Chapter 22
Gillian
Assaulted, avenged, and exposed all in the amount of time it takes to floss and brush before bed.
I would be impressed if I wasn’t blatantly mortified.
And humiliated.
And a tad horrified.
“Do you wanna press charges?” inquires Hennington, thumbs hooking onto the pockets of her Dalvegan green wide leg pant suit bottoms.
“Of course, she wants to fucking press charges!” my brother yells, hands slamming violently onto the nearby examine table he’s been pacing behind. “What kind of fucking question is that?!”
The woman everyone in the barn is terrified of – for good reason – slowly angles her face in his direction, tone even despite her twitched glare. “The type of question that’s my fucking job as the owner and the GM to fucking ask.”
“Language,” reminds Margot Adelstein, her taupe skinned, second in command.
Hennington sucks her teeth, briefly shoots her eyes up to the sky, and shifts her focus back to me. “It’s also the type of question that you, Gillian Blanc, need to answer for yourself.”
Her words hit me like an exposed nerve being tapped by the end of a dental probe.
Holyshit…
She said the words that needed to be said.
That I need to say.
I do need to answer for myself.
For what I’ve done and what I do and how I just hurt the love of my life when he just defended me with his.
“You’re right,” I slowly concur, head bobbing on what feels to be its own accord. “I do.”
“See!” aggressively barks my best friend.
“She’s right, M.” Our eyes connect to aid in my reiterating, “I do need to answer for myself.” No reluctance occurs when turning back to the beautiful, striking woman patiently waiting beside Dixon.
“I do wanna press charges, Hennington.” My arms fold across my Dalvegan green scrubs covered chest. “He assaulted me. He violated me.” The tipping of my chin a bit higher is thoughtlessly done.
“He needs to be held accountable by the law and the league.”
She begins to smirk yet abruptly stops to sass at her best friend, “Am I allowed to smile at that or am I gonna get called two for instigation?”
“Four for continuing altercation if you keep poking at your faithful pal, Pluto,” Bricks playfully point out from the doorway he’s leaning in.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Husband, do you not have a job you should be doing that isn’t micromanaging me, which is her job,” Hennington points to the dirty blonde beside her, “in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I love you too,” he lightly laughs.
“Love me further away.”
“The boys couldn’t make it past Dix to get to Blanc,” Bricks casually announces, “so they sent me.”
“We do not need more players involved in this,” Dix less than quietly informs. “One is more than enough.”
“Legally, one is too many,” Adelstein adds.
“Agreed,” Hennington quickly insists. “Tell Ewers he’s on. Blanc is unavailable for the remainder of the game. And send Groffee up to Dix’s office. We’ll meet him there.”
“Yes ma’am,” he retorts prior to exiting.
“He called me ma’am because I called him teenager,” she unhappily murmurs to her second. “How was that not continuing the altercation?”
“Not the time for your weird foreplay,” her assistant hisses while gesturing Hennington towards the door. “Or for your stomach to be showing in that shirt.” A finger wag is pointed at the area. “Button up. We’re about to talk to actual law enforcement in an official capacity.”
“I take offense to that,” Dixon unhappily murmurs.
“We’ll meet you in the main security office with DPD in six minutes,” Adelstein states to me and my brother.
“I choose private security work,” he loudly proclaims. “I have more qualifications than most of the officers on the force – including the ones we’re about to talk to.”
“Seven minutes,” the round face woman casually corrects while cracking the door behind them, cutting off our ability to hear his continued complaints.
Post their voices fading, I exhale for the first time since this particular shitshow started.
Not to be confused with the other shitshow of absentmindedly trying to hide my boyfriend when it would’ve been the time to announce our relationship.
Why didn’t I just do that?
Why is it when I needed my voice the most, I couldn’t find it?
Fuck, why did I even consider lying about us for a second?!
I know he heard me hiccup.
That stupid tell has always been a fucking curse!
I’m honestly more upset that I hurt Jukes than I am about some waste of space cup sweat fuck boy getting fresh with me.
Priorities out of order?
No.
I just know exactly how to deal with that.
Recover and repair.
As for what was severed up between me and the man I don’t want to live without?
Not so much.
Anger and worry and sadness simultaneously flow through my system as I retreat to pack up my few supplies that were spilled during the altercation.
“This shouldn’t’ve happened to you,” M growls barely above a whisper.
“It shouldn’t’ve,” leaves me in a lower volume, “but it does.”
“Maybe if I had-”
“No.” I snap at the same time I drop the container of dental wax into my bag that’s on the table.
“This is not about you.” Outrage and disbelief and deep unchecked irritation fuse together until they’re foaming uncontrollably past my parted lips.
“Not everything has to be or become about you, Milano!”
“You’re in my barn, Gillian.” A single step is taken in my direction. “You were attacked by a team my boys were playing. A team my boys tillied with. A team out for obvious vengeance against us.” Fury flares on his face in tandem with his tone. “Of course this was about me!”
“This is about me!” My pointed fingers jam themselves inward. “I was the one attacked! It was my ass that was grabbed! It was my boyfriend that helped prevent the situation from getting so much worse than it could’ve!”
“Your boyfriend…” he seethes, words sour on his tongue given the way he sneers. “You mean my player.” Disgust deepens on another stomp. “One of my boys!” The reverberations shake everything in the room but me. “You’re fucking one of my boys to get back at me for what exactly?!”
My jaw dropping doesn’t warrant a pause in his tantrum.
“You betrayed me for what?! Had him betray me for fucking what. Gillian?!”
Letters to create words can’t even get close enough together to start a sentence.
“For not being around all summer?! For having a career that needs me?! For taking care of the rest of my fucking family?! For you not being the center of my fucking universe?!”
“No, you narcissistic, self-involved, fucking pylon!” It’s my turn to clomp forward.
“Me falling for Thayne had nothing to fucking do with you! Not everything I do revolves around you!” Realization suddenly punches me in the ribcage so hard it knocks the literal wind out of me. “Except…that it does…”
A cocky hand wave in my direction receives a deep glare.
“My entire fucking life has been spent revolving around yours, Milano. Literally since birth. Everything we did, everywhere we went, was for you. Was about you. I didn’t have hobbies that couldn’t work around you and your schedule.
I didn’t have dates and boyfriends because of your threats.
I barely had my own life in college because I was busy following your career.
Supporting your dreams while backburning my own.
I was there for your highs, your lows, your insecurities, your marriage, your fears, your…
fucking…everything…whenever you needed it because that’s how I grew up.
That’s how I was raised. And that’s why…
that’s why…I didn’t want you to know about me and Thayne.
” My body unconsciously slumps against the edge of the counter I’m near.
“Because for the first time…in a really, really long time, Milano, I had something that was actually mine.”
His mouth twitches yet no sound escapes.
“And you know what’s really fucked up?” The curling of my fingers against the edge is done for additional stability, resilience to stand strong in my convictions.
“Every single person who found out about us that knows you…their first response wasn’t even about me.
It was about you. It was ‘how does your brother feel’ and ‘what does your brother think’ and ‘does your brother know’?
” Another headshake of annoyance is delivered.
“Even something that should’ve been about me, became about you. ”
An unrecognizable emotion bobs his jaw. “Everyone else knew but me?!”
“Seriously?!” New levels of irateness unlock. “You’re still making this shit about you?!”
“I-”
“Let me help!”
“I-”
“Since apparently, I fucking live to make it all about you, since my only purpose in life is to exist for you…for your needs…let me just add that me wanting to be selfish…wanting to keep something just for myself, something just about me, someone just for me might’ve just cost me my entire fucking relationship.
Not only the first real relationship I think I’ve ever had, but the only one I’ve ever wanted to keep.
And because I let…what we have…somehow become about you – you know naturally – I may lose the person I’m helping raise a teen with, the person I’m selling my fucking house to live with, the person I plan to spend Christmas with, the person I’m going to Frosky’s wedding with, the person I wanna someday marry, the person who is. My. Person.”
Shock yet again cracks his jaw; however, the sound of knocking at the door prevents him from speaking.
Assuming he was going to.
The sight of Thayne’s face in the door is surprising and exciting and heartbreaking all at once.
God, how do I undo the damage I’ve done to him?
“I’m leaving,” he announces, although to who isn’t fresh breath clear.
“You’re benched,” grunts my brother in displeasure. “You don’t get to bitch out and leave.”
“I wasn’t askin’,” Thayne firmly counters. “My family needs me, and Imma be there. Family always comes first.”
“What’s wrong?” Abandonning the position I’m in occurs without hesitation. “Who’s hurt? And how hurt? Is it Bronny? Dubs?”
“Grams.”
“Ohmygod,” I whisper out as I move in closer. “Do we need to leave like right now? Like right this very minute?”
“We-”
“We?!” M explodes from across the room. “There is no we!”
Thayne threatens to let his attention drift over that direction prompting me to step into his view path and repeat myself, “Do we need to leave right this second?”
“Yeah.” His eyes stay with mine. “Dubs says she’s stable but for how long…is…” His shoulders defeatedly bounce. “We need to go.” He briefly presses his lips together and adjusts his gear bag. “I need to go.”
“You had it right the first time.” Hope saunters through his stare pushing me to add, pushing me not to make the same mistake twice, “We need to go.” The emotion spreads a little further.
Deeper. “Let me tag in Sybil for the last period, tell Hennington that this matters more – you matter more – and meet you at home ASAP?”
There’s reluctance to his nodding.
But he does it.
“Swear you won’t leave without me?” Having him barely repeat the action is what prompts me to reach out for his hand and demand, “Swear to me the way only you can, Jukes.”
“I swear, Gillybean,” he quietly states. “All-4-One style.”
My teeth sink into my bottom lip to keep my sigh of relief trapped inside.
“You can’t leave,” M grumpily declares, warranting my attention over my shoulder. “You can’t just blow off your job for some Swiss cheese bud you’re banging.”
The dig at Thayne’s performance is not only uncalled for, it causes him to try to remove his hand from mine, obviously ashamed of how he believes he’s letting down his team.
His boys.
And they are!
Just as much if not more than they’re M’s.
“You’re right,” I assure after giving my boyfriend’s hand a loving squeeze. “I can’t, which is why I’m taking an emergency leave of absence from my career for the silky mitted stud I plan to spend forever with.”
Two completely different yet equally audible breaths hit my ears.
“You’re choosing him over your career?” airily croaks my brother. “Over everything you’ve worked so fucking hard for?”
“You mean am I choosing him over you? No.” Leaning in his direction to guarantee there can be no confusion to what I’m concluding, I forcefully clarify, “I’m choosing us over everything.”