And that’s when it hits me.
This is his secret.
The fact that his injury is fake and that he isn’t recovering. He’s here because he got kicked off his team for punching someone.
I’m his secret keeper.
I’ve been his secret keeper since I was ten and he asked me not to tell his mom about the juice carton and I breathe out what I wanted to say back then. “I won’t tell anyone. Ever. Your secret, I mean.”
“And what’d she tell you? What’s my secret?” he asks, his arms still folded, but there’s nothing casual about him now.
Not a single thing.
Not the way he’s staring at me with dark eyes and not the way his shoulders have become rigid. Even his biceps are in permanent bunched-up mode.
“That you guys had a big fight the night before and you were upset. And you went into practice all drunk,” I begin on a whisper, staring back at him, seeing how much tighter he gets with my every word. “And you took it out on the first guy you saw. Y-your assistant coach, Ben. You beat him so badly that they had to suspend you for the rest of the season and send you to anger management therapy. And… and they told a lie to cover it all up.”
For a moment after I’m done, he only stares at me. He stares and stares and I feel like he’ll never say anything.
But then, he does.
He says a clenched-out word. “Impressive.”
And strangely, his one clipped reply makes me speak up, makes all the words gush out of my mouth. “But you’re not like that. You’re not angry. You’re calm and disciplined and level-headed. You always have been. The reason you got angry was because you were upset. You were upset over the breakup. You were hurting. Because you loved Sarah. You still do. That’s thereason you’re angry. It’s because you’re in pain. And you took it out on the first person you saw.”
I don’t know what I was expecting after I finished my hurried, impassioned speech. Maybe I was expecting him to dismiss it or to make a joke or a sarcastic comment.
But I wasn’t expecting him to move.
I didn’t know that my words had the power to make him lean away from the shelf and unfold his arms. I didn’t know that my words would expose his flayed knuckles when he lowers his strong arms.
They aren’t as swollen and wounded as they looked last week, but there’s still some redness there, still some bruising.
But I don’t get the time to study them more because he’s walking toward me, advancing, and his eyes have this intense look in them. So intense that it pushes my body. It pushes me to move back.
Back and back as he grows closer and closer, his footsteps thudding on the cement floor.
As soon as my spine hits the bookcase, he reaches me, trapping me effectively.
Between the wooden bookcase with large, thick books and his body that has a broad, muscular chest and a tapering, sleek waist. Not to mention powerful thighs, encased in a pair of jeans.
“You’re right,” he says, dipping his face toward me. “I am angry. And upset and fucked in the head. And I did take it out on him and I liked it. I would’ve killed him if they hadn’t pulled me off. So yeah, I’m fucking furious and I’m furious all the time.”
I swallow, hugging the book tighter, feeling the pain in his guttural words. “I’m so sorry.”
But he completely ignores it and keeps going. “But I can’t go around punching people, can I? I can’t go around breaking things as much as I want to.”
“No, you can’t.”
He leans even closer then.
In fact, he raises his arm and grabs the shelf just above my head. I swear, I feel the mountain-like bookcase wobble at his grip.
“So that’s why I was at the bar that night,” he whispers, his chain shifting against his V-neck t-shirt.
“The bar?”
He nods. “I was looking for a distraction.”
