Chapter Thirty-Three
Hunter
With each day that passes, the upcoming game against Kansas City weighs heavier and heavier on us.
I can tell Lucas feels it too, like we’re both waiting for something to go wrong, walking on eggshells around each other, not wanting to rock the boat or do anything to increase the stress, which only achieves the opposite effect.
Mom calls every day, always saying hi to Lucas, making sure we know she supports us.
I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have a parent like her, which is what I’m thinking about as I hang up the phone, Lucas lying on top of me on the couch.
I touch his hair, love the way the soft strands feel between my fingertips.
“Do you think Abbie will be okay with us?” I ask, and he flinches.
He rests his chin on my chest and closes his eyes. “That’s a hard question to answer.” He looks at me again. “How does she go from thinking of you as being his to you being mine?”
“I’m not his. I’m yours.”
“Yes, you’re mine. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you. Remember that, unless you want to be locked in my basement.”
“You don’t have a basement.”
“I’ll get a house with one just for you. I’ll keep you tied up and do dirty things to you.”
My cock twitches. “Aren’t you supposed to be making this sound like a bad thing? It sounds fucking perfect to me. Now stop changing the subject. Abbie?”
Lucas sighs. “I think she’ll be confused and maybe a little sad because it will be a reminder in a different way that Ellis is gone, but she’ll accept it as far as she can without crossing my father. That’s how she’s always been with me. She tries, but she never pushes him.”
“You deserve better.” I press my lips to his forehead.
“I have better now…with you.”
Jesus, hearing that melts my heart. I wrap my arms tightly around Lucas, just holding him, breathing him in, letting him know I’m here and that I’ll always be here, but then…
am I doing the same thing Abbie does with him?
By keeping this a secret? By not sharing with the world how much I love him and who he is to me?
“I love you, Lucas.”
“I love you too.”
We roll together, trying to get comfortable while still clutching on to each other. When I scoot my ass over, it hits the remote, unmuting the television. We both tense when the interviewer addresses Blake Sr.
“It’s always an intense rivalry between Kansas City and the Pulse.
I’m sure that comes with mixed emotions for you, considering it’s Hunter King’s team and he’s like a son to you—wanting to see him succeed but also wanting to beat them.
He’s been on fire this season, even earned himself a new nickname.
Does the Comeback King’s record stop this weekend? ”
“He’s more like a son to me than people realize.
Ellis has been gone a few years now, and Hunter has moved on to my other son, Lucas.
” He looks at the camera while my heart stops beating.
“And yeah, Hunter, you might be dating my boy, but we’re putting a stop to your game this Sunday.
Sorry, son. I’ll make it up to you over a family dinner. ”
“Motherfucker,” Lucas curses. “That fucking asshole.” He shoves to his feet, pacing the room. I sit up but can’t move, can’t even think.
He did that to get into my head, to fuck up my game. On the surface it sounds friendly, like an innocent family competition, but I know what that was. He outed us to hurt me, to show the power he has, and to do what he always needs to do—win.
“Oh, wow, keeping it in the family, huh?” the reporter jokes, clearly caught off guard.
I grab the remote, feeling like I’m out of my body, doing something I never would have normally done. I throw the remote against the wall. The plastic shatters, and my gaze shoots to Lucas, hoping I didn’t scare him, waiting for him to tell me to calm down.
“Feel good?” he asks.
“Better than I would have thought,” I admit.
“I had a therapist once who said to throw ice against a wall as a coping skill, that seeing it break and shatter can help.”
I…don’t know what to say to that. It’s not what I expected him to say. “You see a therapist?”
“Not now, but I have in the past. Many times. Do you want to go throw ice with me?”
And just like that, the tension breaks and the spiraling slows. Doesn’t stop completely, but I’m not sinking deeper, and right now that’s all that matters. “Come’ere,” I say, just as my cell begins ringing.
Lucas comes, wrapping his arms around me while I bury my face in his neck.
“This is who he is,” I say.
“Yes. I’m sorry you have to see that now.”
I’d started to see already, of course—the dinner at their house, when he showed up here—but I didn’t know the depths he’d be willing to go.
I didn’t think he’d betray me this way, not after everything, which is fucked when you consider how he treats his own son.
“I’m sorry it took this for me to understand. ”
My phone stops ringing, then immediately starts again, over and over, while Lucas and I stand there holding each other.
I get why it’s weird that I would be dating him, why people would see a salacious story in it, and that’s what the vultures want—anything to talk about, to dissect.
But this is my life.
This is my family’s life.
This is me and the man I love.
“The real world is in now. There’s no running,” Lucas says, hand sliding up and down my back.
“No. There’s not.”
Our phones ring simultaneously—yes, the world’s definitely aware now.
I see missed calls from my agent, Mom, Des, Oakley, my coach. I call Des first, not ready to deal with the professional side of things yet. Right now, I need to make sure my best friend doesn’t think I’m some kind of fucking creep.
“Hey, Des.”
“That was fucked up.”
“Getting with Lucas?” I ask, heart somewhere near my feet.
“No, the way Blake fucking said that. I hate that motherfucker. He had no right to do that to you. You good, man?” he asks, and a deep breath escapes my lungs.
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m happy. I’m in love.”
“That’s all that matters. And hey, he’s hot,” Des teases, and Lucas chuckles beside me, having heard. “I told you before, it’s good to see you out of that fucking fog. I don’t care who leads you there. Me and you, we’re tight.”
That’s exactly why Des was my first call, why I needed to hear his deep, husky voice. “Thanks, man. I needed that.”
“Always, brother.”
The rest of the calls are somehow easier. Mom gives me an earful about how Blake Sr. will have to deal with her over what he did. Oakley is confused at first, but he’s cool with it, and by the end of the call, he makes it clear he always has my back and we’ll fucking kill Kansas City this weekend.
At some point, Lucas turns off his ringer, not calling his mom back.
My next call is my agent, telling me I should have warned him, that we needed to get ahead of this to make sure we spun it right. I agree, but fuck, can’t I just do that shit on my own time? Can’t I have anything that’s mine?
Coach is good too, good in a way Blake Sr. would never be with his players. I’d been glad to be drafted to one of the two LA teams, to an open and accepting team, and while Coach also wishes I’d come to him, he lets me know the team is there for me, and we won’t let this distract us from our game.
My head is throbbing by the time I finish making calls. Everything went okay so far, but that doesn’t lessen the weight on my shoulders…and in my heart. If anything, it’s heavier.
Most everyone will think there’s something weird about me loving Lucas.
I was betrayed by a man I thought loved me.
I feel like so many people are depending on me, want me to prove something—my team, my mom, even Lucas in a way. “I need to go,” I say, and Lucas stiffens beside me. “Just for a drive to clear my head. This isn’t about you. I love you and want you here, in my bed, when I get home.”
“Okay. Then that’s where I’ll be.”
I don’t know where I’m going until I park my car, take off my shoes, then walk into the sand.
It’s the first beach Ellis and I went to when I got drafted.
He was obsessed with the water, with the ocean and the wildlife there.
I remember being surprised that he wasn’t going to college for anything that had to do with the ocean.
Yes, he loved stats, numbers, and the law.
He’d been planning on being an agent, but the water had always called to him.
“Was it for him?” I ask the empty, dark beach, black waves lapping at the shore. I sit in the sand. “Did you plan to be an agent for him?” How much of Ellis’s life was about making his father proud? “God, El. How did everything get so fucked up?” I take a deep breath.
“I was so stoked that day you started talking to me, when you asked me to go to your house. I wanted a friend so badly, and I felt an instant connection to you.” One that I know, to this day, was real.
Everything got out of hand, and I don’t think we were ever meant to be together, but our connection was real.
“I’m sorry I let you down, El. Sorry I broke your heart, but I think you knew.
I’d see it sometimes, in the way you looked at me.
Toward the end, we hardly even had sex. We never were the types to just hold each other, walk hand in hand, cuddle on the couch, touch for no other reason than to feel one another.
You saw it too, didn’t you? That we loved each other, but we weren’t in love.
I hate that you died right after I hurt you, that the last memories you had of me were me telling you it’s over, but you wanted it too.
I felt it. It just took so long for either of us to have the courage to do it…
” And maybe he couldn’t do it because then he was saying goodbye to the one thing that kept him close to his father, that made his father happy.
“It’s different with Lucas. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about him, but you were my best friend.
You’re the first boy I ever kissed, the first person who knew I was bi.
The one who made me believe in myself and my talent, even when I pretended to be cocky and full of myself, because that’s what was expected of me. ”
I want to hold Lucas all the time, want to touch him, kiss him, feel him close. He makes my skin tingle, makes me come alive in ways I didn’t know were possible, but it feels weird saying all that to Ellis, even if he’ll never know what I’m saying.
“I loved you. I love you. I hope you know that. It will never change, but I’m in love with Lucas, and I know that’s probably not what you want to hear…
but then, maybe it is. Maybe, wherever you are, you want me to be happy.
I believe that. Just like me, you used to try and hide…
hide how big your heart was, but I saw it.
Everything is so messed up right now. Your dad…
our relationship is over, and I know you’d hate that, but you’d hate what he did to me tonight too.
“I don’t know why I’m here. I think I just wanted to talk to you. Wanted to tell you I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry you’re gone…but I can’t be sorry for loving Lucas. I’m going to be happy, okay? For real and not the way we tried to be happy before.”
I look up just as a star shoots across the sky. It’s a rare sight in LA, the area often so heavy with smog. But it’s so bright and beautiful it steals my breath.
Maybe it’s crazy, but right here, sitting in the sand on Ellis’s favorite beach, I choose to believe that was him telling me it’s okay, that he wants me to be happy.
“I love you,” I tell him one last time, then stand and return to my car.
My mom’s words from the night she found out about Lucas come back to me: “You’re Hunter fucking King. The Comeback King. Don’t ever let anyone make you believe differently.”
Damn fucking right.
Lucas is sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette, when I get back home. He immediately stubs it out, joking, “Sorry I’m not in bed, but I can get there real quick.”
“I want you at the game on Sunday.”
“What? No. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t. I want you. I’m not hiding you. I want you there when we slaughter Kansas City. I want everyone to know you’re mine and that I’m proud of that.”
It takes him a moment to reply, but then he says, “Fine. If you insist, I’ll go to a football game, but I’ll need Isla there with me.”
I laugh, pulling him close. “Isla can go too.”
“And maybe I actually want to be there…just a little bit.”
“Just a little.” I grin, and he leans forward and kisses it.
“Maybe a lot.”
“I maybe a lot want you there too.”