Chapter 19
KINSLEY
“Does anyone else call you Roy?”
“No, just you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I just…I like the way it sounds when you say it.”
My fingers trace over his skin, his arm draped over me as I lay my head on his chest. I smile in the darkness, happy for this quiet moment.
“Tell me something true,” he asks and I want to brush over it, want to ignore his question. But a bigger part of me wants to answer, the part that likes knowing that I can just be myself since there’s no chance for a relationship.
Not a real one.
But times like this, it feels like it’s something more even though I don’t know what that more is. I still want it. I still want him.
But Royce Oakden will never fit into my world, and not because I don’t want him to, but because it’s not where he belongs, and I would do everything in my power to protect him.
Because he’s still sweet, unjaded by the reality of my world, and I like that about him. I like that he doesn’t look at me and see only the soccer player or the playgirl image I’ve created.
He looks at me and he sees me. He sees the woman who lives next door, who cooks him pancakes, and who wants to have dance parties in the apartment.
But I can’t tell him that.
“I miss my best friend,” I say simply. “It’s hard to remember a time we haven’t been together.
But she’s in Blackstone Falls with the father of her cousin’s baby, and I know that I’m going to have to tell her that it’s okay to stay there because she’s happy and he makes her happy and they’ve become this beautiful little family unit and it’s okay that she doesn’t want to play soccer anymore—that she doesn’t want to live this life.
” A sob gets caught in my throat, the admission so much more than I anticipated.
“And I’m gonna have to let her go even though part of me doesn’t know how to do this without her.
She’s my person and she’s the only one who knows everything there is to know about me. ”
“Does she know about what’s going on with you? With the texts?” I shake my head and his arms tighten around me.
“She doesn’t need the stress, and I don’t want to worry her.”
“Don’t you think she’d want to know what’s going on with her best friend?”
I smile, leaning up on my elbow so I can see his face. “This is one of the things I love about you, Royce. So much is still so black and white for you.”
He doesn’t outwardly react, but I can see the way his breathing shifts ever so slightly at the word love. I don’t correct myself because it is something that I love about him.
It’s honest and true and I won’t lie about it, even if it’s something I won’t ever have.
Not with him.
“But—”
“Yes, she’d want to know.”
“But you’re not gonna tell her.” It’s a statement not a question.
“Not now.”
“Will you at least give me your phone so I can see what I can find? I can have any unknown messages forwarded to me.”
“You can do that?”
“There’s a lot I can do, Kins, and it’s not always black and white.”
“Nessa would like you because she’d want to protect me too, but right now, it’s my turn to protect her. She’s living her dream, and it’s so much bigger than soccer. She deserves this happiness, Roy.”
“So let me protect you. And, what, you don’t deserve happiness?”
“I don’t know if that will ever be me,” I say, resting my head on the pillow next to him as he rolls onto his side to face me.
“But this, right now,”—I tangle my fingers with his and rest our joined hands between us—“makes me happy, even if it’s temporary.
” He sighs and I lean forward, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Don’t.”
“But what if we could make it work?” My heart aches in my chest because I wish that too.
“I’m not the girl you want to date, Roy. You’re never going to want to be in my world.”
You know that.
“For my sake or yours?” he asks, his tone hard.
Defensive.
And I can’t blame him.
Something shifted again after I came home from visiting my parents. Royce was attentive and sexy, thoughtful, and it was all too much to ignore. I leaned into it, into him, all the while knowing that we were destined to fall apart.
But the weeks since then have been incredible and deliciously filthy, Royce’s confidence shining through both in and out of the bedroom.
“I wouldn’t hide you; I would be proud to have you. But you would hate it.” I swallow hard, coming back to reality. “That’s not the life you want, so it can’t be the life with me.”
“So, we stick to the plan,” he murmurs, his voice sounding like he swallowed a handful of glass, and I nod, not trusting my own.
It hurts.
And because he feels it too, Royce crashes his mouth against mine, the sheet moving with him as he rolls on top of me. His muscles flex as he holds his weight off of me, but I want to feel it, want to lose myself in the way he worships me.
So tonight, I’ll let him make love to me, because nothing is guaranteed and our time is running out.