Chapter 27 #2
We didn’t speak again until I pulled into the underground garage of his apartment building. The security gate clanged closed behind us, sealing the silence in.
When I killed the engine, I just sat there. The keys hung from the ignition. Rain ticked softly on the roof.
Kieren shifted beside me. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I know,” I said.
The silence in the car wasn’t comfortable—it pressed against my chest like a weight, like if I breathed too loud it might all collapse.
The streetlights made everything outside the windshield glow in soft gold, but nothing about this moment felt soft.
Kieren sat next to me, still—bruised, blood on his knuckles, a cut on his lip that looked worse under the glow of the dash.
I couldn’t look at him for long without my stomach turning. Because he’d done it for me.
And I didn’t know what the hell to do with that.
Then he turned, just slightly, enough that I could feel the weight of his gaze before I actually met it. When I finally looked up, he was staring at me like I was the only real thing left in his universe.
“I love you,” he said.
Just like that.
No hesitation. No buildup. Just truth, dropped like a bomb in the middle of the storm.
I froze.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. He meant it. I saw it in the way his jaw clenched, in the quiet certainty on his face. And it scared the hell out of me.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered, heart in my throat. “Not now. Not like this.”
His brow furrowed. “Why not?”
“Because…” I looked away, suddenly too aware of how close we were, how fast everything was moving. “Because you think it’s adrenaline. Or a high. Or—God, I don’t know.”
“Because you think I’ll regret it?” he asked, voice low.
I nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”
He shook his head slowly. “I won’t. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
I let out a bitter laugh, but it wasn’t funny. “You’re bleeding, Kieren. You just got arrested. Your name is all over every feed in the country.”
“And I’d do it again,” he said without missing a beat. “For you? In a heartbeat.”
I closed my eyes, gripping the edge of my seat. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I couldn’t not.” His voice softened. “Because I’m tired of pretending this is fake. Because I’ve wanted to say it for weeks. And because when I saw that smug bastard dragging you on-air, I snapped—and I don’t regret it. I won’t.”
I looked at him then, really looked. And I hated that he meant it. That his wrecked face still somehow made my heart skip. That somewhere in the middle of this disaster, I had fallen for him too.
But I couldn’t say it. Not yet.
“I don’t know how to love you like this,” I whispered. “Not when everything’s falling apart.”
“Then love me anyway,” he said, gently. “We’ll figure the rest out later.”
And the worst part?
A small, terrified part of me already did.
"And how do I know you won't just… leave?" I asked.
I couldn't help but think of Ryder, how the first opportunity to be with someone Juan Ruiz would fuck around with, he jumped at the chance.
I didn't think I could survive it if Kieren did the same thing.
The silence between us stretched, thick and aching. Kieren sat in the passenger seat of my car, his hands still scraped and bruised, his expression torn between defiance and something softer—something that broke me a little every time I looked at it.
“I won’t,” he said quietly, voice steady in the dark. “You want to know why? Because I know what I have with you. Fake or not, it’s the only real thing in my life right now.”
I swallowed hard, staring out the windshield like it held the answers I didn’t. Rain tapped lightly against the glass. Everything felt still, suspended in this impossible moment.
“You can trust me, Daph,” he added, his tone gentler now. “I’m not going to leave.”
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to fall into that certainty, to let his words wrap around me like armor. But my throat burned, my chest felt tight, and every instinct I had screamed to run before any of this could get worse.
I looked away, blinking hard. “Cam’s trying to fix this,” I said, my voice barely audible. “But I don’t know if it’ll work.”
Kieren didn’t hesitate. “If it doesn’t, I’ll walk away from it all. The press, the team, the league. I don’t care.”
I jerked my gaze back to him, stunned. “You’d really give up everything for me?”
“I already did,” he said simply, like it wasn’t the most terrifying, reckless, heartbreakingly beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me.
And that was the moment.
The one where everything cracked open.
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My thoughts were a mess—fear, hope, guilt, love—colliding like a storm inside me.
I turned my head again, unable to meet his eyes, afraid of what he’d see if he looked too long.
I didn’t want him to see the part of me that wanted to say yes.
That wanted to fall into him, into this, without a second thought.
But I didn’t get out of the car.
I didn’t run.
I sat there, heart pounding, knowing full well that if I let myself love him, truly love him, I’d never be able to take it back. That this—us—could ruin everything or be the one thing that saved me.
Outside the window, the street was quiet. The rain blurred the lights into soft halos, and for a second, it felt like we were the only two people in the world.
I pressed my forehead lightly against the glass and whispered, so softly I barely heard it myself, “You idiot… I think I love you, too.”