He whips his head toward me. “Brielle didn’t tell you?”
“I know what upset her.”
“So there’s no point in me explaining, then.”
I exhale, trying to make space in my cluttered chest. “Sit down, Wesley.”
He sucks his teeth before obliging. Slowly, I release the desk and sit behind it. There’s a heavy silence that falls as we avoid looking at one another. I feel completely out of place, but I know he does, too.
“What all has she told you?” he asks after a while.
I don’t need specific details to figure out what he’s referring to. “That you don’t get along with your father. That he’s been hard on you.”
“Hard on me?” He snorts a deep laugh. “That’s the understatement of the goddamn century.”
“He sounds like a bastard, to be quite frank. The kind of man who sees his children as a reflection of himself, so when one of them fails to shine as brightly as he needs them to, he feels responsible and like he’ll be seen as a failure. And that appearance matters more to him than the children who can sense that disappointment and wear it on their back for the rest of their lives.”
Wes clears his throat, his hands balled against his thighs. “Lived experience, I’m assuming?”
“The only member of my family who I’ve seen in over five years is Evie. I cut contact with my father not long after my injury, and my mother shortly after my sister died.”
“I’ve never seen them at a game. I assumed you didn’t invite them.”
“Why would you have thought otherwise?” I lean my head back against the chair and stare at the ceiling, my bones feeling heavier than they ever have. “It’s . . . easier for me to keep the line in the sand. Things stay clean that way. There’s less risk of personal relationships forming.”
“Which means there’s less to lose if something bad ever happened,” he says, stealing the unspoken words from my head.
“Your sister is the first person who I’ve let across the line in a long time, Wes. I’m serious about her. This isn’t a game or a blip in the now. I want far more than that with Brielle.”
It all hits him hard enough that he goes completely still. I wait for him to rebuke me or laugh me off. He does neither of those things.
“My dad knows I’m bisexual. He saw me once . . .” He looks at the blinds, his eyes glossing over slightly before he blinks, clearing them. “I don’t know if that plays a part in why he treats me the way he does, but that thought lingers. It haunts me when he makes jabs at me for a bad game or a photo I post. Really, anything he shouldn’t have a say in but makes it his mission to involve himself in. The first thing I always wonder is if what I did really upset him, or if he’s just mad at me for something he doesn’t understand.”
My stomach sinks, growing barbs as I watch him lean forward, staring past me.
“He was always hard on me. Downright cruel at times, even, but he got worse around that time. Like maybe he didn’t know who I was at all and couldn’t put two and two together anymore. Couldn’t recognize me or something, and instead of trying to put the pieces together, he just wrote me off.”
“Have you told Brielle?” I ask roughly.
He stares at me, a plea written all over his face. “No.”
“I won’t tell her. You should be the one to do that.” I pause before adding, “But she’s not your dad, Wesley. There isn’t a reality in which she turns away from you for anything, let alone that. And for what it’s worth, while I don’t know your father, I do know what it’s like to love someone as a parent should. There isn’t anything Evie could do or say to me that would stop me from loving her.”
“Then you’re a better man than my father, Rome.”
“Your secret is safe with me. And I don’t think I have to say it, but this changes nothing. Not a fucking thing,” I swear, needing him to hear the truth in those words.
His nose twitches when he nods jerkily. “I’d apologize for the jaw, but you deserved it.”
“We didn’t mean to betray you. If I’m being completely honest with you, I think I wanted to keep everything to ourselvesbecause I was in denial that it was going to go anywhere. It was easier to see Brielle and ignore the way my heart raced because that meant she didn’t mean anything to me. That I wasn’t going to let her wiggle her way into my life and become someone who I couldn’t live without.”
“And now? What makes what you two have so different than it was?”
I look at him with an honesty that may as well be a living, breathing thing inside of me. “I fell in love with her.”
“Well, alright then.”
“Just like that?” I laugh, a bit off balance.
