Chapter 47
Bear
I find Pen in the cafeteria as soon as I come in. The rest of the team, staff, and guests disappear around me, and all I can see is her. My heart sneers at me, mocking me, daring me to keep clinging to denial, but I don't pay it any mind.
She talks to our friends, but there's tension in her eyes.
I frown. I study her like I would study a character in my favorite show.
Something is going on. Somewhere in the frame, subtle hints paint the emotional tone of the scene, and to the way the plot moves forward.
If I take my eyes away from her, I'll miss it.
The guys and I make our way among tables and people. Pen lifts her eyes at me. Her tension gets hidden away and she smiles. There's a hint of sadness hidden somewhere in the back of her mind, too. So many layers cover it, I force a deep breath into my lungs. This isn't the place to go digging.
But I won't forget. I'll just smile and keep watching, making mental notes until everything clicks into place. I won't blink. I want every second to be mine.
I'm halfway to her. My heart full on cackles at me, but I'm hypnotized by studying Pen.
Emotions come alive when I gaze at her, just like when I watch my favorite scenes.
It's beauty, the kind you get from wonderful cinematography, or an adoring fanfic writer giving us more when the show isn't enough.
Ah, if I were an adoring writer, I would want more of her. To explore my soul and what she brings to it. To my heart, because knowing her means I feel. It's been like that since I met her.
The thought stops me in my tracks. My heart laughs.
Yes, you've been in love with her since the start, you fool.
Even before I could feel that kind of love for people, I loved her. Whenever I yearned for romance, I yearned for her to see me that way. If I ever looked for it elsewhere, I only truly searched for her.
Holy shit.
My chest trembles. My breathing turns shallow. I walk again, but my legs are shaky.
I don't think I can eat. This is just like what I felt after our wedding kiss, but dialed to a hundred.
A mirage takes hold of me, showing me that what I always dreamed of could be right here next to me.
My best friend and the love of my life may be one and the same.
I could be married to my forever person.
Except I have no reason to believe she could one day feel this way for me too.
Fuck. What am I supposed to do? I'll need to figure that out, and do it while every one of my limbs shakes at the idea of getting it wrong.
I sit next to Pen. We have lunch together with the group.
Pen asks me a couple of times if I'm okay. I tell her I will be. We will be. We have to be.
When I ask, she tells me she's doing okay as well.
The guys and I go back to training. I lose myself in my body and throw myself into work.
Compartmentalizing has finally failed me, but I still use it to ignore the way my friends keep watch on me.
How they gather and talk quietly. Shit, I think they're making plans.
That's why I rushed to get dressed after my shower.
As soon as I'm done, I grab my bag and turn to leave. Only to find a wall of men ahead.
My so-called friends stare at me with crossed arms. Logan, Saint, Dom, Damián, and even Rafa.
"You brought in the literal dad to scold me?" I say.
"Why?" Saint asks. "Do you think we need to scold you?"
"You're lucky that I'm into gentle parenting," Rafa says.
"Of course you are." I sigh.
"Come on." Dom hits my shoulder. "You've avoided this for too long."
Damián takes my bag from my hand and stuffs it into my cubby. "For a big guy, you've managed to be quite stealthy."
"Follow me, gentlemen." Logan turns and takes off into the main hall of the building.
I follow with total reluctance, and with the ghost of tremors still running through my limbs. The rest of the guys fall into step behind me. They hold the guard so I don't escape.
Our QB takes us all the way up to the third floor and past the shared office space, where several faces look at us curiously.
Players aren't usually in this part of TD, especially not as a pack, but no one stops us.
We stride all the way to the back of the building to the storage area.
I frown, never having been here, but I keep on going.
Logan opens a door leading to a staircase, and goes up like he owns the place.
"Where the hell are you taking me?" I ask.
Logan speaks loud enough we can hear him, but keeps going forward. "The first time I came here, I thought Evie wanted to murder me."
We come up to another door which he opens too. We follow him onto what looks like an unfinished rooftop, hidden and unused at one side of the building. Going around the corner, we find a secluded space overlooking the lake, out of view from both the parking lot and the field.
I gaze around for a few seconds, before I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow at Logan. The rest of the guys join us into a circle.
"The question is," I say, "are you planning to murder me?"
"No." Logan crosses his arms as well, his familiar frown already in place. "But I'll do what Evie did with me that day, too."
"Do I really want to know?" I ask.
"Don't stall." He purses his lips. "You know why we're here. To talk."
I sigh. "Fine. I'm listening."
"What the fuck, man." Dom shakes his head at me. "You've spent the past— how long have I known you? Five years? Telling us that you and Pen are friends. Then you marry her. All the way insisting you're friends, mind you."
"We are friends." I clench my jaw.
"Friends who kiss and do who knows what else?" Damián asks.
I want to say yes. I chew the inside of my lip to stop myself.
Pen and I are friends who kiss and do other things too.
In many ways, I'm getting most of what I would want from my partner.
Closeness, emotional intimacy, and mind-blowing sex.
Except I don't have Pen's heart the way she has mine.
We have rules instead. A hazy deadline for one day in the future. But that's for a reason, too.
"What matters is that we have lines," I say. "We know what we're doing."
Or so I tell myself. If I've really loved Pen romantically for years, I need these lines. Desperately. Otherwise, I'll throw myself into this without looking where I'll land, and I promised Pen I'd protect our friendship above all.
"So you're trying to tell us you're just casually doing something with Pen?" Saint gives me a dubious look. "Something that, I'm going to guess, is not what best friends are known for?"
"Some friends do things." I frown.
"No, they don't." Damián gives me a stern look. "There may be a big overlap between friendship and romance, but that venn diagram isn't a circle. If friends are doing things, it means there's more there than you're admitting to."
I rub my forehead with stiff fingers. Damián is right, of course. That was the whole point of having lines. To separate my eagerness from what she really wants.
If I'm in love with Pen, I'll need to cut those rose-colored pieces out of my love for her, and put them in a glass jar.
It will wait for me on a shelf of my mind.
For me to know, and for her to never see.
I'll only act on the platonic bits. That way I'll share my feelings for her with no expectations.
It's all I have left if I don't want to risk things further.
I cannot lose her.
"I know that," I say. "But Pen and I are friends above all. I promised her."
"It should be funny." Rafa smirks. "Most people end up putting their romantic partner above their friends. Here you are, doing the opposite."
Fuck. When I kissed her in her backyard… that swell of emotions I didn't get to inspect… I think it was this love, too. I've been trying to put it in a jar since then. The only difference is that I finally looked through the glass.
Logan gives me a hard stare. "But you're having platonic and romantic feelings for the same person. How ironic."
I purse my lips. "What tells you I feel both ways?”
If they can see it, Pen might too. But she doesn't have those feelings. She would react poorly if she discovered what I'm discovering. At best, she'd tell me it's a hormone thing. At worst, she'd feel betrayed. Her past tells me what she does when she feels disrespected.
I can't lose her. The best chance I have is to give without taking more than she can offer.
"Are we friends?" Rafa asks.
I shake my head in confusion. They all wait for my answer like it isn't obvious, but I know it's a rhetorical question. I don't answer.
Rafa's smirk worsens. "You don't look at any of us like you look at her."
I scoff. "That's because I'm used to your ugly mugs."
"Ignoring the lie in there," Saint says with a smile, "that implies you think Pen is pretty and you're not tired of it."
"Pen is objectively beautiful." I raise my eyebrows. "Just like Evie and Ames and Nat and every woman Dom has ever gone out with. Sorry Rafa."
"No offense taken," Rafa says.
"You definitely don't look at our better halves the way you look at Pen, either." Logan's mouth tilts with his version of humor. "I would have noticed."
"Of course I'm not looking at them like that!" I run my fingers through my hair.
"We know. That's the whole point!" Saint says.
"And you don't hug us like you hug her," Dom adds.
"If Leon had ever stared into my eyes the way he stares into Pen's, I would have noticed, too." Logan's joke comes out deadpan.
The evening is quiet. The summer day is long. No breeze comes to make the conversation gentle. Everything seems to be standing still up here on the rooftop, except for the direct interrogation my friends are putting me through.
We all laugh regardless.
"What does it mean that you look at Pen differently?" Rafa asks.
I take a deep breath. "She's my best friend."
"And she is…"
"My wife."
"And you feel…"
"Fuck, you guys are like hounds at my heels."
I break away from the circle. At the edge of the rooftop, I gaze out to the lake. My friends surround me and, this time, their stance is much warmer.
"You don't have to tell us," Damián says. "But you should tell her."
I shake my head. "That's not what she wants from me."
"But she married you?" Logan asks.
"And she kisses you?" Dom adds.
Rafa puts a hand on my shoulder. "And she looks at you just like you look at her?"
"Fuck," I mutter.
My chin lands on my chest. I close my eyes.
"Even if this is new," Damián says, "the friendship has already changed, for you to feel this way."
The ground has the marks of dirt mixed with old rain splatters, which no one has bothered to clean. I cast my eyes to the island across the lake, noting the houses, the trees, and imagining the lives of the people who make it their home.
"I've been honest with Pen," I say, "and as honest as I could be with myself. When I said we were friends, I meant it. I didn't go into it hoping for something else."
I gulp. A soft gust of wind blows through my hair, offering a reprieve at last. I stare at the water, with its million bursts of light on the surface. My friends study me, listening to everything I'm ready to reveal.
I sigh. "For nearly twenty years, I've talked to Pen about most things. Romance was the only thing we were careful with. Any time I dated someone, or she got her heart broken. Finally, I think I know why. I was afraid to admit what I felt… when Pen might never feel the same."
I've seen it everywhere. Life, TV shows, and fanfic.
For friends to make this kind of jump, they need to be sure.
They need to be on the same page. People who say they're going to be friends after getting involved romantically never make it.
It's too hard to go back to the way things were, if anyone's emotions get entwined.
For me it's too late. The only way out is for Pen to one day feel the same.
"This is too big to keep to yourself," Rafa says. "You need to give her a chance to make up her own mind."
I gaze up at the sky. It's going to be a clear night. It doesn't change the storm forming in the horizon, and the gray clouds approaching in my mind.
If Pen doesn't feel anything romantic for me— if she can't see herself getting there one day— I could be detonating something too big to repair between us.
If I need to tell her, then there's no way out, and I might have lost her already.
How can a romantic man like me handle the love blooming inside, telling me that I can't fathom wrecking what we have, and the honesty she deserves?
It seems like an impossible task. I need to tell her my soul has been calling for her since before I understood it for what it was.
It's my job to do that while keeping every other promise, and crossing my fingers she won't take my love for poison.
"I will tell her." I take a deep breath. "After her dad's surgery. She has enough to deal with already."
It will give me time to figure out how to balance all my commitments to her… and to figure out what kind of saint I have to light candles to, so that one day she might get her heart involved the way mine is.