I huff a weak laugh and scrub a hand over my face. “Feels pretty fucking new when you say it like that.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “Denial only works until it doesn’t.” He leans back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him. “So what’s the problem?”
I stare at the floor, my jaw tight. “The problem is that loving him doesn’t mean I get to have him. Not after everything.”
“You don’t get to decide that for him.”
I look up at him, irritation flaring hot and fast. “I know that.”
Ryan’s brows pull together. “Do you?” he asks quietly. “Because it sounds like you’ve been punishing yourself for four years and calling it‘what’s best for him’.”
I scrub a hand down my face, fingers catching in my hair. “You don’t understand.”
“Then make me,” he says, holding my gaze. “Because right now all I see is my best friend sitting on my bed at one in the morning, wrecked over a guy he’s still in love with.”
My jaw tightens. “I can’t tell him how I feel.”
“Why?”
“Because it would fuck everything up,” I snap. “Because he’s finally breathing again. He’s got his own place, his own routines, people who aren’t trying to“fix”him. He’s smiling again, Ry. I’m not gonna drop a fucking emotional grenade into that and see what happens.”
“Damien—”
“I’m serious,” I cut in. “I can be his friend. I can be there. I can show up, help him, and protect him if he needs it. I don’t need more than that, especially not after everything.”
Ryan snorts softly. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You didn’t do shit but leave, man. And yeah, it fucked him up, but—”
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to!” I cut in, my voice louder than I mean to be. “I didn’t just pack up one day and ghost him because I got bored or scared. It wasn’t like that.”
He blinks, his eyebrows drawing together. Then he just nods, real slow. “You finally gonna tell me why, then?”
I nod and lean forward, bracing my forearms on my knees and bowing my head. “I’d just come back from a tournament in New York with my dad. I was hyped, talking about scholarships, drafts, and the future. I thought I was hot shit because I had schools dying to have me on their teams already.” I laughbitterly. “Noah’s dad pulled me aside after dinner. Told me I had potential. Told me scouts were already watching me… and told me how easy it would be to make all of that disappear.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan mutters under his breath, but I keep going. If I stop now, I won’t finish.
“He knew I was in love with Noah, and that I’d do anything to keep him safe. So he used that to threaten me. He said if I didn’t disappear from their lives, he’d make sure I never got drafted. Said he had friends in the league who owed him favors, and if I kept ‘confusing’ Noah, he’d make sure neither of us made it—that he wasn’t going to let his son turn into me.”
Ryan’s mouth pulls tight, fury bleeding into every line of his face. He doesn’t even try to hide it; he just balls his fists in the comforter and shakes his head. “Unbelievable. That fucker really played the whole mafia villain card?”
I laugh, but it comes out broken. “And he meant every fucking word, Ry. He told me I was a bad influence. Said my dad marrying another man was a stain on my record. That if I ‘infected’ Noah with my… whatever, my ‘gay shit,’ he’d drag us both down. I wanted to punch him, but I couldn’t. I just stood there and nodded because I knew he could do it. He’s got money, connections, and reputation. He was the golden boy of Olympic swimming—if he tells a story, the world listens.”
He runs a hand over his face, exhaling hard. “Jesus, D.”
“I didn’t tell Noah because I thought if he knew, it would break him,” I say, quieter now. “Because knowing your own father would rather destroy your future than let you be loved, fucks you up. I thought ignorance was kinder.”
Ryan’s mouth tightens, and he blows out a slow breath, looking down at his hands. For once, he doesn’t have a joke. He just looks at me and lets the truth sit there, heavy as hell. “And you’ve just been sitting on that all these years?”
I shrug helplessly. “What the fuck was I supposed to do? I was seventeen and thought maybe if I left, he’d be okay. That he’d grow up and forget me. I figured he’d hate me, but at least he’d have a future.”
His jaw works, muscles jumping in his cheek as he stares at me. The lamp behind him throws a half-shadow over his face, softening the lines I know are carved deeper tonight. He just shakes his head, the disbelief thick in his voice. “You’re not still scared of his dad, are you?”
I blink at him. “You know the kind of reach men like him have. I saw him talk to coaches, and pull strings—he wasn’t bluffing. If I stayed, I would’ve killed both our futures before they even started.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a kid anymore, D,” Ryan explains. “You’re a grown-ass man, and you’re about to go pro. You’ve got people—fucking Killian is the most powerful person on this goddamn campus. If that asshole tried to pull any of that shit now, I promise you, he wouldn’t get away with it.”
I can’t help but smile faintly at the loyalty in his voice, even if it hits me in the chest. Ryan’s always had a way of sticking by me, even when I didn’t deserve it.
“I don’t think he’d go after me now. But I don’t know if Noah would even want to be with me. I’m not the stepbrother he remembers. I’m… Fuck, I’m angry all the time. I sleep around like none of it means anything. I’m a walking fucking mess, Ry.”
