Chapter 39
ROMAN
I woke up with a gut feeling today was going to suck.
It should have been the opposite. When I cracked my eyes at dawn, the first thing I saw was a mess of blonde hair and sleepy, parted lips that I instantly kissed as if I feared I was still dreaming.
Brielle snores, but I haven’t had the heart to tell her that the two times we’ve slept in my bed together, she’s woken me before my alarm.
I was able to fall back asleep the first time. Not today.
Another bad sign.
I spent an hour on my treadmill before taking a quick swim in the pool.
By the time I entered the bedroom again, Brielle was joined by Evie as they giggled about something I couldn’t get myself to ask about at the risk of ruining their mood.
The two women basically shoved me out of the room soon after.
Once Evie finally headed off to shower, I spent the last few minutes we had together bending Brielle over the kitchen island and returning the favour I owed from the garage.
Dropping her off at her place felt wrong. I lingered out front for nearly twenty minutes, waiting for the discomfort to pass. When it never did, I played every single song on her playlist on my way to the stadium to try and drown out the ache.
The foreboding feeling that something was going to go wrong today clings to my shoulders like a bad smell, putting me on edge.
I tip my chin at the staff I pass on my way into the clubhouse.
The door to my office is open when I reach it and peer inside, half expecting someone to jump out and throw a bucket of water on me.
It wouldn’t be my first time getting doused in some sort of liquid by the team. Just last year, I was drowning in Gatorade after we won our division. Today, I doubt it would have been a celebration that had me soaking wet.
Silence greets me when I step into the office and drop my bag on the chair across from my desk. The blinds are up on the window above it, allowing me a clear view into the clubhouse. I crack my neck and roll my shoulders in an attempt to clear some of this discomfort.
The numerous trophies and signed balls on the black shelving unit behind my desk turn my stomach today.
Overworking my body this morning has lingering effects.
Specifically, the twinge in my knee that hasn’t disappeared the way it usually does.
It’s nothing but a reminder that the person who won those awards no longer exists.
I round my desk and tug the top drawer open before grabbing the bottle of Advil and popping the top. Two go down dry as I swallow and drop the bottle in the drawer again.
This game’s lineup needs to be swapped around, so I decide to start on that first. I bend down to shake the computer mouse awake and reach for the back of the leather chair, turning it—
Thunderous footsteps explode through the clubhouse. I straighten, going on high alert.
“I tried to sleep this off. I really did,” Wes starts, stalking into the office and slamming the door shut behind him. He doesn’t spare me a look before pulling the cord on the blinds and sending them crashing down to cover the window. “There is no sleeping this off, though.”
“Wesley—”
“Don’t. You don’t get to speak yet,” he barks, turning to face me. The rage taking hold of him is so out of place that it shuts me up completely. “How long have you been with my sister? My little sister?”
The emphasis on that single word isn’t lost on me.
I take a steeled breath and gesture to the chair. “Why don’t you sit?”
“Fuck sitting. Just answer me.”
“Alright. It’s been a few weeks.”
“A few weeks? So it isn’t new, then.”
“Officially, it is new. But unofficially, no, it isn’t.”
Wes curls his lip at me before steeling himself, forcing it to relax. It’s obvious he’s warring with himself here, not sure how far to take this when I’m the one in the position of power. Something about that makes my skin feel too tight.
“You can yell. Nothing you say to me right now will carry any weight professionally. I give you my word.”
That does it.
The rope he had wrapped around his rage unravels completely.
I watch the idea spark in his mind and thankfully have a second to brace for the impact before his fist makes contact with my jaw.
The burst of pain spiderwebs throughout my entire face, leaving it throbbing as I blow out a wet breath.
I brace a hand on the edge of my desk and use the other to rub at what I know will soon be a bruise.
“You get that one,” I say tightly.
The taste of blood hits my taste buds as I run my tongue over the small cut on the inside of my cheek. I take a quick feel for missing or cracked teeth, but everything is intact. He didn’t hit me as hard as he could have.
Wes straightens and shoots fire at me with his glare. “Out of everyone here, you are the one who knew better. She’s too fucking young for you, and I don’t want you manipulating her. There are countless other women you could go for. You don’t need to be with her. Not Brielle. Not now.”
“That isn’t your decision to make. If you want to have a conversation about this like two grown men, we can do that. But I’m not going to stand here in my office and have you throw accusations around about a relationship you know nothing about.”
“I don’t need to know the details. The only thing that matters here is that you’re not right for her.”
I ignore the pain that shoots through my face when I tighten my jaw. “According to whom? You?”
“This isn’t—Brielle doesn’t think these things through. You knew full well that she’s off limits to every member of the Havoc. That includes you. It especially includes you.”
“Why?”
He laughs darkly, his face filling with disbelief.
“What do you mean, why? Because I know athletes just as well as you do. And whether you sit in this office or throw a ball on the pitch, you’re still a fucking athlete.
One who’s also nearly double Brielle’s age and should know better.
You can’t honestly look me in the face and tell me that if your sister was alive, you’d want her with one of us? ”
My hearing pops.
I drop a second hand to the desk in front of me and lean my weight against it, squeezing so hard the wood groans.
I’ve never pretended that they didn’t know what happened to Lena. I was a fresh member of this team when she died, and despite me keeping it all to myself, there were rumours. But hearing the confirmation out loud?
“That’s unfair,” I croak.
“Answer the question!”
The words rip out of me. They roar through the room, singeing my tongue and leaving an ashy aftertaste.
“The answer doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter because she’s dead. She’s dead, and if I had to choose between losing her all over again or letting her love a man who wore green and grey, then I’d choose watching her love him instead because she’s fucking dead, and I don’t actually have that choice!”
Wes staggers back a step. I fill my burning lungs with air that tastes bitter and scrub a hand down my face, pressing down on the ache in my jaw.
“You still have a family. She might be gone, but you have had a family here in this clubhouse who has wanted to be here for you since the moment you arrived.”
I sniff harshly, shaking my head as the burn in my nose grows. “I’m not here to be someone’s family. I’m here to work.”
“Why does there need to be some established line drawn in the sand separating the two?”
“This isn’t what you’re here to talk to me about. You’re here to give me shit. To scare me away from your sister.”
I know because while it was so long ago now, it almost feels more like a dream than a memory, I was Wes.
It was my knuckles that throbbed from decking the guy my sister was dating, and who screamed accusations too similar to the ones I’ve heard today.
The circumstances were different, yes. My sister was only a teenager, and there was an unborn baby involved. Yet it reads the same.
The protectiveness, the anger. The blood pumping in his ears so fast and loud he can hardly hear himself think. Can hardly register what he’s saying before the hateful, cold words are spewing out.
Wes is looking at me too deeply now. His eyes are too aware, too narrowed as he digs them into my skull.
“Well, that’s the issue, isn’t it? I don’t know you!
None of us know jack shit about you because you don’t let us in.
You don’t share about your family or your past, fuck—you don’t even talk about your career in the league.
The only reason we know about your sister is because of Evie.
Every invite we give you gets turned down, or on the rare chance you do gift us your presence, you don’t participate in any of the conversations.
This is supposed to be a family, but you don’t see us as one, do you?
And now you want me to trust you with my little sister?
The only sibling I have and the only member of my family who ever gave a shit—”
He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. His eyes move through the room now, glossy and pained. I watch him start to pace the office, unable to stay still.
There’s a shared pain vibrating from deep inside his chest that calls to mine in a way that makes me want to run. To leave this office, this stadium, and fuck, this city even, and drive until the air around me is no longer suffocating.
I don’t move. I can’t.
“What happened yesterday?”
He whips his head toward me. “Brielle didn’t tell you?”
“I know what upset her.”
“So there’s no point in me explaining, then.”
I exhale, trying to make space in my cluttered chest. “Sit down, Wesley.”
He sucks his teeth before obliging. Slowly, I release the desk and sit behind it. There’s a heavy silence that falls as we avoid looking at one another. I feel completely out of place, but I know he does, too.
“What all has she told you?” he asks after a while.
I don’t need specific details to figure out what he’s referring to. “That you don’t get along with your father. That he’s been hard on you.”
“Hard on me?” He snorts a deep laugh. “That’s the understatement of the goddamn century.”
“He sounds like a bastard, to be quite frank. The kind of man who sees his children as a reflection of himself, so when one of them fails to shine as brightly as he needs them to, he feels responsible and like he’ll be seen as a failure.
And that appearance matters more to him than the children who can sense that disappointment and wear it on their back for the rest of their lives. ”
Wes clears his throat, his hands balled against his thighs. “Lived experience, I’m assuming?”
“The only member of my family who I’ve seen in over five years is Evie. I cut contact with my father not long after my injury, and my mother shortly after my sister died.”
“I’ve never seen them at a game. I assumed you didn’t invite them.”
“Why would you have thought otherwise?” I lean my head back against the chair and stare at the ceiling, my bones feeling heavier than they ever have. “It’s . . . easier for me to keep the line in the sand. Things stay clean that way. There’s less risk of personal relationships forming.”
“Which means there’s less to lose if something bad ever happened,” he says, stealing the unspoken words from my head.
“Your sister is the first person who I’ve let across the line in a long time, Wes. I’m serious about her. This isn’t a game or a blip in the now. I want far more than that with Brielle.”
It all hits him hard enough that he goes completely still. I wait for him to rebuke me or laugh me off. He does neither of those things.
“My dad knows I’m bisexual. He saw me once .
. .” He looks at the blinds, his eyes glossing over slightly before he blinks, clearing them.
“I don’t know if that plays a part in why he treats me the way he does, but that thought lingers.
It haunts me when he makes jabs at me for a bad game or a photo I post. Really, anything he shouldn’t have a say in but makes it his mission to involve himself in.
The first thing I always wonder is if what I did really upset him, or if he’s just mad at me for something he doesn’t understand. ”
My stomach sinks, growing barbs as I watch him lean forward, staring past me.
“He was always hard on me. Downright cruel at times, even, but he got worse around that time. Like maybe he didn’t know who I was at all and couldn’t put two and two together anymore. Couldn’t recognize me or something, and instead of trying to put the pieces together, he just wrote me off.”
“Have you told Brielle?” I ask roughly.
He stares at me, a plea written all over his face. “No.”
“I won’t tell her. You should be the one to do that.
” I pause before adding, “But she’s not your dad, Wesley.
There isn’t a reality in which she turns away from you for anything, let alone that.
And for what it’s worth, while I don’t know your father, I do know what it’s like to love someone as a parent should.
There isn’t anything Evie could do or say to me that would stop me from loving her. ”
“Then you’re a better man than my father, Rome.”
“Your secret is safe with me. And I don’t think I have to say it, but this changes nothing. Not a fucking thing,” I swear, needing him to hear the truth in those words.
His nose twitches when he nods jerkily. “I’d apologize for the jaw, but you deserved it.”
“We didn’t mean to betray you. If I’m being completely honest with you, I think I wanted to keep everything to ourselves because I was in denial that it was going to go anywhere.
It was easier to see Brielle and ignore the way my heart raced because that meant she didn’t mean anything to me.
That I wasn’t going to let her wiggle her way into my life and become someone who I couldn’t live without. ”
“And now? What makes what you two have so different than it was?”
I look at him with an honesty that may as well be a living, breathing thing inside of me. “I fell in love with her.”
“Well, alright then.”
“Just like that?” I laugh, a bit off balance.
“Treat her right, and we won’t have a problem.” He stands and wipes still-trembling hands down his jeans. “And get rid of that fucking line, Roman. You’re in too deep now to stay on the other side of it for much longer.”
I nod just once, feeling the weight of that promise sink down onto me pound by pound.