Chapter 31
Zac
Despite missing our captain, we claimed a narrow win against Coleridge last night, two-one.
The one goal I let slip past was because I was distracted thinking about how on edge he sounded on the phone earlier.
But when I called after getting home to give him and Hannah the play-by-play of the game, he was back to his usual self.
That doesn’t stop me from worrying about him. I saw the way his father backhanded him after the game against Macquarie, and though Noah tried to downplay it, I really wish I could be there for him this weekend when he tells his family about us.
Hannah’s been messaging me since they got there, reassuring me that besides being strained and awkward, things have been fine so far, but she can feel the tension brewing between the two men. I only hope it doesn’t result in either her or Noah getting hurt.
Something just feels off. I can’t put my finger on it, but I have a bad feeling in my gut that I can’t shake. Being three states away and unable to do anything if things go bad only intensifies the anxiety.
I’m tempted to tell Hannah not to let Noah out of her sight, in case the pressure gets too much for him and he decides to self-harm, but I don’t want her asking questions, and I can’t betray his trust. He promised me he hasn’t done it since after our last game against Coleridge, and I have to trust he’ll call me if he gets to that point.
Needing to take my mind off Noah and desperate to get away from the estrogen-fest in my bathroom, I decide to check in on Theo.
He’s been lying low since the acid incident, and I’ve been so caught up in Noah that I haven’t followed up with helping him figure out what he’s going to do.
“Beer?” he asks when I follow him into the kitchen.
The house is quiet. His dad’s playing golf with Luca Whitfield’s father, and his mum and Jade are over at mine.
I shake my head. “I’m driving the girls later.”
He shrugs, passing me a can of Coke before leaning his hip against the bench and swigging his beer.
I take a seat on one of the bar stools across from him.
“What’s been happening?”
“I’ve been in Sydney for job interviews,” he says.
My eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Nothing like an intense trip to make you take stock of your life and realise you’re a loser.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re not a loser.”
He huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “Thanks, but I’ve spent the last four years partying and fucking, and while it hasn’t affected my genius, it has fucked with my self-worth.”
It seems this weekend is the weekend for life-changing admissions and realisations.
“Shit, man. I’m sorry.”
Theo takes another sip of his beer. “It’s time for me to grow up. I can’t do that living in Beckford.”
“Fair. For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing.”
His lips tip in a grin. “What’s going on with you, anyway?”
My stomach dips as my thoughts drift to Noah. “Not much.”
His shrewd gaze assesses me. “Come on, Kincaid. If I’m giving up the party scene, I need to live vicariously through someone. Who’s hooking up with who? You found that special someone yet?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble, suddenly wishing I had that beer.
Theo’s like a basset hound with a scent. “Who is he or she?”
“No one.”
“Is it someone I know?” he presses.
I say nothing, playing with the rim of my can. Theo may have opened up to me about his life, but even if I wanted to tell him about Noah, it’s not my secret to tell.
“No judgement,” he says, holding his hands up.
“It’s complicated,” I say with a shrug.
“What isn’t complicated these days? All good things in life worth having don’t come easy.”
“Truth.” I heave a sigh and run a hand through my hair.
Things with Noah have always been complicated, but if we hadn’t been through all the bullshit that led us to this, it wouldn’t mean as much.
Was he an arsehole? Abso-fucking-lutely he was.
The hostility and barbed comments stung.
Especially because I knew I didn’t deserve any of it.
But seeing him work hard to overcome his trauma, accept his sexuality, and move on from what his father did has only made me fall harder for him.
Noah’s a good guy who was dealt a shit hand, and I can’t wait for him to be free of all the shackles.
It won’t be easy, and I don’t know what it will look like for him with his family.
I can’t imagine his dad will accept it without some sort of fallout.
I only hope I’m enough for him. That our life here in Beckford with our friends and teammates is enough for him.
At least until his family comes around. Because they’ve got to come around eventually, right?
Theo and I hang out for a few hours, playing the PlayStation and watching the ECL and EPL highlights.
Luca’s having an amazing season. It’s surreal to think that just last year we were training and playing with him.
Middlesborough are on the hunt for promotion into the EPL, and if that happens, Luca will be playing against some of the biggest names in football.
My phone stays quiet the entire time, not so much as a text from Noah or Hannah, but I try to reassure myself it’s because they’re busy mingling with people at his grandad’s birthday and ignore the niggling feeling of doom settling in my stomach. Everything is going to be fine.
By the time I get home, Jonathon and Kaleb are posing for photos with Milly and Jade.
My sister looks so happy, and I think back to my Year Twelve formal.
I went with Estelle Forbes, a girl from my psychology class.
It was awkward because I’d been hooking up with her brother, Luke, who was a couple of years older than us, and he’d asked me to take her because she’d just broken up with her boyfriend, who was a real arsehole.
Luke didn’t want them getting back together.
He thought if I took her, the ex would move onto someone new.
Needless to say, I ended up with a black eye for dancing with Estelle, she got back with her ex, and things ended between me and Luke.
That will not be Milly’s experience. Jonathon is so enamoured with her, I know he won’t hurt her. The way he can’t take his eyes off my sister has me grinning like a fool and missing Noah even more.
Knowing he wouldn’t want to miss this, I snap a photo of them and send it to him. There’s no response, but I know he’s busy.
I slip my phone away and pull Milly in for a giant bear hug, kissing the top of her head. When we pull apart, I can’t wipe the grin from my face as I sign, “You look beautiful.”
Tears shine in her eyes as she whispers, “Thanks.”
Jade elbows me in the ribs, signing for Milly as she chews me out. “Don’t make her cry, arsehole. That make-up took hours.”
I roll my eyes but pull her in for a hug as well. “Thanks for being a good friend to her.”
“Whatever,” she mutters, but she squeezes me back.
After dropping them off at the school gym, I head over to Noah’s, where a few of the guys are hanging out.
The door’s unlocked, and I let myself in, trying not to think about sneaking out yesterday after spending the night with Noah. My eyes dart to the stairs, and for a moment, I contemplate sneaking up to his room just to feel closer to him.
Jasper appears on the landing.
“Hey, Kincaid. You good?”
I swallow, averting my gaze. “Yeah, what’s up, man?”
“The others are out the back,” he says, jogging down the stairs. “I was just grabbing my wallet to go get some pizza. You in?”
“Sounds good.”
“Help yourself to a drink. I’ll be back soon.”
He pats me on the back as he skirts past me, exiting through the door I just entered.
I cast a quick glance over my shoulder before hightailing up to Noah’s room.
It’s risky, but I still can’t shake the nagging feeling that something’s wrong.
His scent damn near overwhelms me when I enter, closing the door softly behind me. The room is neat, with nothing out of place. It’s his way of controlling something in his life.
I walk over to his bed and sit down, my hands splaying over the sheets. Images of the indecent things we did in here assault me, causing heat to rise in my cheeks. The way Noah had me crying out his name and the way his hands and tongue felt exploring my body was nothing short of euphoric.
In a few short months, he’s learned every little thing that makes me quiver beneath him. I crave this man more than I have anyone else, and while that should terrify me, it doesn’t. Because I know he feels the same.
He almost told me yesterday. I heard the unspoken words in the way his eyes met mine, a tender promise that he was ready to choose me. He’s ready to give up everything to be with me.
I hate that it even has to be a choice. His family should accept him for who he is, and they drove him to this. At least his father did. Noah can’t go on living his life in the shadows. He tried, and it’s been slowly destroying him. It kills me that he’s been hurting himself.
Slipping my phone from my pocket, I snap a photo of myself and send it to him.
Zac: I miss you.
Again, my phone stays silent.
I sit there for a few more minutes before heaving a sigh and dragging my arse downstairs. I can’t risk Jasper getting back with the pizza and busting me.
When I reach the games room, Blake and Griffin are mid-match, thumbs flying over the controllers as Liverpool and Tottenham battle it out on the screen. Dane’s nursing a beer in the bean bag, while Ritter and Doyle are in the middle of a game of pool, with Everett watching on.
I settle onto the couch next to Blake and let myself get pulled into the conversation.
“Where’ve you been lately?” Ritter asks. “We’ve hardly seen you outside of training.”
“Swamped with schoolwork,” I lie, but I don’t miss the curious glance Dane throws in my direction.
Fuck. I hope he doesn’t somehow know I was here two nights ago.
Everett leans over the back of the couch and ruffles my hair. “Aw, we were hoping maybe you’d met someone, and you’d been getting lucky.”
I force a smile and shove him off me. “Nope. But even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you arseholes.”
“You know we wouldn’t give you shit regardless of who you were hooking up with, right?” Dane asks, taking a swig of his beer.
“I wouldn’t care if you did,” I say with a shrug. “I’m not ashamed of who I am.”
But I do feel fucking guilty as all hell for lying to my mates.
It will shock the shit out of them when they find out about Noah—they all think he’s been dating Hannah for the past three months—but hopefully they give him the same consideration as me. He’ll have enough to deal with once his parents find out, and he’ll need the support of his teammates.
Griffin changes the subject, launching into a story about a hypothetical domestic violence case they were discussing in one of his law classes, and everyone chimes in with their opinions. The debate is still going strong when Jasper arrives with the pizzas.
“Verbal abuse is still abuse, any which way you look at it,” Doyle says, opening the box closest to him. “Just because no one has the physical marks to prove it, the psychological ones are still there.”
“One hundred per-cent,” I agree, my stomach twisting as I think about Noah’s relationship with his father. “In its own way, fear and trauma can be just as damaging as visible bruises.”
“This is depressing,” Jasper comments, taking a bite of his pizza.
“It’s a hypothetical case study from class,” Griffin explains.
“It’s a shit situation,” Ritter says, “and I’m certainly not making excuses for it, especially when kids are involved, but how are authorities supposed to do anything about it without physical evidence?”
“So, they wait until it escalates?” Dane asks incredulously.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Ritter says. “But without evidence, it just becomes a ‘he said, she said’ situation. It’ll be impossible to get a conviction in court.”
“The system isn’t perfect, that’s for sure,” Blake mutters. “That’s why it’s so important to implement change.”
“One case at a time,” Griffin grimaces.
“Did anyone watch the Middlesborough game?” Everett interjects awkwardly.
Everyone’s quiet for a moment, reeling from the abrupt topic change, but Blake recovers quickly, and our conversation switches to soccer.
The next couple of hours fly by, and eventually, I have to leave to pick up Milly and the others from the formal.
I still haven’t heard from Noah or Hannah, and I still can’t shake my unease, but I refuse to come across as needy, so I push the feelings down and climb into my car. The engine roars to life, and I let the vibrations soothe me as I pull out of Noah’s street and turn towards Beckford High.
The school is only a ten-minute drive away, and I’m just around the corner when my lights land on an oncoming car tearing towards me with no lights on.
“What the—?”
I flick my high beams, a quick flash to let them know their headlights are off.
The car swerves. Not away—towards me.
“Shit.”
I slam on the brakes. The tyres screech, the steering wheel judders in my hands, and the car locks up as I wrench it to the left.
Time slows.
My pulse races, and I brace myself.
The impact isn’t head-on. It clips me hard on the front corner, a brutal jolt that spins the car sideways. My head snaps forward, then sideways, slamming into the window with a sickening crack.
Pain flares white and sharp—
Then everything goes black.