Chapter 2
Damien
The moment he turns away, I feel it again—the same bone-deep, breath-stealing ache I’ve been living with for the last four years.
Noah always walks like he’s apologizing for taking up space.
Shoulders slightly hunched, head low, jaw clenched as if bracing for impact—as if the sound of his own footsteps might offend someone if he’s not careful.
I hated it back then. I hate it now. Noah Adams isn’t the kind of person who should ever apologize simply for existing.
And yet, he does. Every goddamn time.
His footsteps are quiet, but they echo louder than any fight, any final goodbye.
Louder than the silence on the night I walked out of that house.
I don’t move. I don’t call out. I might as well be seventeen again, standing on the front porch of his dad’s house with a bag in one hand and a choice I never wanted in the other.
I’m still losing him in slow motion, no matter what I do.
He’s smaller than I remember, or maybe I just got bigger in all the places that started hurting after I left. Either way, something about the way he moves still guts me.
He doesn’t look back once as he climbs the steps, not even when he reaches the front door. I don’t expect him to because if I were him, I wouldn’t look back at me either.
I stay there for a long minute after he disappears inside, pretending I’m not losing my mind.
Everyone here thinks they know me. Damien Moore.
The slut of the Sin Bin. The one who doesn’t do feelings, and definitely not the one who falls in love with his fucking ex-stepbrother.
I’ve got a room full of trophies, a rotation of hookups who text me at all hours, a schedule booked with parties, drills, and early morning conditioning, complete with a smile that doesn’t crack unless I want it to.
I’m the guy you call when you want to get out of your head and into someone else’s bed. The guy who never says no, who never catches feelings, who gets away with throwing punches during playoffs because I flash the right kind of smile and back it up on the court.
But they don’t know shit.
They don’t know that I used to sit by my phone, staring at his contact, rereading the last stupid meme he sent me before everything fell apart. They don’t know that I delete every text I type before hitting send, because there’s no version of “I’m sorry” that would make it okay.
I thought I could forget him. Thought that if I kept my hands busy, I could drown it out. Drown him out. But that ache never really left, did it?
Noah was the first guy I ever wanted to kiss.
Not just to fuck—kiss. Soft and slow. And, of course, I never told him.
Of course, I didn’t touch him. How could I?
He was my stepbrother at the time and fragile in ways I wasn’t allowed to be.
He had this bright, aching quiet to him that made me want to both protect him and ruin him at the same time.
And I knew that if I ever touched him, if I crossed that line, I wouldn’t come back from it.
Instead, I slept with everyone else. It’s easier to be wanted than it is to be vulnerable. And it’s easier to give my body away than to admit that the only one I’ve ever wanted to keep it for is the one person I never should’ve liked in the first place.
And no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many walls I built or people I climbed into bed with, nothing ever came close to the weight of what I feel for him.
It was easier to play the part than admit that I was still in love with someone I could never touch.
Noah fucking Adams.
God, he looked good.
Tired, yeah. Thin. Paler than he should be.
But the strength’s still there. In the set of his jaw, in the way he carries himself as if he’s preparing for battle, even when he’s just standing in a driveway.
There’s something haunted behind his mismatched blue and brown eyes that makes my chest tighten.
I hate the loose way his clothes hang off him. I want to ask if he’s eating well, even though I know the answer. I want to ask who hurt him during the time we were apart, but I don’t have the right to anymore. I gave up that right when I walked away without saying a damn thing.
With a sigh, I walk back inside. Ryan walks past me in the hallway, towel slung over one shoulder, earbuds in.
He claps me on the shoulder like he always does, but his hand lingers half a second longer this time.
I don’t look at him, and he doesn’t say anything, but we both know what that moment was.
I drag myself back to the kitchen, needing something to do with my hands.
I open the fridge and grab the protein shaker I prepped this morning.
I lean against the counter and watch my reflection stare back at me from the microwave door.
I don’t look different, not really. Taller, maybe, but broader for sure.
My shoulders are heavier with everything I’ve carried.
I’ve inked the parts of me I want to forget, pierced the places where I still feel empty.
But I still see the kid who stood outside that house and made the choice that gutted him. And I still see the boy with blue hair who never got a real explanation.
I think about going upstairs, knocking on his door, and saying everything I’ve been holding in.
But I can’t because the truth isn’t something I can hand him, not when it still burns.
What happened that night isn’t solely mine to tell, and if I open that door, it won’t just be a confession—it’ll be a detonation.
I leave the shaker in the sink and walk outside, needing air. The sky is still streaked with late afternoon gold. The back lawn is quiet, the pool untouched. No one swims here this early in the season. It’s mostly for show and late-night games of dare and ego.
I stare at it anyway.
“Hey,” Ryan’s voice comes from behind me. “You okay?”
I nod once, my jaw clenched. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I never look fine,” I say with a dry laugh.
Ryan comes to stand beside me, arms crossed, watching the same rippling surface of the pool. “You gonna tell him the truth?” he asks, even though he doesn’t know the truth himself.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“He’s hurting.”
“I know,” I murmur.
Ryan lets out a sigh. “You’re hurting.”
“I said I know, Ryan,” I snap without meaning to. “Sorry, it’s just… I know, okay? I know.”
He doesn’t push again. Ryan’s good like that. He knows when to shut up, when to joke, and when to let someone just fucking feel without having to explain themself.
We stand there for a while, the two of us silent while the sky darkens by degrees. Lights flicker to life in the house. The other guys filter in and out, yelling about takeout, about game scores, and weekend plans. The Sin Bin is alive again, but I’m standing outside of it all.
Eventually, Ryan heads back inside, muttering something about Thai food and an argument over who’s buying. I stay where I am, wondering how the hell I’m going to do this.
Wanting someone you can’t have is one thing. Loving someone you’re not allowed to love is something else entirely.
Now that he’s back, now that I can see him again, the craving is worse than it’s ever been. I want to touch him. I want to break him open and see if he still fits in the cracks he left behind inside of me.
But I already know how this ends—with me walking away again and pretending I don’t want to run back. With me pretending I’m fine.
God help me, I don’t know how many more times I can do that without falling apart.