My heart thuds. “W-what?”
He shrugs again. “I might’ve said something about me giving you a ride in my Mustang. About you loving it and fogging up my windows.” A frown. “Not in those words though. I was dirtier than that but you know what I mean.”
“Y-you what?”
Reed sighs then. “Look, I just wanted to piss him off, all right. He was gonna score. I had to do something. It was the championship game. My last chance to win.”
“Your last chance to win.”
“Yeah, I just wanted to win.” He bends down slightly. “But if it makes you feel any better, I only won by two goals. Your brother was a worthy opponent. You should tell him that tonight. Tell him I said that. Tell him Reed said that he’s good. A real pain in my ass with how good he is. But you know, the best man won. Tell him to not cry too much in his pillow.”
There’s a pain in my chest. A massive, gigantic pain, but I power through.
I power through because this isn’t real, right?
This isn’t him.
This isn’t how he behaves.
He’s never this drunk. He’s never this… cruel.
He’s had plenty of opportunities tobecruel.
He’s had plenty of opportunities to be a player, a heartbreaker, to be all those things that they call him, but he’s never taken them.
No, this isn’t him.
He’s never broken a promise to me and I refuse to believe that he did now.
Even though I saw it with my own eyes. Even though I saw it in my brothers’ eyes, both Conrad’s and Ledger’s.
“What are you doing?” I burst out, desperately. “Why are you acting this way?
He thinks about it for a second. “I’m not acting.”
“You promised,” I remind him. “You made that pact with Ledger, remember? The pact that you were so crazy about. You promised you wouldn’t tell. You promised you wouldn’t use me against Ledger. You promised me that the first time I danced for you. You had tons of opportunities to do that but you never did and –”
“Right. I lied.”
“What?”
He drinks from his bottle again. “I lied. I made it all up.”
“You lied.”
“Yeah. I kinda do that.” He shrugs again. “One of my many bad habits but I try to love myself for who I am. I think self-acceptance is a very intriguing concept. It basically –”
I grab his t-shirt in my fists and snap, “Stop.”
Finally, I think I’ve jerked him awake.
Finally, I think he’s seeing me, hearing me.
So I tell him, “This isn’t you. This isn’t how you behave. I know it. I know. People are wrong about you. They think you’re selfish and you’re a jerk and you’re bad. But you’re not. You love your sister. You take care of her. You take care ofme. You’renot cruel. You’re not. You protected me, Roman. Last night. I thought about it.”
I nod and fist his t-shirt even tighter. “I did. I thought about why you didn’t… have sex with me. It didn’t occur to me until after you dropped me off at the school parking lot. You were protecting me, weren’t you? You wanted to protect my innocence. That’s why you told me to hold on to my dress. That’s why you didn’t evenaskme to take care of you. You didn’t and –”
Reed grabs onto my fists on his t-shirt and the muscles in his stomach contract as he growls, “This is starting to really piss me off now. I was having a good day, all right? I won. Yeah, I also got beaten up for it by your wonderful brother, who packs a really mean punch by the way. But it’s fine. I don’t care. I’m the champion. I’ve been waiting for this day ever since your brother stole the title last season. So yeah, I was having a brilliant fucking day and I would really like to get back to it. So I’m going to make this really easy for you.
