Chapter 18 Damien #2
I sink down onto the edge of his bed, hands fisting in my lap. “He deserves someone better,” I mutter. “Someone who didn’t leave. Someone who didn’t spend four years pretending it didn’t hurt. But I can’t stop loving him. I tried.”
Ryan is quiet for a minute, and that alone makes my throat tighter than it should be. Because Ryan Torres is never quiet. He’s the king of running his mouth—always the first to roast me, tease me, slap me on the back of the head, and call me a dumbass when I deserve it.
“Okay,” he says finally. “So you’re in love with Noah. That part checks out. You’ve been in love with him since we were sixteen; nada nuevo.”
I huff a weak laugh and scrub a hand over my face. “Feels pretty fucking new when you say it like that.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “Denial only works until it doesn’t.” He leans back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him. “So what’s the problem?”
I stare at the floor, my jaw tight. “The problem is that loving him doesn’t mean I get to have him. Not after everything.”
“You don’t get to decide that for him.”
I look up at him, irritation flaring hot and fast. “I know that.”
Ryan’s brows pull together. “Do you?” he asks quietly. “Because it sounds like you’ve been punishing yourself for four years and calling it ‘what’s best for him’.”
I scrub a hand down my face, fingers catching in my hair. “You don’t understand.”
“Then make me,” he says, holding my gaze. “Because right now all I see is my best friend sitting on my bed at one in the morning, wrecked over a guy he’s still in love with.”
My jaw tightens. “I can’t tell him how I feel.”
“Why?”
“Because it would fuck everything up,” I snap. “Because he’s finally breathing again. He’s got his own place, his own routines, people who aren’t trying to “fix” him. He’s smiling again, Ry. I’m not gonna drop a fucking emotional grenade into that and see what happens.”
“Damien—”
“I’m serious,” I cut in. “I can be his friend. I can be there. I can show up, help him, and protect him if he needs it. I don’t need more than that, especially not after everything.”
Ryan snorts softly. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You didn’t do shit but leave, man. And yeah, it fucked him up, but—”
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to!” I cut in, my voice louder than I mean to be. “I didn’t just pack up one day and ghost him because I got bored or scared. It wasn’t like that.”
He blinks, his eyebrows drawing together. Then he just nods, real slow. “You finally gonna tell me why, then?”
I nod and lean forward, bracing my forearms on my knees and bowing my head.
“I’d just come back from a tournament in New York with my dad.
I was hyped, talking about scholarships, drafts, and the future.
I thought I was hot shit because I had schools dying to have me on their teams already.
” I laugh bitterly. “Noah’s dad pulled me aside after dinner.
Told me I had potential. Told me scouts were already watching me…
and told me how easy it would be to make all of that disappear. ”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan mutters under his breath, but I keep going. If I stop now, I won’t finish.
“He knew I was in love with Noah, and that I’d do anything to keep him safe.
So he used that to threaten me. He said if I didn’t disappear from their lives, he’d make sure I never got drafted.
Said he had friends in the league who owed him favors, and if I kept ‘confusing’ Noah, he’d make sure neither of us made it—that he wasn’t going to let his son turn into me. ”
Ryan’s mouth pulls tight, fury bleeding into every line of his face. He doesn’t even try to hide it; he just balls his fists in the comforter and shakes his head. “Unbelievable. That fucker really played the whole mafia villain card?”
I laugh, but it comes out broken. “And he meant every fucking word, Ry. He told me I was a bad influence. Said my dad marrying another man was a stain on my record. That if I ‘infected’ Noah with my… whatever, my ‘gay shit,’ he’d drag us both down.
I wanted to punch him, but I couldn’t. I just stood there and nodded because I knew he could do it.
He’s got money, connections, and reputation.
He was the golden boy of Olympic swimming—if he tells a story, the world listens. ”
He runs a hand over his face, exhaling hard. “Jesus, D.”
“I didn’t tell Noah because I thought if he knew, it would break him,” I say, quieter now. “Because knowing your own father would rather destroy your future than let you be loved, fucks you up. I thought ignorance was kinder.”
Ryan’s mouth tightens, and he blows out a slow breath, looking down at his hands. For once, he doesn’t have a joke. He just looks at me and lets the truth sit there, heavy as hell. “And you’ve just been sitting on that all these years?”
I shrug helplessly. “What the fuck was I supposed to do? I was seventeen and thought maybe if I left, he’d be okay. That he’d grow up and forget me. I figured he’d hate me, but at least he’d have a future.”
His jaw works, muscles jumping in his cheek as he stares at me. The lamp behind him throws a half-shadow over his face, softening the lines I know are carved deeper tonight. He just shakes his head, the disbelief thick in his voice. “You’re not still scared of his dad, are you?”
I blink at him. “You know the kind of reach men like him have. I saw him talk to coaches, and pull strings—he wasn’t bluffing. If I stayed, I would’ve killed both our futures before they even started.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a kid anymore, D,” Ryan explains. “You’re a grown-ass man, and you’re about to go pro. You’ve got people—fucking Killian is the most powerful person on this goddamn campus. If that asshole tried to pull any of that shit now, I promise you, he wouldn’t get away with it.”
I can’t help but smile faintly at the loyalty in his voice, even if it hits me in the chest. Ryan’s always had a way of sticking by me, even when I didn’t deserve it.
“I don’t think he’d go after me now. But I don’t know if Noah would even want to be with me. I’m not the stepbrother he remembers. I’m… Fuck, I’m angry all the time. I sleep around like none of it means anything. I’m a walking fucking mess, Ry.”
Ryan exhales through his nose and drags a hand down his face, the silk bonnet slipping to one side before he readjusts it with a flick. “You were a mess because you left him.”
I let the words settle over me, my mouth tightening as I stare at the worn wood grain of the floor. I rock forward slightly, elbows pressing harder into my thighs. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Then don’t try to fix it,” he says immediately, as if he’s been waiting for that exact excuse. “Just be honest and tell him the truth. Stop thinking you gotta be perfect to deserve him. He never asked you to be.”
“I’m scared it’ll wreck him,” I admit, my voice breaking. “That hearing what his dad did will rip open something I can’t close.”
Ryan sighs. “Or maybe,” he says quietly, “it’ll finally give him the closure he’s been needing for four fucking years. You think he hasn’t been sitting with questions every single day since you left? You think the not knowing hasn’t hurt him worse?”
I let that settle. I think about Noah, asleep on my lap, soft and trusting, and brave enough to start over on his own. I think about how much I want to be beside him, no lies, no more half-truths, just the goddamn truth for once.
“What if he hates me?” I ask, voice barely more than a whisper.
Ryan’s reply is immediate. “Then at least he’ll be hating the right version of you.”
I close my eyes, feeling the weight of four years finally shifting a little. Ryan pats the mattress beside him, scooting over a bit and tossing one of his pillows toward the other end. “Come on. Stay here tonight. You look close to collapsing.”
I glance toward the door while trying to talk myself out of it, then sigh and gesture half-heartedly. “I should probably let you sleep.”
Ryan barks out a laugh, throwing his head back against the wall. “D, you just dropped a fucking trauma bomb on me. You’re not going anywhere.”
A real smile tugs at my lips, reluctant but honest. I kick off my shoes, leaving them in a pile near the foot of the bed, and climb in beside him. As I settle in, the weight in my chest doesn’t vanish, but it’s lighter somehow. Ryan flips off the bedside lamp, and the room sinks into darkness.
“You know,” he murmurs after a few minutes, voice quiet and way too smug, “you’re gonna have to stop calling him your stepbrother if you’re gonna try and fuck him.”
I groan into the pillow, then grab the second one he gave me and throw it in his direction. It lands somewhere near his shoulder with a muffled thump. “You’re a shit fucking therapist.”
“Too soon?” he asks with a grin I can practically hear in the dark.
“Way too soon,” I mutter, flopping onto my back, but I’m smiling. Really smiling. And it’s the first time all damn day that it doesn’t feel like my chest is splitting open to do it.