He comes and I swallow it down, trying to catch all the breaths I’ve held in for the last few minutes. I feel weak when he turns me and lays me down flat on the bed, throwing the blanket off onto the floor with a whirl of impatience.
My alarm goes off and he silences it.
“Five minutes,” he tells me, weighing me down as he settles on top of me.
“I have to—”
“Five minutes, Birdie.”
And then he’s not asking me for permission, he’s sliding down my body, returning the favor, spreading my legs and kissing me awake.
Chapter Twenty
Ben
“You gonna sleep over there again tonight?”
I drag my towel across my face, mopping up sweat. “I’d planned on it.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
I shoot Anthony a look, and he laughs.
No I’m not tired. I should be. For the last week and a half, I’ve been living life in fast forward. I’m running on fumes, but there’s no sense in dwelling on it. I have three days left in Texas before we fly out to Tokyo. Three days left with Raelynn. Since the night I woke her up in her trailer, I’ve been with her every single day. I usually beat her to Dale’s in the morning, or I drive over to her trailer at night. If I could sneak away at lunch to visit her too, I would. I want to be with her whenever I can.
“Hate to break it to you, man, but you’ve got circles under your eyes. You need some cucumbers or some shit. Maybe one of those masks ladies put on that make them look like a serial killer.”
I whip him on the arm with my sweaty towel. He dodges out of the way, but the tail end still gets him and he howls playfully.
He makes a big show about rubbing his arm as he continues nagging me. “So what are you gonna do when we have to leave in a few days? You haven’t made her any promises or nothin’, have you?”
“Promises?”
“Yeah, like you and her really having a future.”
My hackles immediately go up. “Why are you saying it like that? You’re the one who was pushing me to get to know her in the first place.”
“Yeah, get to know her, get out of your funk. Not fall in…”
His voice trails off once he gets a look at my face.
He rears back. “I mean, c’mon, you barely know the girl—”
“I know her enough.”
He snorts. “Right. There’s also the fact that you two live in completely different states? That she hasn’t even seen your real life? Does she even know about fucking Shelby? Jesus. Should I keep coming up with more reasons for why you’re being dumb?”
Out of everything he’s said, I get hung up on the most innocuous. “This is my real life.”
“No, this is the middle of fucking nowhere, Texas. Wait until you get back to Los Angeles. You’ll remember who you are.”
Who I am.
The man I’ve been for the last few months? Depressed? Aimless?
I’m in no hurry to get back to that.
We walk over to get our bags from where we stashed them on the side of the court. Now that practice is done for the day, I want to shower fast and get to Raelynn’s trailer.
“You taking her back to LA then?” Anthony asks.
It’s not an option. Raelynn won’t leave her grandmother. She’s here in Texas to be with her, and I know if I ask her to join me in Los Angeles after the Summer Games, she’ll say no. So I haven’t asked.
It’s been eating away at me though. I’ve been trying to build up the courage to sit her down and get into the big stuff. Everything Anthony’s pointed out. We have so little time together though, stolen hours in the morning and at night. The last thing I want to do is pile more crap on her shoulders. She has enough going on without me making life worse for her. That’s been my explanation all along, but now I wonder if I’ve just been deluding myself into thinking I’ve been acting in Raelynn’s best interest instead of my own. When I see her in those fleeting hours, I want her sweetness, her honest blue eyes staring up at me, the sounds she makes when I touch her, and for that, I’m a selfish bastard.
I reach down to grab my bag, annoyed by the guilt clawing away at me from the inside.
I knew this day would come. I knew I’d have to reckon with my decision to keep Raelynn in the dark about parts of my life.
Anthony nudges me. “Dude…”
“What?” I ask with a hard tone.
I’m annoyed with him. Sure, it’s misplaced anger, but still, it feels good to be mad at someone other than myself. If he’d kept his mouth shut, I wouldn’t be feeling this way right now.