Tate presses my nose. “You’ll never know. Implication, sweetheart.”
“If you did, he deserved it.”
“He deserves to rot,” Tate agrees. “He was abusive, cruel, and sadistic. Which is why I’ll never understand why I miss him. I talk to him in my head sometimes, even ask him for advice. I wouldn’t have done that if he were alive. Asking for his counsel was either a suicide mission or a one-way ticket into servitude.”
Tate’s fingers slip into my hair, looking for an anchor, reminding me of the way he looks for my heartbeat.
“I’m still so mind fucked by him. He had a special finesse for making you so miserable you wanted to kill him, while at the same time addicting you to him. Craving his praise. Needing him for purpose.”
Tate presses his lips to my crown, while I quietly seethe.I hope someday I can erase Jasper from Tate’s mind.I’ll meet him in the darkest parts of himself if that’s what it takes.
“Now that the only thing left for me to protect is you, we have options,” he says.
I lean back to look at him. “We do?”
I thought things were shot to hell. I assumed we were lying when we told Kline we’d be going to North Point and that we’d actually be on the run or living under lock and key at the brewery. Tate and I are also a scandal. Student and coach. Rival teams. Over a ten-year age gap. Social media is going to make us into a circus.
Tate’s still pensive. He won’t look at me, but he says something that’s too much of a grumble for me to catch.
“What was that?”
“I said, your happiness matters to me, dollface. Tell me what you want. I’ll make it happen.”
Ah. I know what’s going on here. His insides are flipping out. He just put the ball in my court. Tate doesn’t do that. Tate keeps all the balls in his court.
“Anything I want?” I make sure. I shouldn’t fuck with him. But I doubt he’ll make a habit of saying shit like this. He’s more likely to quietly do the thing instead of talking about it.
He takes a hitched breath. I can practically see the thorns hooking into his flesh and scraping up and down with the rise and fall of each careful inhale and exhale. “Anything.”
“What if I want to go to Shadowridge?”
“I’d have to leave, but I’m sure I could get you in.”
“What if I want to go back to professional hockey?”
“I know a lot of the scouts. They’d be fucking stupid to pass you up. I’d travel with you as much as I could, but I can’t leave my business or my cover until we know your brother is okay. I’ve left Kline in play because he was useful this time, but it could bite me in the ass. It’s something I have to keep an eye on.”
“You also left him in play because he’s going to get revenge on my father.”
A satisfied smile spreads onto his face. “Better him than me. I would have loved to, but that situation would have been …” he searches for a word. “Complicated.”
He doesn’t know how I feel about my father. Fuck, I don’t know how I feel about my father, except that I’m glad I’m free of him.
Tate turns to face me, and the blanket falls from him, still surrounding me. I search his steel-gray eyes as he traces over my spider tattoo. Fierce anger burns in them. The anger isn’t for me. It’s not regret either.
“Are you mad that you fell in love with me?” I ask, because I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.
“Mad that I’m … Ryan, no. I’m mad that I have no fucking idea how to handle love. I’m a love virgin. I’ve never felt this much emotion over one person in my life. You’re going to pick one of those options, and then what will I do without you? What did I do before you? Can’t remember. I’ll have to go on a murder spree to work through all thisfeeling. I’ll have to take up a hobby.”
I laugh. “Before or after the murder spree?”
“After. And it’ll be something I hate like crocheting or building historical dioramas,” he grumps.
“What? Historical dioramas?” I laugh.
“I saw it on a Reddit thread. It’s a shockingly popular hobby.”
“Why would you start a hobby you hate? I’d think you’d get into knife collecting or something.”
