Swallowing the bitter taste of rejection, I look down between our bodies, mentally cataloging the soreness between my legs.
“Did we…” I trail off, too ashamed to admit how much I remember.
“Yeah. We did.”
I force myself to look him in the eye, desperate to get this over with.
“And we did it in Noah’s truck? In front of the others?”
Ty scoffs. It’s a humorless sound, followed by a silent wince. “Yeah. We did.”
He’s hurting. Atty said he still hasn’t recovered enough to be cleared for practice. Oh god… what if what we did last night slows his healing?
“I’m sorry, Ty—” A sob escapes me, tears flooding my eyes. “I’m so, so sorry. That shouldn’t have been our first time. You could have told me no. I’m just… I’m sorry.”
My chest tightens, making it difficult to breathe. Ty makes no moves to comfort me. Good. I prefer it this way. I don’t deserve his comfort or care.
It takes a moment to collect myself, the awkwardness between us punctuated by my slowing sniffles.
Eventually, he clears his throat and asks, “Why did you do that, Sawyer?”
Sawyer. It’s like a knife to the heart. It’s alwaysmon ange, or more recentlypetit diable. Sometimes he calls me baby, which always makes me melt. Rarely is it ever just Sawyer.
I suck in a quick breath and get straight to the truth. “I was high and horny.”
His stern expression morphs into a glower. “That’s not what I meant, mon ange.”
He’s angry, yet the term of endearment calms my nerves.
Leaning closer, he nudges his nose against mine. “Why did you go to that party last night? Why did you take whatever you took?”
Oh.That.
This line of questioning makes more sense.
I blink slowly, the shame creeping back in.
Again, I stick with the straightforward truth. It feels like the only real path forward, and my only hope of working through the mess I’ve created.
Opening my eyes, I peek up through my lashes and catch my bottom lip between my teeth. “I wanted to forget.”
Ty presses his thumb to my lip, releasing it, then softly, almost in slow motion, leans forward and kisses me.
It’s a quick, barely there peck.
But it inspires an eruption of butterflies in my belly, each one frantically fluttering its wing and stoking an intense, unwarranted sense of hope inside me.
“Keep talking,” he encourages. “What did you want to forget?”
“All of it. All of you.” The butterflies settle, the sensation replaced by a dull ache in my chest. “That night in the locker room after your first game. All those nights in my dorm. The dinner with the staff from the Galaxy. Our fight afterward. All the times I pushed Mercer and Noah away. All the choices I made, and the ways I attempted to navigate this. Everything I did to contribute to you getting hurt in the barn.”
It doesn’t surprisemethat I fell back on my old vices. Partying has always been my favorite way to cope.
Ty just doesn’t know that side of me.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know that side of me either.
My less-than-healthy coping mechanisms are really fucking stupid. Deep down, I think that’s why I revel in them. I’m human. For the last few years, I’ve only cut myself any slack while partying. It’s the only time I allow myself to acknowledge just how sad and broken and human I really am. I spent years alone, enduring and surviving a tragedy and what we did that fateful night years ago.
