car, so I do the same. But instead of heading to his own apartment, he rounds the hood of the Bronco and pulls me into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
The words break something in me. I squeeze him back, fighting down the tears that threaten to come. “I’m sorry for not telling you.”
“Does Mum know?”
“God, no,” I scoff. “Are you kidding?”
“Yeah, she’d be right pissed,” he agrees as he releases me. “Come on. You’re telling me the whole story.”
I lead the way to my apartment. “I’ll put the kettle on.” Before we go inside, I look at him one last time. “I really am sorry for not telling you.”
He gives me a soft smile. “You don’t have to protect me, you know. Despite what you and Mum think, I really am a grown man.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
He groans in response. Inside, once we’re both settled on the couch with mugs of tea and our favorite biscuits from back home that Mum sent last week, I give him the story. Minus the sex part, which I don’t think he needs to know about.
His expression goes from thunderous to murderous to disbelief and anger, again and again, interjecting my story with “He what,” and “the fuck?” and “he deserved it,” and “lucky quarter?” but ending with, “So that’s where your necklace went.”
I reach for the empty space at my neck, sighing. “Yeah. I can’t believe it’s lost.”
“Fucker probably has it,” he mutters.
“Olls,” I chide softly. “You probably shouldn’t talk like that about your coach.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? Well, my coach shouldn’t have married and ditched my sister, but here we are.” He stands and paces, then stops. “And don’t think I’m not perfectly aware that you two have definitely done more than a simple kiss on the Las Vegas Strip. I should expose the asshole.”
I glance up, horrified. “Ollie!”
“He deserves it,” Ollie says. “What he did – the way he’s acted – he deserves whatever is coming to him.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I swipe them away, but not so fast that Ollie misses it.
“See? Right there. He’s making you cry!”
I let out a watery laugh. “Never took you for the type, Olls,” I admit.
He comes to me and kneels down. “Sam. You may be my big sis, but you’re still my sister. He needs to pay for this.”
I sniff. It’s not Ollie’s gesture that’s got me so worked up, but there’s no need to tell him that. “I’ll be fine,” I say, ruffling his hair in the exact way he hates.
He scowls and stands, pulling me up and into another bone-crushing hug. “Want me to quit?”
I gasp against his chest, rearing back in horror as he releases me. “Ollie! No way. Absolutely not. I’m going to handle things. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
I’m such a liar.
He stares at me as though I said that last part out loud. But after a moment, he nods. “Okay. But he so much as looks at you wrong and I’m going to throttle him.”
I swallow hard. “I’m really sorry,” I whisper.
“Why do you keep apologizing?”
“Because I kept this from you. I was going to tell you, but hell, Ollie, you’d already fallen half in love with him yourself.”
His eyes sharpen on me. “Are you in love with him?”
My stomach sinks, and his face softens.
“Oh, hell, Sam. You are, aren’t you?”
I wring my hands. “Maybe?”
He doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me.
I wave it away. “Whether I am or not doesn’t matter. Because the whole reason I kept it quiet was for you, Ollie. I was afraid of –”
“Afraid?” he interrupts. “You’re never afraid.”
I laugh. “Ollie, we’re living in a foreign country with shit for insurance and no real plan past this season.
Of course I’m afraid! But mainly I was worried about you.
For you. What would you think if you knew I’d gone and gotten married to a complete stranger in Las Vegas, of all places? Who does that?”
“Apparently you do.” He quirks a smile at me.
I narrow my eyes. “You’re taking this awfully well.” Because it’s not just me who’s been betrayed by Colin. Ollie has, too.
He shrugs. “I’m still processing. Talk to me tomorrow and we’ll see how I feel.”
I sigh. “Fair enough. C’mon. It’s late and you should go.”
He lets me walk him to the door before turning to give me another searching look, his hand on the open doorframe, before finally dipping his chin. “Love you, sis.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I love you, too.”
“What do I get for not telling Mum?” he asks, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
My own eyes widen. “You little shit!” I make to slam the door and he yanks his hand away. “Tell her and it’ll be the last thing you do!”
He laughs as he jogs down the stairs. “G’night!”
As soon as I close the door, the smile drops from my face. How did today go so wrong? First the fight with Kari, then this. I let the tears fall.