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He turns to face me, eyes set on mine so hard. I stare back at his unrelenting gaze, continuing to listen as he pours out his soul to me.
“I-It wasn't the jacket.” He turns to face the front of the plane as his words fall effortlessly from his lips. “It was her.”
My mouth parts, and my focus is entirely on him. The beat of my racing heart, pounding in my ears.
“She was the superpower.” He swallows the lump in his throat, his voice breaking ever so slightly.
The story has my eyes lining with tears. The dedication, the struggles, the devotion to her son—it's everything I can relate to in my life with Colin. His mother made selfless sacrifices for him to be who he is today, and what's best is that he appreciates that. He’s aware of it.
Unbeknownst to him, this story reaches a part of me he doesn't know yet. He couldn’t possibly know my ‘whys’. Not one man I’ve ever met could handle the fact that I’m the primary caregiver to my older brother. Eric destroyed any chance of me bringing a man into our lives by putting the fear of losing me into Colin. He’d tried endlessly to search for a place to put him. To separate us again in order for the relationship to work for him. As if Colin was a dog who needed boarding.
I’d accepted my role and my promise to him and would never let anyone try to separate us ever again. I rejected the idea of dating again after that. We’re a pair, Pickle and Col, and that’s not something that will ever change. Guys my age don’t want thatbaggage,as they say. They want easy, and my life has been anything but.
But the thing about Lake is that he recognizes drive and dedication, whatever the reason behind it. He sees my efforts, and that means more than anything else. This glimpse of the real man behind the famous football star facade has made me trip. And tripping is the prelude to falling.
“I'd never jeopardize your job, Dylan,” he continues. The pained tone in his voice doesn't go unnoticed. “I have nothing but respect for you.”
I blink away the cloud of tears that beg to fall. I inhale whatever I can to breathe while eyes full of regret wash over me. He nods to himself as if finally dismissing his own urges and thoughts. As if knowing because of the things he's been through, he can't look at me the same way.
I feel the finality of it; the let go of our brief fling or whatever this tried to be. I'm kidding myself if I actually thought for a second that Lake Decker would ever want me for anything more than what this was; one night. It can't happen. Won't happen.
He's respecting my wishes for the agreement.
It's everything I need.
What I can't figure out is why it's nothing I want.
25
Lake
There'snothingIrespectmore than drive.
Determination. A goal to achieve. A mission to conquer. I know all about achieving goals. I'm the king of it. Give me a bar and I'll set that motherfucker higher than anyone can reach. It's who I am. It's what I do.
And when I see it materialized before me, I recognize it.
I've learned the trade from my mother. Telling Dylan the story on the plane wasn't something I had planned. I'd heard her words, and they tore through me.I need this job. You know I need this job.
It cut me to my core, slicing through to a piece of my past I'd held onto, causing a familiar ache I'd felt before to materialize. I could hear the echo of those words stemming from my past.
Shortly after she left my father, my mom missed a shift because I was too sick to go to school. She couldn't afford daycare, and I wasn't old enough to be home alone all day in her eyes. I remember it so vividly. She was pressed into the wall near her nightstand. The one with the gold lamp adorned with a ripped maroon lampshade. Her body was so small as it curled around the phone, attempting to be quiet. But I heard. I heard her begging them to let this one slide, and to help her just this once. Her cries from the bedroom were muffled, but I knew.
She did what she always did, wiping away those tears and pushing through the pain. Returning to me with a bowl of soup and a big smile, she’d plopped down on the couch with me, ready to watch movies all day.
My mother knew leaving my father would be difficult. That being a single mom and finding ways to make ends meet could break her, but she never broke. Not once. Not for me. She bent. Molded herself into whatever she had to be for us to succeed. She wouldn't have it any other way.
Dylan is a strong, confident woman who's self-assured but subtle about it. She knows what she wants and goes and gets it, and I admire the hell out of that.
What I don't understand is a woman who knows what she wants but pushes it away.
My night with Dylan in the hotel room was unlike anything I’d expected. My jock brain that's been knocked around one too many times isn't even able to process the correct verbs to describe it. She’s flipped my whole world. Spun me so much that I can't think about anything but her and the way she felt around me, the way she tastes. It's all still on the tip of my tongue, this need for more.
I don't see a future where that doesn't happen between us again.
She wasn't kidding me when she mentioned one night with her wouldn't be enough. It's not. Which is why I can't understand why she's single. Is she single? Exes must be lining the blocks, waiting to slide back into her life.
Inhibitions, insecurities, and self-doubt were ghosts of the past that night. Maybe that was part of it. The fact that we knew we only had one night. We felt this need to prove something, to experience all we could in those few hours. And fuck—did we.
