Chapter Thirty #2
“That’s always been my favorite thing about you.
” I step closer, hold his face in my hands, and press my lips to his.
Lucas opens for me, parting his lips so my tongue can slip inside.
He tastes so familiar now, like my body knows everything about his, like it was always meant to, and we’re both just now getting to where we always belonged.
I hear the sound before I see anything, hear the deep clearing of a throat, one I’ve heard countless times. The timbre of a man who’s told me he’s proud of me so many times, a man I’ve tried not to disappoint since the day I met him, a man who’s been a father figure to me after losing my own.
I jerk away from Lucas. He closes his eyes in defeat as I whip my head around and see Coach Blake standing there. Confusion sweeps me up, tosses me around, but then I remember it’s their bye week, the week after ours this year.
“You’ve been ignoring me, and now I see why.” Disdain drips from every syllable.
“I’m not… I haven’t…” I trail off. Because I am, and I have.
“Dad…” Lucas starts, but Coach Blake cuts him off.
“Don’t talk to me. How dare you betray your brother’s memory this way?
Or has this always been going on? How long have you let your brother’s boyfriend fuck you?
The whole time? Was it a game for you?” He turns on me.
“Jesus, Hunter. How can you let him take advantage of you this way? He wants you because you’re Ellis’s and because he’s bound and determined to spend his life showing me how much he hates me. ”
My hands fist, my breathing heavy. Every concern I had about my relationship with Coach Blake has been eviscerated by what he said, by how he’s treating Lucas.
“Don’t fucking do that. Don’t talk about him that way.
You have no right, and you’re wrong about him.
He’s a better man than you’ve ever given him credit for, and I won’t stand here and allow you to put him down. ”
“It’s fine, Hunt. I am who I am, right?” There’s not a drop of emotion in Lucas’s voice.
“Don’t do that. Don’t let him get into your head. He doesn’t know you.”
“But he’s right, isn’t he? I’ve always wanted you, even though you were never meant to be mine. And if you had wanted me back then, I would have been with you then too.”
He wouldn’t have. I know him better than that.
Lucas would have never hurt Ellis. He would have turned me down, would have been a good brother, but he doesn’t believe that about himself.
Either that, or a part of him wants to prove his father right about him, wants to be all the things his father thinks he is, because then it’s easier for him to understand why his father chose football over a good relationship with his son.
Jesus, that’s what it is, isn’t it? If he’s all the things his father says about him, then his dad is right not to have a relationship with him, and it’s not just that he cares about the game more than he cares about Lucas.
“It’s just a game,” I tell Coach Blake. “It’s just a fucking game. Lucas is your son—the only one you have left.”
“He’s turned you against me, Hunter. And after everything we’ve done for you, everything we’ve given you. Without me, you would be—”
“Exactly where he is now!” Lucas shouts.
“Lower your voice.” Coach Blake’s gaze darts around, but my house is private and back from the road.
“Hunter is who he is because of his love for the game, his work ethic, his talent. But you wanted him to believe it’s because of you, because that gave you power, just like you wanted Ellis to believe you would love him more, love him better because he gave you Hunter.
We’re all just fucking pawns to you, people you play with, manipulate to get what you want.
You did nothing for Hunter that he couldn’t do for himself.
You turned your back on me, and you showed Ellis your love was conditional.
He spent his whole fucking life trying to make up for not being good at football, and I’ll never forgive you for it. ”
Each word Lucas utters knocks another wall down in the narrow worldview Coach Blake wanted me to have.
Did Ellis really love football as much as I do?
As much as his dad does? Or did he only tell himself he did to earn his father’s love?
What did that mean about us? Was what we had real?
I’d already realized I’d mistaken the love I had for him as being in love with him, and maybe Ellis had too.
Maybe for him, I was a way to give his father what he always wanted—a son who played ball.
Ellis would have never done that on purpose, but we were both so fucking young, so close and so enamored with the man standing before me now. All we wanted was to make him proud.
I don’t know what to think. What to feel. I don’t know up from down or truth from fiction. “Leave,” I say harshly, with uncharacteristic coldness.
“Hunt…” Lucas starts.
“Not you,” I say, then give Coach Blake my attention again.
“I loved Ellis. He was the best friend I’ve ever had, and he always will be, but that’s all he ever should have been.
I love Ellis, but I’m in love with Lucas.
And while I appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the years, I’ll have to ask you to leave. ”
Coach Blake’s face turns red in anger. He doesn’t like being told what to do, doesn’t like not getting his way, not winning.
“You’ll be a joke when people find out about this,” he seethes. “You used Ellis for my money and connections, and now moved on to his brother. You’re throwing away everything you worked for, when Lucas only wants you because it will hurt me.” Coach Blake turns and walks away.
“I have to go,” Lucas says the second his father is gone, and the words stun me out of the trance I was in.
“Wait. Maybe we should talk. What he said…”
“I don’t only want you because it will piss him off. That’s just a perk.” He projects coldness, but I recognize it for the protective barrier it is, Lucas trying to build his walls up before he gets hurt.
“I don’t think you only want me to piss him off. I know you, Lucas.”
“I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
And just like that, Lucas is walking away. I’m frozen in place, helplessly watching him go.