AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I was scared! It’s not a good explanation, but it’s the only one I have. I was young and selfish and in love with you, and you were moving to Florida!”
We’re so close now, and I blink, confused how we got here so quickly. Our knees are touching, and the hand I have pressed flush to the cushion is only inches from the tip of his pointer finger. I look back up from our hands and gulp at the fire in his waiting stare.
I want to touch him so badly, just to remind myself he’s really here. Despite the anger and broken hearts, I miss him deeply. Just one brush of my thumb along his stubbled jaw or across his puffed bottom lip—or better yet, his arms around me. Something so simple would heal me more than any number of words.
“If you had loved me the way I loved you, you wouldn’t have lied to me. And you would have stayed and fought for me when I nearly lost everything.”
“Maddox,” I whisper brokenly.
He tears his eyes away and sits back, creating space between us that I immediately want to take away. Instead, I tuck my hands beneath my thighs.
“I’m so sorry. I should have stayed. I should have fought for your forgiveness, even if I never got it. You deserved better. Everyone did.”
His tongue darts out to lick his lips before he asks, “Do you know what the worst part of all of this is?”
“What?” My skin clams up.
“That after everything, I still can’t find it in myself to hate you.”
15
MADDOX
Pain fillsher eyes as a tear falls. Then another. And another.
She’s crying right in front of me, and fuck it all to hell, but I can’t stop myself from reaching for her. I slide one arm around her back and another across her front in order to wrap her up and pull her into a tight hold. My chest tightens when a sob racks through her, and she tries to pull away from me. She swats at my arms and shakes her head, sending her tears flying. The second one hits my neck, I’m done.
“Enough, Braxton. Stop fighting me.”
“Let me cry! Just let me hate myself for this a bit longer, and then I’ll stop,” she pleads.
I would if I could.Instead, I clasp my hands at her back and pull her all the way across the couch until she’s settled on my lap. She sniffles and buries her face in the skin where my shoulder and neck meet before going lax. Slowly, I unclasp my hands and cautiously place them on her back. I should move them up and down in a rubbing motion or something, but I stay frozen like a fucking loser.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, repeating the words I’ve waited to hear for so long. The same words I promised myself I wouldn’t accept when and if I did hear them.
The smell of her fruity shampoo is so overwhelming in this position that I have to tilt my head back and rest it on the back of the couch to get away from it. I refuse to give in to the voice in my head telling me to bury my face in the tight black curls and take a whiff of it straight from the source. But I’m not as strong as I thought I was because while I don’t give in to the one urge, I do another.
I shut my eyes and drag my hand up her spine and along the bare skin of her neck until my fingers slip through those curls and spread wide over the base of her skull. Fuck. Me. She shivers against me, and I grit my teeth at the rush of pleasure that follows. Soft and warm and fitted goddamn perfectly against me.
“I can’t forgive you,” I say roughly, the words scraping my throat on the way up. “Not right now. Not yet.”
A soft, choked cry, and then she nods so slightly I barely feel the movement. “Okay.”
“But we still need to do this. I still need your help, so I’ll try to focus more on the present and not the past. That’s the best I can do.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help you. I promise.”
My fingers tighten their hold on her hair before I relax them, not wanting to hurt her. “Our next game is at home again in two days, and if we win, we’ll enter the second round. Whenever our first game is, you’ll need to be there. I know you don’t like to fly, but you should come to a few away games too. I can get it arranged so you can fly on the team plane.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can fly on my own.”
My mind is already made up, so I move on. “We need to figure out public appearances outside of just games. The adoption day is a given, but until then, we need to be seen together.”
“Do you go out after games? To bars?”
“Not really. Sometimes.”
“I think we should start there. Adalyn mentioned posting pictures of each other online too.”
