Page 2 of Wrap Around
His expression is flat at first, blank and unreadable.
Then it changes.Sharpens. His jaw locks. His brows crash down, and his nostrils flare. Veins bulge and pulse in time with my own rapid heartbeat. His face flushes deep crimson, the color crawling up his throat and over his cheeks, fueled by a fury I know Ideserve. His eyes—green, furious, and familiar—find mine and hold. He stares me down like the sad, pathetic little man I am compared to him. Not just in size, but in worth.
He knows I've been watching him, taking him in like I still have that right. Like I ever truly did. And the worst part is that I don't look away. I can't. It's impossible to move.
We just stare at each other. The tension is a livewire, humming in my teeth. His jaw ticks like he can feel it too.
Instinctively, I brace myself. He's going to say something. Scream at me. Take a swing at me. Throw a punch or throw me back in time with words sharp enough to make me bleed out.
Part of me wants him to. I haven't been punished enough, and I crave the sanctity of retribution.
But he doesn't say a word.
He turns off the water, grabs a towel, and storms past me. So close our arms nearly brush. The scent of his soapy body wash, of skin and sweat and past mistakes, hits me so hard I hold my breath.
The door slams behind him. And just like that, he's gone. Again.
I blow out a heavy breath and press my back against the tile, wet with condensation. It's all I can do to hold myself together.
God, I'd rather him hit me. At least a busted lip would be honest. At least pain has a sound. At least I could have felt something other than the same pain I've been feeling for years and months and days, only it’s worse because he was right there.
But this silence?
It's so much worse.
It's not just anger, it's a dismissal. A refusal to acknowledge me and everything we've been through together.
And it's so far from everything we used to be.
Not like the summers on the lake, barefoot and sunburned, daring each other to jump off the cliffs and doing flips off the tire swing. Not like the nights we stayed up too late making up elaborate handshakes before peewee tournaments. Not like the boy who used to pass me the puck like he could read my mind, always knowing where I'd be.
Not like the guy who used to look at me like we were more than teammates.
And certainly not like he was the last time we were together.
That day, in our favorite secluded spot on the bank of the lake we spent our childhood swimming in, everything changed. Opened up a new world of possibilities I'd never considered. Because as much as I'd been in love with my best friend for as long as I could remember, I never dreamed it was a possibility that he saw me, too.
There was something about the way he looked at me that day, his green eyes shining impossibly light in the sun. Sweat and beads of water trickled down his washboard abs. His lips parted like he was waiting for me to say something. Do something.
Lily, his sister, had told me just that morning that she was pregnant. I'd promised her, hours before I met her brother at the lake, that I would make it right. Protect her. Do the right thing. Marry her and raise the baby together. I knew everything was about to change. Every plan we’d made to make it to the NHL together and leave this place behind. Every secret dream I had of being brave enough to live my truth someday… all of it died with two little lines and a promise.
But still, I kissed him.
Because I knew my future was over. Irrevocably changed. And Iwanted this one moment to look back on. Because no part of me ever believed he was interested in me that way.
For a moment, I thought I’d made a grave mistake. But then he kissed me back.
He kissed me back for real, pressed into me and slipped his tongue into my mouth. The earth dropped out beneath me, leaving me floating in the impossible ether of all my wildest dreams.
Our sun-heated skin was even hotter pressed together, hands wandering where they never should, bodies writhing like temptation incarnate, like every sin we'd ever been warned about come to life.
I was the snake. And he was innocent, unknowing about the temptations I'd been harboring since I was old enough to recognize my feelings for what they were. Since I could look at him and know he was beautiful. Since being near him made me hard and sweaty and uncomfortable and filled with a shame I couldn't quite name.
That night, when Lily and I stood before their parents and confessed, he only stared. His eyes burned into the side of my head, then locked on mine when I turned to look at him. I thought God might strike me down where I stood, called solely for that purpose by Gideon's scathing look alone.
I ruined everything. I chased him away.
But I can never tell him the truth.
