Chapter 20 Jade #2
Tieran is in possession of the ball, running downfield, his muscular thighs flexing, making the dragon tattooed around his kneecap come alive, coiling and undulating with every step.
I fixate a little too long on that dragon, inappropriately fantasizing about seeing it up close.
I couldn’t really be blamed, though, could I?
Rugby shorts are pornographically short; it’s not my fault my attention was diverted with all the naked flesh being served up on a turfed platter.
I momentarily lament the fact that I’ve been intimate with this god of a man on two occasions and have yet to actually see any of his body, since both times, he was behind me.
“Why are you pouting?” Aanya asks to my left.
I sit up, schooling my expression. “I’m not.”
The crowd around us grows louder, and I focus on the match as Alfie, our team's scrum-half, latches onto the ball and kicks it past the opposition. Men scatter, running for the play as it soars over the twenty-two, bouncing off the pitch, and landing into touch. The fans get rowdy, cheering in excitement for the slight advantage that the lineout we’re awarded offers.
Zaine steps over the outside line, as our forward players get into place. We’re close to the try line, if the men can maintain their hold on the ball, and push against the opposition until they’re over the line, we’ll have this win secured. We need this win—he needs this win.
The stadium quiets, everyone focusing on what’s happening on the pitch, my heart beating like the flap of a hummingbird’s wings.
Zaine’s hands lift above his head, lobbing the ball with force past the other team's own attempt at a jump, soaring right into the arms of the Legends right lock, Connor Davies, as he’s lifted into the air by his teammates.
If he can score this try, I might forgive him for his piss-poor attempts at magic.
Davies drops down with a resounding thunk as our forwards close in around him for protection.
Fists grapple around waists, twisting shirts and grasping shorts for grip as feet push into the grass for purchase.
It’s a lattice of men, and their grunts of exertion float through the air as the teams press against each other, the Legends attempting to get over the try line, and the other team trying to defend it.
“I am so turned on right now.” Aanya’s eyes are predatory, her stare laser focused on the men on the field.
Lottie and I exchange a look. “Uh, I know this is your first official match, but your man is further back on the field.” She points a finger to where Myles shifts on his feet, waiting for a signal to assist if needed.
“Oh, I know exactly where he is. I wish he was in this sexy little waffle of men, though. Something about all that muscle packed together is just—” She bites her lip.
I hold back a snort. “So, are you and Myles doing alright?”
A commotion draws our attention just in time to see the opposition's lock tear the ball from Connor’s hands, and the maul collapses as the ball is freed from the melee, exchanging hands quickly and without room for error.
Cavan attempts to catch it when the opposition kicks the ball further downfield and away from their try line.
The Legends shift, all of them now running toward their own line to defend, as Tierans hands fly through the air, shouting something I can’t hear from where I’m seated.
“God, yeah. He’s the most supportive person I’ve ever met, and I’ve been half in love with him since night one. Plus, he can do this thing with hips where he…” She starts to mimic the motion in her seat.
“Please stop. I shouldn’t know these things about my players.”
“I’d guess you know far more about Tieran.” My head whips toward Lottie and back to Aanya, whose eyes widen in shock and then back.
“What—” My eyes fly around us to make sure no one heard. “What are you talking about? Did he—did he say something?”
“Please, my brother is many things, but he’s not untrustworthy. He didn’t say anything. I assumed.” Uncertainty crosses her soft face. “Was I wrong?” She looks beyond me to Aanya, who’s taken that moment to stuff her face with a sausage roll.
“Don’t choke, Judas.”
Lottie’s voice is a cheerful melody as she continues.
“There’s no way I’m wrong. I could tell from that first meeting in the supermarket.
Then, he brought you in for crochet, left Finn and Ekon’s party soon after you did, and if all that’s not enough to convince me, he’s looked at you—like… three times tonight.”
My cheeks flush scarlet, and I’m saved from having to respond when the crowd lets out a collective groan that shakes the stands. Tieran’s face down on the turf, an opposing player on top of him while another steals the ball from his hands, takes off down the pitch, and scores another try.
What is happening? The first half of last season, he was an absolute beast. No one could get past him.
Now, it’s almost like he’s handing them the ball.
Did the whole ordeal with his ex fuck him up that badly?
Is he still hung up on her, and that’s why he’s not been able to wade out of this ocean of self-doubt?
Something about the thought makes me nauseous.
When the game ends, it’s raining, and the Legends walk off the pitch with their heads hung low.
“Alright, ladies, I’ve gotta go comfort my man with a pity blow job. I’ll catch you later,” Aanya says.
“And I’ve got a dinner to get to,” Lottie starts to walk away, turning around quickly so her pleated mini swishes with the movement, “but you’ll check on him?”
“What—no, I,” but she’s already skipped away.
I stick around anyway. Not because I want to check in on Tieran, but because I’m the owner, it’s a part of the job description, and everyone else on the leadership side has left.
Most of the team is able to walk off the pitch unscathed, heading to the locker room to clean up before heading home or out for the evening, but Tieran’s been roped into post-match interviews.
There’s a smile on his face, but for once, it looks forced.
No one else seems to notice it, but it’s there, in the subtle pinch around his eyes.
Something about this game in particular has really affected him, because the mask he’s always so proud of is slipping.
His shoulders are rigid, and he’s picking at his skin, rubbing at the back of his neck, shifting back and forth as if he’s about to sprint far and fast.
Question after question is lobbed at him, and the easy smile has fully left his handsome face, replaced with a frown. His chest is rising and falling in a more rapid succession, and the reporters are just getting started. They’ve doubled in size, surrounding him on all sides, caging him in.
From where I’m standing, I can barely make out the words, but I hear things like losing streak, breakup, public humiliation, embarrassment, and it's enough to make me want to rip out blades of grass on our perfectly manicured field.
Tieran stands there, weathering it all with no one to help him, no one to have his back, and I’m struck suddenly with how incredibly lonely he must feel. He’s been carrying some misplaced sense of guilt for months, and I don’t think anyone has been checking in on him.
Who’s been making sure he’s okay while he’s been making sure everyone else is? Me included.
The media has gotten worse—cameras are being shoved in his face, the questions are increasing in hostility, and Tieran looks…scared. This strong, funny, kind man looks like the walls are closing in on him, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.
That’s all it takes for my composure to snap.
I march over to the crowd on five inch Pradas and elbow my way to the middle of the hyena frenzy.
I place my palm on Tieran’s inked forearm, and I can feel a tremble vibrating through his body. Muscle rigid from the fist he’s clenching eases a little under my touch, but I can see his harsh breathing from the corner of my eye.
“Gentleman, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I need to steal him away. Ballard wants a word before everyone goes home.” It’s a lie; most everyone has left already. Still, I’ll say anything to get him out of here.
Any additional questions they fling his way are ignored as I pull him away from the vultures and toward the player tunnel.
Tieran is heavy on his feet, looking but not seeing as I guide him from the media frenzy.
We’re out of sight, but it’s done nothing to help his state. He’s still breathing too heavy, eyes clenched tightly, as if he can ward off whatever he’s seeing behind his eyelids if he tries hard enough.
I think he’s having a panic attack.
Up ahead on our left is a storage closet, and as we approach, I make a last minute decision to pull him inside. Maybe being enclosed in a small space will muffle the outside noise or make him forget where he is long enough to get him to calm down.
Thankfully, the door is unlocked, and once we’re inside, I push him against the wall. It’s like he doesn’t even realize I’m here. His whole frame has locked up, he’s deathly quiet, his eyes are flitting back and forth, and his breathing’s rapid and shallow.
“Tieran.” I step closer to him in the dark room and place a hand on his face.
He flinches. Why does that make me want to cry?
“Tieran.” I stroke my thumb back and forth along his jaw. “I think your nervous system got overwhelmed out there, and you’re having a panic attack. Can you tell me anything you see around you?”
A therapist I was going to once told me the best way to calm yourself during an episode is to try to name anything you can see, hear, or smell to try to reorient your surroundings.
He doesn’t respond. “What about anything you can hear? Smell?”
Still, I’m met with silence and an alarmingly blank stare.
I hate this. I hate that he feels so out of body and I can’t do anything to help.
I miss his smile, his banter and his inappropriate flirting.
I miss hearing his laugh, knowing it was aimed at me, making me feel warm.
I miss the gleam of mischief in his eye every time he looked at me, and I miss him because he’s not here right now.
He’s trapped in his mind, battling a demon I can’t see or help him fight.
Wherever he’s at right now, I can’t reach him, but I can feel his hammering pulse against my fingertips, and medically, that can’t be healthy.
My chest nearly brushes against him when I take another step forward. “Tieran. Come back to me.” My voice is a whisper, and it cracks on the words. I brush his sweat-and-rain-soaked hair back from his face. “Please.”
My body seems to take over, because I’m suddenly flush against him, raising the extra couple of inches he has on me, and placing a kiss on his cheek.
“Come back.” Another kiss to his other cheek.
“Banter with me.” A dangerous kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Make me laugh on the inside even when I won’t show it on the outside.
” My words are a whisper against his lips.
“Please.” I fully give in, kissing him squarely on the mouth.
Once. Twice. The third time, I linger, bringing my hands down to rest on his chest, letting my nails dig in, hoping it will give him something to anchor himself to.
At first, he remains still, but then his breathing starts to level out, his lips loosen, and his hands find their home on my waist, gripping me tight, as if he never wants to let me go.
When I start to pull away to check on him, his hold tightens, tugging me back in as he deepens our previously chaste kiss.
I should stop this, but I couldn’t if I tried. I want to be selfish for him when he’s always so selfless for everyone else. He needs me to tether him so he doesn’t drift too far into his mind, into that black hole of self-doubt plaguing him daily.
Maybe it’s cowardly, but in this dark closet, I can pretend our circumstances are different, and we’re just two people who can’t deny feelings as mountainous as Everest itself.
Giving in to them wouldn’t feel like a cataclysmic error in judgement, but rather, a relief as freeing as a dam bursting.
So yeah, maybe in this shadowed broom closet I can admit without repercussion that I’m being selfish for me too, because I want this—him, more than I’m ready to admit. .
Tieran’s grip on my hip tightens. My hands shift from his chest and wind up around his neck. My pulse pounds in my ears, and he’s sighing into my mouth, and in a singularly foolish moment of no turning back, I run my tongue against the seam of his lips.
The dam breaks.
Tieran turns us so my back is flush against the wall, knocking random objects we can’t see onto the floor as he crowds my space and takes my mouth again. The ground beneath my feet wobbles, and the ground splits in half, ready to suck me into the Earth’s core for giving in to this when I shouldn’t.
I don’t care.
It is cataclysmic, but it’s not an error in judgement like previously presumed. Something that feels this right could never be an error.
His tongue sweeps in, knocking out all my good sense and making us both groan. He’s everywhere, his hands skating down my back and skimming the top of my ass, the taste of him on my tongue, the smell of sweat and grass and Tieran—it all creates a cocktail that’s getting me drunk.
This is why I should have avoided this, why I shouldn’t have given in. I won’t be able to give this up now that I really know how it feels to be held by him, kissed by him, with no convenient explanation.
One of his palms moves up to cup my face as he tips my head back to deepen the kiss, his tongue gliding deftly against mine.
An embarrassing whimper escapes me, and I can feel him smile against my mouth.
I tug on his hair, and the husky rumble of a laugh that bubbles up his throat is like music to my ears.
Worth it. Whatever comes of this moment will be worth it to hear that sound again.
His kisses slow into something more tender, something that makes me feel things I would rather ignore, and when he pulls away, my body inadvertently follows him.
He settles his forehead against mine and hums, a beautiful smile touching his mouth.
I’ve never been happier to see his dimples, and something in my chest loosens.
A suspicious gleam enters his cobalt eyes.
“What?” I ask, wary.
He shakes his head. “If I had known an anxiety attack was what would get you to kiss me again, I would’ve crashed out a long time ago.”
I slap his chest and step away, but I don’t get far before he’s pulling me back, kissing me one more time.