He holds out a trembling hand to take the cloth from me. “You don’t have to do that. I can do it myself.”
I don’t give it to him. In fact, I take his hand and move it to his thigh. “I’d like to, as long as you’re okay with me touching you.”
He bites the inside of his cheek; a war being waged in his soulful eyes before he gives in and nods.
As I pat his forehead and the rest of his face and neck, he tips his head back against the headboard, letting out a labored sigh. “I suppose you want an explanation.” His resigned voice does nothing to heal the ache in my chest.
His skin is hot, feverish, salt slick. I can feel the tremor in his pulse through the fabric.
“No, Robert. I don’t.”
He seems to be taking some comfort from my dabbing at his skin with the damp cloth, so I keep going. “If you need to talk or want to get something off your chest, I’ll listen. But I won’t push you to talk about this piece of you with someone you barely know.”
He studies me in the dim light. “If you’re going to lie in bed beside me, I feel like you should be aware of what you’re lying beside.” A dark smile passes across his face. “You should get hazard pay for sleeping next to me.”
“I’ve had worse teammates.”
He tells me about his time in the Middle East, how he has PTSD from his experiences there, and how an article he published for his paper resulted in a local translator being killed. His words are slow, labored with years of guilt and grief even though it feels like he’s told this story before.
It’s sanitized, rehearsed, controlled.
I listen to him, holding his hand while he speaks in a vain effort to ground him, to help him manage his crisis.While listening to him talk, it strikes me odd that this culturally rich and well-traveled man now works in sports.
He heaves out a sigh, indicating his story time has come to an end.
“Robert?”
“Hm?”
“Why did you choose sports journalism?”
His eyes lock onto mine like missiles, filled with the depths of raw pain I can only imagine in my worst nightmares. “Because no one dies when I screw up.” His stare turns expectant. Like he’s waiting for me to flee, or scream at him, or react in a way that makes him the villain of the story.
But it strikes me that there’s nothing I can say or do to him that is worse than what he puts himself through in his own mind. “People who get close to me end up collateral damage.”
It’s such a simple statement, but it lands as a strike to my solar plexus, stealing the oxygen from my lungs. For the first time, I don’t see the arrogant, guarded journalist. I see the man still clawing his way out of the wreckage.
CHAPTER 22
Rhiannon
It’s time to face the music. We’ve been back on Irish soil all of two hours, long enough to go home, drop our bags off, and have a quick shower. It’s Sunday, which means the weekly Morrigan family dinner is looming.
Robert tried to wrangle his way out of it, but I’m not facing the entire Morrigan crew all by myself. Fuck that for a laugh. Even if they aremycrew. I’m not sure if it’ll be better or worse to have him in tow, but I’m hoping that my family will behave themselves better while he’s there.
A girl can dream.
“This is a bad idea.” Robert echoes my thoughts as we drive up the road to my parents’ house. “A really, really bad fucking idea, RhiRhi. Illegal, one might say. They’re going to take me out back, kill me, and feed me to the lurchers.”
That’s the second time he’s used a nickname in private, but I’ll let this one slide too considering what is about to befall him.
I smile at him remembering one of the little snippets of information I gave him on my fake honeymoon. I shift in my seat. I swear, if my parents don’t kill us both off over Mum’sSunday roast, I might spontaneously combust. Sleeping in bed next to Robert for a week was a special kind of torture.
I didn’t wake up draped over him every single day of the holiday, but I was pressed against his warm body most mornings, like he was some kind of magnet and drew my body to him overnight no matter how far away from him I started.
Then seeing him shirtless either in the hot tub, sunbathing, or in the pool made my blood as hot as my sunburned skin.
Add that to the fact he’s actually a fun guy to be around… well… whatever assumptions I’d made about the asshole investigating the doping scandal in the rugby world were blown well and truly to pieces.
