12. Chapter 12 #2
Her eyes follow my finger to Ethan's name in script on my forearm. Then they travel up to my chest, where I am my brother's keeper sits across the collarbone in clean block letters.
She reads it slowly.
I watch her understand it without me saying a word — the weight of it, the irony, the thing I've been saying to myself since I was eight years old.
"Darius."
Her voice is quiet.
"I know."
She looks up at me then — really looks — and I'm standing in her kitchen with my shirt off and no performance left to hide behind, and the way she's watching me has nothing to do with the cameras or the plan or any of it.
I reach for my shirt.
"Don't."
She says it softly. Then, like she realizes what she said, she clears her throat and looks back down at her mug.
"I mean — finish telling me. About the tattoos."
I leave the shirt on the counter.
"There's one thing I've never found a way to put anywhere," I say. "My mother. She went to jail after Ethan died. Child neglect resulting in death — fifteen years. Parole denied twice. She's still in there."
I press my thumb to Ethan's name once, then let my hand drop.
"I went into foster care the week after the funeral with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. Blamed her every day after that." I pause. "Still do, some days. But I've never known what to do with the part of me that also just misses her."
She sits back. Just looks at me for a moment.
"No wonder," she says quietly.
"No wonder what?"
"You're different than most men." She shakes her head slightly. "I kept trying to figure out what was underneath all the theatrics. Now I know."
She reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine. I turn my palm up without thinking, and she lets me hold it.
"You've been playing differently the last few weeks," she says. "Not just the stats. You're making decisions on the field you weren't making in September. Donnelly mentioned it to the VP."
"You made me play better."
"You made yourself play better. Maybe I just gave you something to play toward."
Her words land somewhere I didn't expect. The compliment I've been starving for, finally from someone who actually means it.
I watch her move around the kitchen, the soft fabric of her dress shifting with each step. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon still lingers from the lemon loaf between us.
"Almost as delicious as the baker," I say, pushing off the counter.
Her head whips around.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were flirting with me."
"Maybe I am." I close the distance slowly. "I know you're used to the good guys. Clean hands, polished resumes. The ones who don't start trouble."
My fingers barely brush her wrist.
"But I'm the good kind of trouble."
Her pulse jumps under my touch.
"It means what if, just tonight, you let go of that preference?" My thumb circles her skin. "Say the word and I back off. No questions. But I think you're curious about what it feels like to just... let go."
"You don't need to back off," she whispers. "I'm saying yes."
A shudder moves through her entire body. The careful control she wears like armor starts to crack.
"Show me what you mean," she whispers.
My mouth finds the sensitive skin where her neck meets her shoulder, and I taste vanilla and something uniquely Claire. Her hands fly to my biceps, nails digging in just enough.
I trail kisses up her neck, nipping at her jawline, feeling her melt against me with each touch.
"You smell incredible," I murmur against her skin. "Taste even better."
My hands slide from her waist to her hips, pulling her flush against me. There's no hiding how much I want her.
"Tell me you want this, Claire."
She tilts her head back, exposing more of her throat.
"Okay, Hollywood. You've got your shot. Show me what you've got."
I scoop her up in one smooth motion. Her legs wrap around my waist automatically, and I carry her toward the bedroom.
The soft glow from her bedside lamp illuminates the room as I lay her gently on the duvet. I hover over her, supporting my weight on my arms.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted this," I say.
I lower my head, capturing her lips in a kiss that starts gentle but quickly deepens. Her tongue meets mine, shy at first then bolder, like she's been holding back just as long as I have.
My hands slide under her dress, tracing the curve of her waist, the dip of her hips. She arches into my touch, a soft moan escaping.
I kiss my way down her body, pushing the dress up as I go. Her skin is impossibly soft beneath my lips.
I pause at her breasts, taking one peaked nipple through the lace into my mouth.
She cries out, fingers tangling in my hair.
"Darius..."
She breathes my name like a prayer.
I make quick work of her dress and bra until she's lying before me in just a pair of simple lace panties.
The sight stops me for a second — all that honey-toned skin, the way her chest rises and falls with each ragged breath.
"You're gorgeous," I say. Not a line. Just the truth.
My fingers hook in her panties, sliding them down slowly, giving her every chance to stop me.
She doesn't.
She spreads her legs slightly instead, and that invitation nearly undoes me completely.
"Please," she breathes.
"Tell me what you need," I say quietly, my thumb brushing lightly over her.
She looks up at me.
"I need you."
I push the lace aside, my fingers sliding through her. She's so ready for me.
I line myself up and meet her eyes.
"Look at me."
When her blue eyes find mine, I push inside slowly, giving her time to adjust. Her mouth falls open, a silent gasp as I fill her completely.
I start to move — slow, deep strokes that have her writhing beneath me. Her nails score my back, her legs pulling me deeper.
"Harder," she demands.
I increase my pace. Her cries and my breathing fill the room until I feel my own release building fast.
"Oh god." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "Claire, I can't — you just feel too good."
She laughs, soft and warm beneath me.
"Then just go," she says.
That's all it takes.
I thrust deep one last time, spilling inside her. Wave after wave crashes over me, my body shaking with the force of it.
I collapse against her, both of us breathing hard, sweat slick on our skin. I roll us to our sides, my arms wrapped around her waist.
"That was..." I breathe against her hair.
"Amazing," she finishes softly.
I press a kiss to her shoulder.
"Stay like this for a bit?"
I don't want to move. For the first time in a long time, everything feels exactly right.
***
At some point the room goes quiet and dark and Claire is asleep against my chest, her breathing slow and even.
I don't want to move.
I lie there longer than I should, staring at the ceiling, her hair against my jaw, and I think about how I have never once in my adult life stayed. Not like this. Not where leaving felt like a loss.
But my phone says 4:47 a.m. and Donnelly runs six o'clock film sessions on Wednesdays without exceptions, and the last thing I need is to give anyone a reason to question me right now.
I ease out from beside her carefully. She stirs but doesn't wake.
I find my shirt on the kitchen counter where I left it hours ago, pull it on in the dark, and stand in the doorway of her bedroom for a moment longer than I need to.
Then I go.
The elevator down is quiet. The lobby is empty. The November air hits me the second the door opens and I pull in a breath, trying to reset.
I'm almost to my car when I take my phone off do not disturb.
The missed notifications load one by one. Jaylen. A team group chat. Two emails from Evan I'll deal with later.
And then, near the bottom, something that stops me cold.
Prison Outreach Communication System — Message from Monica Webb.
I stop walking.
My hand tightens around the phone.
Monica Webb. My mother.
I haven't seen her name anywhere outside my own head in over fifteen years, and here it is on my screen at five in the morning like the universe has been waiting for exactly this moment to bring it back.
I sit down on the front steps of Claire's building. The concrete is cold through my sweats. The street is empty.
A single car passes and its headlights sweep over me and then it's dark again.
I open the message.
Darius. I've been watching you play. I know you don't owe me anything.
I know I have no right to reach out. But I watched that game last Sunday and I watched you catch that ball in the fourth quarter and I just kept thinking — that's my son.
That's my boy. I don't know if you'll read this.
I just needed you to know that I'm proud of you.
I've always been proud of you. Even when I had no right to be.
I read it three times.
The fourth time I can't finish it.
I press the back of my hand against my mouth and sit there on those steps with my elbows on my knees and my chest doing something I don't have a name for.
Not grief exactly. Not forgiveness. Something older and rawer than either of those things.
She watched me play. She's been watching me play.
The woman who I blamed for every hard thing in my life has been sitting in a prison somewhere watching me on a screen, proud of me, and I didn't know.
I don't go back inside. I don't call anyone.
I just sit there until the feeling settles enough that I can breathe around it.
Ten minutes. Maybe more.
When I finally stand up, my legs are stiff from the cold and my eyes sting in a way I'm not going to examine too closely.
I walk to my car.
I sit in the driver's seat for a long time before I can make myself start the engine.