Page 126 of Honeysuckle
“It’s not the same,” Josh said, but his thumb ran over the scar as he listened.
“No,” I shrugged. "But it was stupid, like a lot of my scars… Like a lot of all our scars, bad decisions, drunken nights, fights, accidents,” I said, turning back around to look at him. “Survival.”
He huffed. "You see them as trophies, Dean…I see them as reminders.”
I nodded, it was understandable, but it didn’t mean it had to be normal forever.
“When Ella started at Harbor, I don’t think I ever saw her with her hair up, in anything but a sweater. She hid the scars because she was ashamed of them, guilt-ridden for that accident that killed her family,” I said.
Josh sighed.
“But she was healing from it, making her peace, and that’s fine… I’m sure if she had wanted to hide for the rest of her life, she could have. But Arlo isn’t the kind of man who just lets people cower away in corners. He never let any of us, so it only made sense that he pushed Ella to forgive herself for shit,” I said, swimming back a little in the lake and letting my head duck beneath the water for a second.
“Tuck, is there a point to this story?” Josh asked when I broke the surface.
“I’m just trying to say that you have the team's support, they’ll have your back, no matter what.” I stared at him as he processed the statement.
“Half of them still think I’m an asshole,” he said.
“I mean, you can be an asshole… but trust me, they have practice in dealing with that…half of them had to play with Nicholas King.”
“Who’s now been ostracized fromthe cult?” Josh sneered, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“Nick did that to himself. He went after one of his own. He made it clear that he was never a Hornet,” I said. “I know that you don’t believe in it, you think we’re a cult or some crap…but we’re a family. And when you made a stand to tell the guys who you were, they saw that, they took it to heart. It doesn’t matter that you’re covered in scars, or wading through years of trauma, you can be mean to them, you can be mean to me. But whatever happens next…”
“We deal with it.” He nodded.
LOGAN
“Areyouwarmenough?”I asked as Dean tucked himself into his hoodie on the bunk. We’d decided to stay the night and drive back in the morning, but there wasn’t much around to use as blankets except for a few old scratchy wool ones left behind. We’d spent longer in the water than expected, our skin cold and sensitive as we got dressed and tried to get warm.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Dean said, settling against the wall, always leaving space for me without a second thought. I climbed into the bed with him, our faces inches apart and the air chilly around us.
“The quiet is nice,” I admitted to him. My mind was still racing from what he had said about the team, about trusting that they’ll have my back. There wasn’t any reason for me not to believe him, but I had spent my entire life taking care of myself.
“Are you going to tell me what happened in that room?” He asked me and I tensed.
“You know what happened with Ian,” I said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Dean said softly, his expression heartbreakingly hopeful..
I ran my tongue along my teeth trying to decide whether or not it was worth telling him. The meeting had gone basically exactly as expected and at the end I could tell by the looks on their faces, it hadn't swung in my favor.
“I told them what happened,” I said quietly. Dean held his breath. “Every single detail, I…” I swallowed the cotton balls that strangled me from within. “I told them everything so that there was no room for doubt that I was lying.”
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, and I scrunched up my face to get rid of them. Dean watched on patiently while I got through the retelling one painful sentence at a time.
“At the end of all of it, one of them asked me if I had been leading Ian on, flirting with him inappropriately. I said no, and his follow-up question was whether or not I ever touched Ian without consent,” I said, clenching my jaw tightly. “It didn’t matter what I said to them in that room, they had made up their minds about the situation before even hearing my side.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dean said in a dark tone.
“It’s sports politics—you know that better than anyone. The scandal of a misguided player with anger issues is easier to navigate than sexual assault involving two men.” I wet my bottom lip.
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t bullshit,” Dean grumbled. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly immediately after, as if what he said would hurt my feelings.
“Thank you,” I said to him and tangled my fingers into the sheets between us on the mattress. I shifted the tone of the conversation, just wanting him to understand that even though the day had started horribly, I was grateful that he was still trying to turn it around. “For this, for today.”
“Hold onto that gratitude for tomorrow when Coach is screaming at us,” a quiet, sleepy laugh tumbled from him as his eyes closed over.
