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"Fucking duh. It's my life."
"Who is the greatest musical performer of all time?" I say.
If he knows me at all, he'll know the answer.
"If you're asking for my opinion, it’s a tie between Prince, Led Zeppelin, or Queen. If you're asking me who you think is the greatest performer of all time, it's Ms. Taylor Swift."
"Correct."
"Are we through? Give me my damn medal, Dani."
I shake my head and hold up a calming finger. "Throwing a tantrum is not the way you win the game, Owen. Only the truth will do that."
"I bled for that medal, Dani. By the time they got me back to the medics, my heart was a minute away from giving out due to blood loss. It’s not some fucking trinket you win at pub trivia."
"Then we'll get to the heart of the matter between us," I reply. Finally, I take a deep breath and ask the question that's been burning inside me for years. "Owen, when I was sixteen, you were all I could think about. I wrote about you, dreamed about you. Times have changed, but my feelings... they haven't. I still have feelings for you. Strong feelings. Do you feel the same about me?"
The room fills with a palpable tension and a silence that fills me with dread. I've never been this vulnerable. Never aired everything out so plainly like this. It's one thing to write in your private journal that you want someone. It's another to tell them to their face that you've wanted them for years and those feelings have only grown stronger.
I look at Owen, hope rising in my aching heart.
Owen's face is an unreadable mask, his eyes searching mine for something.
My heart pounds in my ears, each second stretching into an eternity. I need his answer, yet I'm terrified of what it might be.
He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. He looks torn, conflicted. The question hangs between us, a fragile thread that could either bind us together or snap under the weight of unspoken truths. His expression remains an enigma, leaving me in agony.
Finally, he takes a deep breath, and I wait, drowning in an equal measure of fear and hope.
"Dani, you and I are close. We've known each other for so long, and you mean a lot to me," he says, choosing his words carefully. Each syllable comes out slowly, as if dragged from the deepest reaches inside him. The eyes of the man I've wanted for nearly half my life stare back at me with deep emotion shining within them. My heart floods with hope and my spirit soars. This is what I've waited for: the truth. "But you will always be Dixon's little sister, which means there can never be anything between us."
Chapter Thirteen
Striker
Even I know it's a lie the second I say it, but what else can I do? Tell her the truth? Tell her that every second I spend with her is making me question my loyalty in a way that I never have before? I'm a Marine, a brother in the Steel Reapers MC, and I have a duty to uphold; these are all truths that I feel in my soul, yet she — just by being who she is — is making me question them.
It shakes me in a way I never thought possible.
Even as I force that lie from my lips, I wish I could take it back.
But I know what I need to do.
Her eyes, her lips, her soul, they all sink before my eyes. Crushing me.
"Your medal's hidden behind the refrigerator. I'm going to take a walk."
Those are the only things she says before she leaves.
I don't follow.
My job — my fucking awful, completely essential job — is done; I've hurt her heart in a way that makes me feel like my soul's been ripped out of my body, but I've kept to the mission and I've probably saved both our lives.
It's better this way.
At least that's what I tell myself.
* * * * *
