Chapter 15 #2
“The team, mostly,” he explains. “I knew I’d get kicked off, and I couldn’t risk losing hockey.
Plus, your dad would’ve been really disappointed in me.
I wouldn’t have done that to him after everything he did for me.
Alex probably wouldn’t have cared, though some of his friends might’ve gotten pissed.
His parties would have been a lot more awkward for me, that’s for sure.
And, obviously, it wouldn’t have helped you.
It would have helped me feel better, but in the long run, it probably would have just made things worse for you. ”
And there it is.
Winnie sighs. She’s probably being too hard on him. Everything he said is accurate. She doesn’t fault him for it. It’s not what he said that gives her pause—it’s how he said it. First, hockey. Then her dad. Then her brother. Then her, all the way at the end, the afterthought.
It’s what she most fears.
Maybe Sam was right when she accused her of self-sabotage, but she was wrong about the why.
It’s not because Winnie was always leaving the door open for Ty.
It’s because she was leaving it open for herself—to run through, to run out.
Her hope has always been a weapon used against her.
It’s easier to have none at all, to pick guys who can never give her the happy ending she craves, rather than face that sharp disappointment of her own naive optimism slapping her upside the face.
“What?” he asks, suddenly intent. She’s never had a good poker face. “What’d I say?”
“Nothing.”
She shirks the question and his hold, doing what she does best—retreating. But he follows her to the sofa and sits next to her, turning his whole body toward her, not letting her escape as he takes her hand in his and threads their fingers together.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s not wrong. It’s just—” She sighs. “I don’t want to be last on your list.”
God, she sounds like a petulant child. But he must understand what she’s really saying, because the gears still as his lips settle into a grim line.
“I know you love my brother,” she tries to explain.
“And I know you love my dad. I love that you love them. But I can’t always come after them, not if you’re the person I’m going to be with.
I need to be your person if this is ever going to work.
And I just— I just don’t know that I ever will be.
That’s why I never told you how I felt, why I probably never would have if Sam hadn’t worked her voodoo magic to get me on this show.
I don’t want to come last, Ty. I can’t.”
“Look, Win—” He scrubs a hand through his hair as his features pull tight.
The longer the silence extends, the stronger the flurry in her gut becomes, the burning in her chest. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he finally says as he runs his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles.
“You didn’t come first. You were always there, always in my head and in my heart, but you’re right.
You didn’t come first. And I’m sorry for that, but you have to understand, I was the kid whose dad never wanted him, whose grandparents turned their back on him, whose life had no stability.
And then I met your dad. I met your brother.
Suddenly, I had these two people who saw worth in me, who believed in me, who wanted to support me.
There was a time when I couldn’t have existed outside of them, when I would have been completely lost without them.
But I’m not that scared little boy anymore.
I will always love them, but I’m not afraid to lose them the way I once was.
I’m afraid to lose you. I love you. And I should have told you this the second you said the words to me, but my brain just couldn’t catch up.
And then you were gone. And I let the producers pull me into their games.
I know I messed up. I know this is late, but I love you.
I really do. I always have. And now I’m completely and utterly terrified that you’ll never believe me. ”
She looks down at her lap, hating the sudden jerk her heart makes. “I’m not sure I will.”
“Think about it, Win.” He squeezes her fingers, silently begging her to look up. The emotion in his brilliant eyes makes her pulse race. “Really think about it. Please. Why else would I look for you in the stands at the start of every single one of my games?”
“Because it was nice to see someone wearing your jersey?”
“Wrong. Because I’m a selfish asshole, and the sight of you wearing my name was so damn intoxicating, I always played like a complete maniac afterward.
I wanted to make sure every jerk on the ice knew exactly who you belonged to.
Me.” He tugs on her arm, pulling her the slightest bit closer.
“Why do you think I went to your room during every one of Alex’s stupid parties? ”
“Because you hated his friends?”
“Wrong. Because lying in your bed with a foot of space between us watching some god-awful movie I don’t even remember was the highlight of my fucking month, and stealing glances at you in those”—he pauses to groan—“tight lace pajama things you always wore turned me on more than you can even believe. And what about college? I’d love to hear why you think I took a Shakespeare class, for god’s sake. ”
“Because he’s the G.O.A.T.?”
“To spend time with you!” he practically shouts. “To have an excuse to call you. To have an excuse to get you into my bed. To have an excuse to seek you out at every party and after every game.”
“I thought you just pitied me,” she whispers softly, her mind spinning.
“Pity!” He falls back into the couch, squeezing his head with his hands in frustrated disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Well, you could have told me!” she snaps, annoyed he’s placing this all on her.
“I tried!” he volleys back.
“What?”
Tyler goes still.
“When?” she presses, leaning forward.
He lowers his arms and looks at her, uncharacteristically vulnerable. “That night you told everyone you were transferring to NYU.”
Winnie replays the memory, searching for clues.
He was standing in the kitchen when she barged in from the stairs.
She almost tripped from the shock. But she powered through, trying not to stare at him, sneaking glances the entire time.
He barely said anything to her. Barely reacted at all.
She can still hear his response—I’m happy for you—can still feel the way those banal, toneless words landed like a punch to the gut, the final nail on her resolve.
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I made a promise to myself a long time ago that before I crossed any lines with you—because I knew it was inevitable, that someday my restraint would break and I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back anymore—I would talk to Alex first. I didn’t want to go behind his back.
I didn’t want him to hear it from anyone but me.
I wanted to be honest. I owed him that much.
So I tried. Again and again. Over and over.
That entire semester, I tried. But I kept getting interrupted.
I kept chickening out. I just couldn’t find the right words.
All the other guys knew what was going on, but I denied, denied, denied every time they asked me about it.
I was so afraid to lose him, I ended up taking you for granted, thinking you would always be there.
Then I went to your house that night determined to finally tell you both the truth, but when I got there, you said you were leaving.
And I guess I thought it was a sign that you didn’t feel the same way, that it wasn’t the right time.
Maybe it was just an excuse to put the conversation off a little longer, I don’t know.
I just knew you were off to New York, and I didn’t want to hold you back.
So I kept it to myself, and I waited for it to go away, but it never did.
Because I love you, and I wish to god I’d told you sooner, Win.
You have to know that. If I could go back to that night, I would do everything differently.
I would never have let you walk out that door. ”
The word never triggers something in her brain.
She slips back to that day outside the hockey house, back to that overheard conversation. She’s his little sister, he said. I would never do that to him. Never. He trusts me.
But now she hears something else.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
She thinks back to all those shared glances in his room, the moments when his hands found her skin, when the air squeezed tight, when the world swooped and whirled and narrowed and nothing existed outside of the brush of his pinky against her forearm.
I wasn’t imagining it.
It was real.
The whole time, it was all real.
Memories shift and turn and suddenly fit together in a way they never have before, forming a picture she was too in her own head to ever truly see.
Winnie finds his hand on the leather cushion and trails her fingers over his wrist, tracing the swirls of black ink she knows so well—because she drew them.
“This was never about the bracelet, was it?” she murmurs.
“No, Win.”
He takes her by the waist and pulls her onto his lap so she’s straddling him.
It should feel awkward. It should feel overwhelming.
It should feel like Oh my god, what is going on?
Instead, it feels like Oh my god, why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?
When he settles his hands on her hips, anchoring her against him, it feels like coming home.
He lifts one arm to trace the curve of her nose, the bow of her lip, the line of her jaw, his expression reverent, taking her in as if she’s a precious work of art.
He slides her glasses off, then places them neatly on the cushion, before reaching back up to thread his fingers through her hair.
When they lock gazes, he’s suddenly present, resolute. A sense of urgency tightens the air.
“It was never about the bracelet.”
Tyler surges up to capture her lips. Winnie fists his shirt, pulling him closer.
Their first kiss outside the mansion made her want to flee.
But this, right now, his arms holding her, his mouth devouring her, heat barreling through her, the world disappearing around her—Winnie wants to stay here forever, to live in this moment, to always feel so treasured, so ravaged, so free.
He’s no longer Tyler, her brother’s best friend.
He’s Tyler, the boy who’s known her most her life, who’s aware of her insecurities, who’s seen her at her worst, and who’s telling her he loves her anyway.
The man who is making her feel like the most desired woman in the world.
There’s no hesitancy when she grabs hold of his shoulders, using him for leverage as she grinds against him.
There’s no embarrassment when he groans and rolls her hips, silently pleading with her to do it again.
There’s just passion.
Pleasure.
Winnie runs her fingers through his silky hair, because she can.
He slides his hands up the back of her shirt, seeking more of her burning skin.
All the while, their tongues dance, building the inferno.
She grabs his biceps, mesmerized by the flex of his muscles as he moves his large palms back down and over her thighs.
Needing more, she reaches for the hem of his sweatshirt and tugs.
His shirt accidentally comes with it, but she’s not complaining.
Her fingers greedily trace the defined ridges of his abdomen.
The lower she works, the more she feels a sudden pressure between her legs, that hard spot creating the perfect sort of friction.
“Fuck,” Tyler murmurs, half a plea, half a curse.
Winnie sighs, feeding into that sound as she dips just a little bit lower.
Tyler suddenly takes her by the wrists and snaps their faces apart. Winnie blinks, not understanding why—until, all at once, she remembers.
The TV show.
The crew.
The ten million other people who will one day be watching this very scene unfold, including her father.
Oh, shit.
Horrified, Winnie whips her face to the side and looks directly into a camera.