Page 40 of The Promise

Well, it turns out I didn’t need to worry too much about missing Kyle, I’ve spoken to him multiple times a day, everyday, since he went to Canada three weeks ago. We’ve had more phone sex than I would have thought was humanly possible, with both of our packed schedules plus the time difference, but somehow we’ve made it work. Kyle insisted on talking to me every day, even though I kept reminding him that his focus should be on his team whilst he’s there. But he’s adamant that keeping in regular contact with me is carrying him through the games, holding his laser focus and helping him to push through the days when he feels down in the dumps. He’s missing me, I know this because he tells me practically every time we hang up the phone, spamming me with messages about how he can’t wait to get home and devour me. The truth is I'm missing him too, much more than I’d care to admit out loud, but I know it's fucking obvious anyway, even when I try to hide it. Callie is kind of miserable too, missing Sean of course and the two of us are making the dorm feel like the depression ward of a mental hospital. I don’t blame Anais for staying with her parents for a couple of weeks, until the tsunami of sadness that’s drowning Callie and I retreats, bringing our boys back to us.

It’s almost 11pm when my phone starts to buzz underneath my pillow. With only three days to go until Kyle comes home, I’ve been staying up late, waiting for his phone calls.

“Hey you,” I whisper into the receiver, mindful to not wake Callie as she’s been a grumpy shit recently. But it’s not her fault, I know she doesn’t sleep well without her huge, hockey player sized hot water bottle wrapped around her.

“Hey baby, how was today?”

I shrug — even though he can’t see me — and turn onto my back. “It was ok I guess. I'm just getting really fucking anxious now about the qualifier race for regionals in two weeks. I don’t feel like I'm running my best, probably because I'm fucking horny all the time and I can’t concentrate on anything else.” My lips turn up into a smirk as I wait for him to respond. His laugh chimes through the phone, tugging at my heart. “I can help you with that in three days.” He sighs heavily. “I miss you Mol, I miss you so damn much, I can’t focus anymore. We lost the game today and I wish I could say it wasn’t my fault and I was playing my best, but I wasn’t. Almost four weeks without you now is draining the shit out of me. I just need to hold you, touch you, kiss you, anything but the torture of only being able to hear your voice through a fucking phone speaker.” “I know Ky, it’s shit and it’s affecting me too, but you’ll be home in three days and I have the weekend off training so…”

I can hear the smirk spread through Kyle’s voice when he coos, “So…?” “You can spend the weekend fucking me until neither of us can walk.” His breath stutters a little, sucking in a hard gulp of air. “Jesus Christ, ok…”

I laugh into my pillow, burying my face into his lingering smell. “I better go to bed now, gotta be up at six.”

“Ok, I’ll talk to you tomorrow then Barbie, I lo—”

My croaky gasp stops his words in their tracks and I think both of our hearts stop beating too. Was he just going to say what I think he was going to say? Fuck, my chest is closing in on me. The silence now stretching between us, as we both scramble for something to say, anything. “Night Mol,” Kyle finally whispers, his throat clearly strangling his voice. “Night.”

I hang up the phone and stuff my face into my hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I kick my legs against the mattress, wishing I could just throw my heart off a balcony and watch it sink into a river. I don’t want this, I'm scared of it. I don’t want Kyle to love me and I don’t want to love him…but I think I do. No fuck that, I know I do and it’s causing a tightness in my chest, so heavy I think it might crush me before he even has chance to come home and stop it. Why can’t things just stay the way they are? The two of us having sex almost everyday, going to the movies, going to dinner and laughing with each other until we’re almost sick. Why does love have to come into it, when we’re both perfectly happy without it? Or maybe I'm fucking delusional and we’ve been in love this entire time. Maybe love is those little things, like rolling around almost pissing myself as he tickles me, or talking into the early hours of the morning because you just never get bored of being around each other.

Oh fuck this, I'm just going to pretend like nothing has changed between us. Like he didn’t almost say he loved me and that I don’t love him either, things can stay as they always have been and we can just forget about that little…slip up…right?

Chapter 29

Kyle

What the fuck is wrong with me? I just can’t keep my rambling mouth under control can I? I told myself I was going to confess my feelings to Molly once I got home from Canada, not on a fucking phone call. I totally blindsided her into panicking and then hanging up on me, with only a tightly whispered, ‘night’.

The coach is driving so fucking slowly through these country roads, it’s making my skin itch. I can’t wait to get my hands on Molly, hands, tongue, mouth, fucking everything actually. I hope she’s forgotten about my little accidental love confession by now, it’s been three days and she hasn’t mentioned it in our usual nightly phone calls.

Sean sits next to me as the coach winds through the lanes towards Redwood, twisting and tossing us around, most of us with our faces buried in our phone screens. Sean’s incessant tapping is giving me a headache too. Really I'm just jealous, because I texted Molly when we got off the airplane an hour ago and she hasn’t texted me back. I keep checking my phone every three-seconds and after about twenty turns of the screen, Sean peers over at me with suspicious eyes.

“Mol not texting you back or something? You’re fidgeting like a fucking toddler.”

I huff a sigh, shoving my phone into my jacket pocket. “No, she hasn’t responded since we got off the flight and I wanted to see her straight away.” Sean’s heavy set bicep wraps around my shoulders. “She’ll be waiting for you man don’t stress, she’s missed you.”

“How do you know? What if she’s actually enjoyed the break? Or what if she has changed her mind about me? Or—”

“Shut up.” Sean groans, pulling his arm off me and jabbing me in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Callie has told me what she’s been like whilst you’ve been away, moping around the dorm room, eating her weight in ice cream everyday.” He throws me a wink, dimples pulled in. “That’s what girls do when they’re missing their man, eat a shit load of ice cream and watch chick flicks on the couch.”

“Huh…really?” My face cracks into a shit eating grin that I can’t swallow, no matter how hard I try. “So, she’s missed me?”

“Yeah, she’s missed you, you big fucking teddy bear.” Sean chuckles, bicep wrapping around my head and fist rubbing a whole in my skull. It’s my turn to jab an elbow into his ribs, to release myself from his teasing. Molly has missed me and you best believe I’ve missed her, so fucking much I considered ditching my team a few times and just flying home to sink my face between her thighs. But as the coach finally pulls into the car park in front of Molly’s dorm building, my skin breaks out into a sweat. The anxiety pools in my stomach, sloshing around as I grab my suitcase and walk towards the double doors. Sean and I clamber up the stairs, overfilled suitcases dragging behind us and creating a squeaking sound that’s scratching at my brain. I let Sean go first, shoving his key into the lock and turning it with a click, revealing the bright living room of Callie and Molly’s dorm. The sunshine is filtering in through the tall windows, making the room swim with light and warmth. The familiar smell that hits my nose creates a flutter in my chest, as my eyes search the room for my own sunshine. But I don’t see her, or hear her for that matter.

Callie comes flying around the corner, eyes bright and shining before she launches herself at Sean. “Thank god,” she murmurs into his shoulder, as he lifts her from the ground into his arms.

“I missed you,” he says, peppering rapid kisses all over her skin and bracketing the back of her neck possessively. Watching the two of them love on each other like that, is only serving to make me more queasy about the fact I still haven’t seen Molly. I squeeze past the lovebirds and head for her bedroom, peering around the open door and noting the neatly made bed and lack of feisty blonde. Her running shoes are also gone though, so maybe she’s out for a run around the park or at practice, but it’s a Sunday, so the latter is very unlikely.

I head back out to the living room, where Sean and Callie have finally detangled themselves from each other. “Hey Cal, do you know where Molly is?”

Callie swipes the back of her hand across her mouth, that’s currently stuffed with an iced pop tart that Sean brought back from Canada for her. “Yeah,” she nods, “she said she was going out about an hour ago.”

“Ok…did she say where?”

Callie shakes her head, dark curls moving with her. “No, just said she wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

My fingers find my temple, scratching nervously. “What the fuck? Where could she have gone?”

Is she seeing someone else? She’s definitely seeing someone else right? Why would she not respond to any of my messages today, then go out and plan to stay out all night without texting me? My chest is heaving, lungs lifting and falling faster the more I let my anxiety take over my rational thoughts. Ok, ok, I need to calm the fuck down. Maybe I'm reading this totally wrong, maybe she’s just at a friend’s place, or at a party, or-or…or maybe she’s fucking done with me and this is it.

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