2. FRIDAY, AUGUST — SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO #2
His pupils blew wide, covering his once brown eyes. “Tell me what else.” is voice and expression were far too casual for what he was actually saying.
“I’ll get us alone time,” I promised in a punishing growl. “And when I do, I’ll bury myself so deep inside you, you’ll forget your own name. I’m going to fuck you so thoroughly, you won’t be able to stand straight.”
Silas closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a violent shiver rolling through his massive frame. His eyes locked on mine, and we stayed in our insulated filthy bubble for a while.
The tension between us was electric by the time we rejoined Evan.
A few of the mid-card guys, Matt Crews and Darius Clash, had floated under the cabana to join him.
Without thought, I sat down and pulled out my phone, letting it consume and distract me from everything around me, especially the desire to pull Si into my lap.
“Man,” Matt muttered as a woman walked out of the makeup tent in a metallic-silver bikini. “Dani is looking incredible lately.”
My eyes shot up. Did he just say Dani? If so, this was about to become a nightmare. Dani was a wrestler on the Aftershock card. She’d been on the brand so long, I’d honestly thought she wasn’t with the UWF anymore. It had been years since I last saw her.
Evan’s body went completely rigid. I shot him a silent, but no-less violent, threat to keep his mouth shut. But Darius was already talking.
“Yeah, she’s hot,” Darius agreed. He grinned at me.. “Hey Cal, didn’t you tap that a few years ago? Legend has it, it was in a rental car after a house show.”
The temperature under the cabana plummeted.
I slowly turned my head to look at Silas. The easy, glowing happiness from the water had vanished. His jaw was locked so tight the muscle jumped, but instead of shutting it down, Silas turned his head toward Darius.
“Wait,” Silas said. His voice was calm and terrifyingly smooth, but his eyes were Arctic cold. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know about this. Elaborate.”
“Silas,” I warned, the drop in my tone pulling from low in my throat.
“No. I want to hear it,” Silas replied. He was hurting himself on purpose, digging for information he had been terrified to ask about for months.
“Oh yeah, you were only around for his early days.” Matt laughed, oblivious to the grave he was digging…for me. “But those years you were gone? He was a king. Snagging chicks in every city.”
The blood drained from my face. Evan’s eyes closed as he brought his hand up to cover his own. This could not be fucking happening. These fuckers were actually telling Silas’s unstable ass this shit, in public. At least there were witnesses.
“Nah, the real question we’ve all had,” Darius chimed in, leaning around Evan. “Is how many women did you guys share back in the glory days? Because you can’t tell me they don’t still throw themselves at you both, trying to hit it at the same time.”
Silas sat there, completely stone-faced. He didn’t blink. Just stared at them both with a blank, unreadable expression that was somehow more terrifying than anger.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” I snapped. My voice boomed under the cabana as I sat forward, ready to lunge across the table.
“What the fuck is everyone’s thing with threesomes?” Silas mumbled under his breath. He shook his head and looked down at the sand. He sounded genuinely exhausted by the concept.
“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered into his palm. “This cabana is going to explode.”
“Whoa! Chill, Cal. It’s a compliment.” Matt held his hands up defensively. “Man, your reputation with women used to be insane. What the fuck happened? You go monk-mode or something?”
“I’m seeing someone.”
The air under the cabana vanished. Evan froze, his hand halfway to his face. Silas’s head snapped up, his eyes going wide as he awaited the fallout. They both looked terrified, like I had pulled the pin on a live grenade.
Darius blinked, then grinned, and eventually rolled his eyes. “Well goddamn. She must be something special to lock down Deadlock. Is she here? Is that why you’re so uptight?”
“Who said I was fucking a woman?” I asked, my voice dangerously flat.
Silas choked on his own spit. He turned away, violently coughing into his fist. His face turned a deep, dark red as he tried to mask his shock. Meanwhile, Evan looked like his soul had just left his body.
The guys burst out laughing, assuming I was just playing up my character, being the sarcastic heel.
“Okay, funny guy.” Matt laughed, shaking his head. “Whatever you say.”
I didn’t laugh. I immediately stood up, grabbed my sunglasses, and pulled out my phone as I walked away.
Follow me.
His heavy footsteps echoed behind me right as the elevator doors opened to the lobby. Silas slid in, his chest heaving, with Evan slipping through a half-second later.
“I hate this island,” Evan announced to the elevator doors.
“I hate Matt and Darius, and I hate you two for ever breaking up.” The ride to the fourteenth floor and the walk to my door, was spent in agonizing silence.
Evan stopped behind us outside my room. “I’m going to find Lena,” he sighed, “Put up the Do Not Disturb sign, and do not destroy the drywall unless it’s done sexually. ”
I swiped my key card. Silas followed, the heavy door clicking shut behind him. The second the lock engaged, he walked to the foot of the bed and stopped, dropping his face into his hands. His broad shoulders were tense, radiating with a dark, suffocating anxiety.
“A car?” Silas mumbled behind his hands. When they finally dropped, and he turned his gaze on me, his eyes looked shattered. “You slept with people on the fucking roster?”
“No,” I said instantly, but my chest was tightening with a suffocating guilt. I closed the distance between us, desperate to stop the spiral before it started. “Not people, Si. Just her. Once. Years ago.”
Silas took a shaky breath, running his large hands frantically through his hair. He began to pace the small space between the bed and the TV.
“I’m not mad.” he said.
I didn’t entirely believe him. There was still a crack in his voice, an uncomfortability he couldn’t shake. “I’m really not, but she’s here. Working with us and in the locker rooms. It’s a walking reminder of this whole other life you lived because I… Did you… Did you date her?”
“No,” I said firmly. I held his gaze so he knew I wasn’t hiding a single thing.
“No, we didn’t date. We were on the same house show loop, like, four years ago.
I was in a really shitty headspace back then.
We ended up being assigned a rental car together, and it just happened.
She wanted us to date after that night, and I told her absolutely not. That’s why it went nowhere.”
Silas stopped pacing and wrapped his arms around his own waist. The retroactive jealousy was eating him alive, but beneath it was pure, unadulterated pain. “How come you didn’t tell me you slept with a coworker?”
“Honestly, I didn’t even know she still worked for the UWF. Not until she walked out today.”
Silas’s gaze drifted to the carpet. He was quiet for a long time before asking the question I knew had been torturing him since we reconnected. “Did you sleep around a lot, during those years? More than I know about?”
It felt as though my chest literally caved in. I couldn’t lie to him. Not about this. “Yeah, I think I did.”
Silas closed his eyes, a shaky exhale leaving his lips. “Just…” He paused, clearing his throat. There was a crack to his voice, one which led me to believe he was stuck in his head where each painful thought added onto the next. “Two.”
My brow furrowed as I tried to understand and came up blank. “Two?”
“I’ve only ever had… I mean, I’ve only ever…you know, been with you and Amanda.”
“Wait,” I breathed, my hands dropping from where they hovered near his arms. “Elaborate. What do you mean?”
Silas looked at me, his eyes glassy and defensive. “I mean what I said. It was just you and then Amanda.”
“I knew you hadn’t been with other men,” I said slowly as my brain scrambled to process the sheer gravity of the information. “But I just assumed… I assumed you’d have at least been with more women.”
“No. I told you I only dated Amanda after you.”
“Not even hookups with women?”
“No,” Silas replied, the word pitching up like a question.
He looked at me, brow furrowed and genuinely baffled as to why I found it so alien.
Despite the fact we were twenty-nine and thirty-one, there was now a jarring streak of pure innocence that seemed to dance within his eyes.
“Why would I hook up with someone I didn’t love? ”
The horrific imbalance of our separation hit me like a physical blow.
While I was out on the road, trying to numb the pain of having lost him with meaningless bodies in rental cars and hotel rooms, Silas had tried exactly once to move on.
Even then, he couldn't fully give himself to her.
He once admitted that sex with Amanda had never been a big part of their dynamic.
It had been safe, quiet, but completely devoid of the feral, all-consuming heat he and I shared.
I wasn't just the only man he’d ever been with. I was also one of only two people on this entire earth who’ve known him intimately.
The knowledge held a sacred, staggering weight.
For Silas, intimacy wasn't a transaction or a release. It was an act that was tied entirely to his heart. And he had kept the organ locked away in a swamp for seven years because it still belonged to me. I’m the only person who has ever truly possessed it.
Neither of us were mad. No, we were just mourning. The ghost of Dani was a brutal reminder of how much time we lost. God, I wished I could take it back. That I could rip those years out of my history, so he wouldn't have to look at me and wonder.