Page 80 of Depths of Desire
The regret was a living thing in my chest, clawing at my ribs, making it hard to breathe. I’d been so focused on being hurt, on protecting my pride, that I’d destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to me.
A knock on the door made me jump out of my skin.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I stood frozen in the middle of the living room. Who the hell would be knocking at this hour? The resort staff would have called first. Maybe it was Tyler from the bar or the swimmer who’d been trying to catch my eye. Maybe someone had seen me stumbling around the trails and wanted to check if I was okay.
I crossed to the door on unsteady legs, still shaking from exhaustion and adrenaline and the emotional breakdown I’d been having for the past hour. Whoever it was could probably wait until morning, but something made me reach for the handle anyway.
I opened the door.
And my entire world stopped.
Oliver stood on my doorstep, and he looked like he’d been through hell.
His hair was matted with sweat, sticking to his forehead in dark, wet strands. His face was streaked with tears, old onesthat had dried in salt tracks down his cheeks and fresh ones that caught the porch light like broken glass. His eyes were red-rimmed and desperate, the kind of devastated that came from crying until you had nothing left.
In his right hand, clutched so tight his knuckles were white, was a gold medal. It caught the light as it swayed from his trembling fist, beautiful and meaningless and somehow obscene in this moment.
He looked wrecked. Absolutely, completely destroyed.
And he was looking at me like I was the only thing that could save him.
TWENTY-THREE
LENNOX
I stepped backlike he’d slapped me.
My body moved without conscious thought, putting distance between us, between me and the ghost standing on my doorstep. Because that’s what he had to be, a ghost, a hallucination brought on by too much alcohol and not enough sleep and the ripples of heartbreak that made me see things that weren’t there.
“What do you want?”
The words came out harsher than I intended. I was going for venomous, for the kind of cold fury that would make him flinch and turn around and leave me alone with my misery. Instead, I sounded wounded. Broken.
Pathetic.
Oliver didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, swaying slightly on his feet like he was fighting to stay upright. His chest rose and fell with the kind of ragged breathing that came after a long run or a panic attack or both.
Then he opened his fist.
The gold medal hit the wooden deck with a dull clatter, bouncing once before settling between us. It lay there like an accusation, like proof of everything he’d chosen over me,catching the porch light and throwing it back in fractured golden pieces.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said, and his voice was wrecked. Raw and hollow, like he’d been screaming. “I won, and it doesn’t mean anything without you.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, but I fought against the hope they carried. Fought against the way my heart leaped at the sight of him and the sound of his voice.
“Bullshit.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together. “That medal is everything to you. It’s what you’ve been working for.”
“I was wrong.” He took a step forward, and I took another step back. “God, Lennox, I was so fucking wrong about everything. I thought winning would fix me, that it would prove I was worth something, but all it did was show me how empty I am without you.”
Stop it.
I wanted to tell him to leave. Wanted to slam the door in his face and go back to my pathetic pacing and self-pity. Because this desperate, broken version of Oliver was almost worse than the silence had been. At least when he wasn’t here, I could pretend he was happy without me.
“Please,” he whispered, and the word broke something in my chest. “Please, can I come in? Can we talk?”
I should have said no. Should have protected myself, protected what was left of my pride. Instead, I stepped aside and let him into the cabin, into the space that had haunted both of us for six months.
He walked past me like he was in a trance, taking in the familiar surroundings with wide, desperate eyes. The same couch where we’d played games and fallen in love. The same bed where we’d kissed for the first time. The same everything, exceptnow it was poisoned with all the words we hadn’t said and all the choices we’d made wrong.
