Page 19 of Unwanted

My eyes make their way down his body, taking specific notes on the way his shirt stretches over his chest and how the short sleeves hug the definition in his arms. My attraction to him has always been so complex. His heart, his mind, his soul.

I was drawn to it all, and his body was just the perfect addition to an already perfect package. And it was clear time had only enhanced that.

When my gaze finally returns to his, there’s no denying what I was doing and that I got caught.

I raise my hand over my shoulder and point my thumb at the door, needing to break whatever stupor we’re both in. “I’m going to wait in the car.”

He doesn’t respond, and I take long strides to get out of his space as quickly as possible, walking out of his house and climbing into my car without a second glance.

I need the distance, because it’s one thing to be civil and be there in a time of need, but it’s another to just abandon common sense and our shared history and blatantly get caught checking him out.

I can’t go there.

Not with anyone, and especially not with Frankie.

I lift myself up off the seat and drag my phone back out of my pocket. I read Clem’s string of interrogative texts, as if there’s something to tell, and then type out a quick “we’re on our way back” and drop it in the center console.

It’s another five minutes before he returns to the car, opening the passenger side door and settling in. “Thank you for waiting.”

“Not a problem.” I turn the key in the ignition and pull out of the driveaway. “Looks like it helped.”

He drums his fingers against his thigh and then surprises me by blurting out, “The doctor told me Lennox’s injury isn’t what caused his hearing loss.”

My head swivels in his direction, but he’s just staring ahead, blankly. “What do you mean?”

My attention wavers between him and the road in front of me as he answers. “He says it’s genetic, but there looked to be some trauma and scarring in his eardrums that isn’t related to the collision on the field.”

I know there’s more to it, and that his choice to regurgitate the details to me is his way of processing it all.

“He said Lennox mentioned growing up in the system and he wanted to know…” He inhales, his breath shuddering. “He wanted to know if he was physically abused when he was younger.”

His voice is so broken, and my chest aches for him. I know exactly what he’s thinking, exactly what questions he’s asking himself.

“Do you think he hid it from you?” I ask carefully.

“He must have,” he says incredulously. “But why? Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”

Lennox and Frankie may have been biological brothers, but because of their parents and the system, they were practically strangers, only being placed together when a spot came up in the group home. There was a four-year age gap, and for most of the time, Frankie was too young to independently search for Lennox.

And now Frankie’s learning that his brother had it even worse? I had no doubt he was struggling to swallow the truth.

The truth he was now going to have to get out of Lennox himself.

“That’s why you were vomiting in the trash can?”

He nods and I catch it in my peripheral vision. “He won’t talk to me, he can’t hear me, and now I’m going to go in there and have to bring all this shit up?”

He buries his head in his hands, and I’m almost tempted to pull over and be the person he always was for me.

To touch him.

To hold him.

To comfort him.

As if he realizes where he is and who he’s confessing all his concerns to, he shakes his head.

He clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

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