Page 68 of The Long Game

“Hey, I’m trying to figure out what this means. Do you have one ankle hooked over his? Are you the big spoon? Are you wearing pants when this happens?”

Rhian shook his head mournfully and looked at Savannah. “Sometimes I can’t believe we love him as much as we do.”

Jack stifled his laughter when Fiona made a small sound of distress. Voice barely above a whisper, he said, “There’s a lot of contact, okay? Like…alot. And I’m the little spoon, if it matters, though usually we’re facing each other. Now do you understand?”

“But you’re just…sleeping?” Garrick asked, because he very clearlydid notunderstand.

“Yes,” Jack said, though he couldn’t help but think about the press of Grady’s erection against his hip and call himself a liar.

“And now you don’t know if you have a date tonight.” Because of course Garrick wasn’t going to forget that.

“That was me being stupid. I’m not a good candidate for a relationship, so I don’t know why I ever said that.”

Garrick cocked his head. “What do you mean, you’re nota good candidate?”

Jack waved a hand, then realized he was only holding Fiona curled in one arm and immediately put it back on her to be safe. “I’ve got a lot of…baggage. Too much ugly shit in my past. I’ve never wanted to drag someone else into all that, you know?”

“Idon’tknow,” Garrick said in the same stubborn tone he’d used all the times Jack had tried to remind him there was no good reason to give Jack a job running the arena.

He could admit, now, that he’d been wrong. He loved his job, and he was fucking good at it.

“Let me ask you something, Jack,” Garrick said. “The other night you told us something about your past that I didn’t know.”

Jack nodded.

“Am I treating you differently?”

“No.”

“Did you think I would?” Garrick’s gaze held the pain he tried to hide from his voice.

Jack thought about lying, but couldn’t. “Maybe.”

Garrick winced. Jack sighed.

“It’s not about you, okay? I didn’t think you’d stop being my friend or anything, it’s just people can be weird about that stuff.”

Garrick frowned. “That’s shitty. I’m sorry.”

Jack shrugged, because what could he say? The truth sucked.

“Is Grady acting any different?”

“No,” Jack admitted, then thought about earlier that day when he’d told Grady and Colton even more. How Grady had held his hand and cried with them. How he’d hugged Jack after.

Fear gnawed at Jack’s stomach.

God, was that why he was feeling so freaked out? Because Gradydidn’trun screaming?

“So, why can’t you have a relationship with him?” Garrick asked.

“Because he isn’t supposed to want one with me. He isn’t supposed to know the truth and not look at me like…like a victim. Or like I’m weak or broken or…” Jack searched his mind and the only words he could think of were the ones he’d stamped on boxes being shipped back from the arena to their distributors. The stuff they rejected because it wasn’t good enough. “…spoiled goods.”

Rhian made a hurt noise in the back of his throat and Jack immediately regretted saying anything. He was embarrassed and furious with himself—he knew it wasn’t true, damn it.

“Jack.” Garrick no longer bothered to hide his shock and horror.

Jack shook his head. “No, I know I’m not any of those things.” He hitched Fiona a little higher and pressed her over the ink on his chest, letting himself remember the freeing sting of the needles as they plunged beneath his skin, marking him. Reminding him even as he set the memories in their place. “But that’s never stopped people from seeing me that way. People think they know how they’d react if they went through what I experienced and they assume I was the same way. They’re wrong—about me, and probably about themselves—but everyone defaults to pity. They like to tell themselves it’s sympathy and empathy even as they slowly back away, like someone else’s past trauma is a taint that might somehow be contagious.”

---