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13
“I’m sorry. There was nothing we could do.”
The doctor’s words hit me like a ton of bricks, and I crumpled into a ball on the floor. How could my dad have gone? He was supposed to be there for me. I was only seven; he couldn’t leave me. He was supposed to be coming to watch me play in my first-ever football match. I’d just been accepted onto the school team, and he’d been so happy for me. Hepromisedme he’d be there. He’d been so proud of me.
Dimly, I heard my mum’s sobs, but I was lost in a black hole that I couldn’t climb out of.
I woke with a gasp. Sitting up in bed, I rubbed at my eyes, breathing in and out slowly and steadily until my heart rate came down. I didn’t dream about that moment much anymore, but when I did, it hit me all over again. I missed him, and I’d never stop missing him.
It had been the worst moment of my life. Losing my dad at such a young age—no one should have to go through that. One minute he was there, the next, gone.
It took a long, long time, but eventually, my mum and I found a new normal. There was an ache inside me that I knew would never go away, but things started to get easier to bear. One day, I realised that I’d smiled more than I was sad, and that was a comfort I hung on to.
“All he wanted was for you to be happy. One day, Liam, you’ll be an adult. A man with a good job, a wonderful wife, and children of your own. And your dad will be so proud, smiling down on you.”
My mum’s words, repeated to me through the years as I grew up, never left me.
I’d finish university, get a good job, and find a girl to settle down with. That was what my dad would have wanted.
It was whatIwanted.
* * *
The ball rebounded off the crossbar, and a frustrated sound escaped me. My concentration was completely shot today, not helped by the fact that I’d slept so badly.
A face flashed up in my mind. Dark, tousled hair, bright amber eyes, a sharp jaw topped with the lightest dusting of stubble, the softest fucking lips—
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
Running down the pitch to intercept the ball, I did my best to get my head in the game, but my thoughts were too loud.
I’d had way too much to drink last night. That had to be the reason I’d acted so out of character. Noah and I were barely on the way to becoming friends, let alone anything else. And…no…that wasn’t even relevant. What was relevant was the fact thatI was straight.
Nineteen, almost twenty years I’d lived on this earth, and I’d never once been interested in guys. Any guys.Ever. Yeah, I could appreciate someone’s looks without it meaning anything more, as I was sure most blokes could.
But how did I reconcile that with what had happened last night? How did I get my head around a kiss that had been leagues above any kiss I’d ever had in my life?
The sound of a whistle screeching close to my face brought me to a halt. I spun around, seeing Travis glaring at me.
“Liam! What the fuck! Pay attention.” He jogged over to me. “What’s your problem? You totally missed that cross from Levi. You’re meant to be setting an example for the first years.”
“I know. Fuck. Give me five,” I ground out, already jogging towards the benches. There was no point in me being on the pitch in this practice session right now—I was a liability.
Seated on the sidelines, I kicked at the AstroTurf with the toe of my boot as Travis took the opportunity to swap out some of the other players, corralling the ones on the pitch into two teams. This day was going from bad to worse. After a night of tossing and turning, I’d woken up with a hard cock—not unusual, but it was very fucking unusual when it was accompanied by thoughts of my male housemate.
Fucking Noah. Ever since he’d driven into my car, he’d been messing with my head.
Travis blew the whistle again, and I finally managed to focus on what was happening on the floodlit pitch. The new guys were good—Levi, especially, which didn’t surprise me because he’d been the captain of the football team at his school. Apparently, his boyfriend, Asher, was just as good—not that I’d seen him play, but his all-expenses-paid apprenticeship to become a football coach clearly showed he had talent.
I lost myself in the match for a while, noting down the players’ strengths and weaknesses so I could dissect them with Travis later. We’d started doing it last year when Travis had become the youngest captain the team had ever had. Before he’d been picked, the captain had always been one of the oldest players. After it had been announced that he’d been offered and had accepted the position, we’d ended up getting together with Preston and Ander once a week to strategise. We wanted to be top of the universities’ league.
When the final whistle blew, I headed into the changing rooms with the others. As I soaped up my body in the showers, my thoughts went to the one person I didn’t want to be thinking about. Without permission, my mind replayed the kiss, and my dick reacted. I slammed my hands onto the white shower tiles, beyond frustrated. My brain needed a fucking off switch.
If I was honest with myself, which I didn’t want to be, it had been building up before the kiss. Last night had just been the culmination of whatever this was.
My hand lifted from the wall, slid over my abs, and down to my rapidly hardening dick.
No.
