“Byeeeee.”
“Bye, Bells.”
I slip the sweatshirt over my head and throw my hair in a messy bun that looks more homeless than chic, but whatever.
I grab my keys and my purse and go.
* * *
I pull into the parking lot of the hotel across from Paddy’s. It takes a whole minute to find Hollis’s black Mustang.
There is a spot two spaces down from his, and I pull in and park.
I climb out and make my way through the sea of cars until I hit the sidewalk. It’s a pretty morning, and birds chirp happily overhead. It gives me a spring in my step as I try to find my guy and help him through whatever is going on.
He won’t like it. That I’m sure. But I know he’ll come around. He gives in to me eventually. He has, anyway.
The thought makes me smile as I round the corner of the building. I come up with a plan to persuade the desk attendant to give me his room number—the one little piece of the puzzle I don’t have figured out.
The lobby is modern and clean with orange and bright green accents that feel very Savannah. I make my way toward the reception desk when my attention is drawn behind me like a magnet.
I turn on my heel and come eye-to-eye with Hollis.
“Hey,” I say, trying to hide my surprise at how shitty he looks.
He’s wearing the same clothes as last night. The area beneath his eyes is dark, as if he didn’t sleep, and his hair is more of a wreck than usual.
The lines are heavy between his thick eyebrows.
Whatever was wrong last night is still wrong. That much is clear.
“What are you doing here?” he asks me.
“I came to see you. You didn’t call.”
He runs a hand through his hair and looks around the lobby. I get the distinct impression he’s not looking for someone or something. He’s just not wanting to look at me.
A sense of doom settles in my stomach. It’s heavy, and my body shakes, physically recoiling its presence.
“Hollis? What’s going on?”
He looks at the ceiling. The skin on his throat is red as though his internal irritation is seeping out of his body.
“Did I do something?” I ask although I’m clueless as to what it could be.
He levels his head but closes his eyes. “No, Riss. Of course not.”
“Then what’s going on.”
With a sigh that causes his whole body to sag, he opens his eyes. “I wish you would’ve called first.”
“I wish you would’ve called too.”
“Fair enough,” he mumbles. “Let’s … We can’t do this here. Come on.”
Can’t do this here. What?
He turns toward the elevators. He does not grab my hand.
The rock in my stomach gets heavier and heavier with each step I take behind him. I scramble through last night and try to make sense of this.
We enter the elevator in silence. I reach for his shoulder because my touch usually settles him, but he leans against the wall and avoids my hand.
My breathing gets more rapid as I fight to stay calm. Tears prickle my eyes even though nothing has even happened.
Maybe it has nothing to do with me. Maybe it has nothing to do with us.
With us.
Shit, Larissa.
My senses go into hyperdrive as we walk down a short hallway, and he opens a door. There’s nothing friendly or warm about the process. It feels more like a death knell.
I want to bolt, to turn around and leave and pretend I never came. I want to get in my car and go home and tell myself he’ll come over later.
But as the door clicks shut behind me and he turns around to face me, I know that’s not going to happen.
“Hollis?” I ask despite the compression in my chest making it hard to breathe. “What’s happening?”
“I …” He sighs. “I have the Landry thing tomorrow, and then I’m going to head to Vermont and check on River.”
He’s going through the motions of telling me goodbye. He’s just not saying it.
“Why?” It’s all I can say, all I can ask.
“His mom is—”
“Dammit, Hollis. I know his mom is sick, and you know I’m not asking why you’re going to see your friend.” I take a step closer to him. “Why are you leaving?”
“To go see River.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” I tell him, my voice rising.
He might need to check on his friend, but that’s not why he’s leaving. We both know that. But the only other reason he could be avoiding me—which he clearly is—is that he doesn’t want to be with me.
It’s a shot directly to the heart that I’d opened up for him. My body tightens as if I was actually hit with a bullet. And, to make it worse, he was choosing to avoid me rather than even saying goodbye.
“You don’t have to want to be here with me,” I tell him, “but you could at least tell me the truth. Don’t I deserve that much?”
Tears wet my eyes. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Riss …” He says my name softly, but he doesn’t make any movements toward me.
I see where this is going. I feel the start of the pain that will overwhelm me soon. It rips through my chest, shredding my heart into a million pieces.
“What did I do?” I ask him, my voice breaking. “Everything was fine, and then …”
“Everything was. Everything is. It’s just not ...”
“It’s not what?”
He watches me warily. But as I look deeper into those eyes I love so much, I see it. The shield, the guard, the switch he flips to keep himself safe is coming down.
“Maybe I can come back and see you this summer,” he says, his voice weak. But it’s not an offer. Not really. It’s one of his infamous tries to redirect the conversation.
I laugh, but this time it’s tinged with anger. He hears it, too, because he takes a step back.
“That’s a weak attempt at deflection,” I say. “You can do much better.”
“How is it deflecting? I’m offering to come and see you!”
“It’s deflecting because it avoids the reason you’re leaving and it is not River,” I say as he opens his mouth to repeat his false argument. “What do you want from me? To just be like, ‘Oh, okay, he might be back in June’?”
He holds his hands out to his sides. “What else do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe for you to be the man I know and love.”
The words flow past my lips freely before I can catch them and scoop them back up. They hang in the air between us like an unwanted visitor.
His eyes are as wide as his shoulders as he takes me in, shaking his head. “No, Larissa. Come on. You don’t love me.”
I don’t know where that word choice came from. It’s not one I use loosely. But I said it, and now, on the other side, I don’t regret it.
I mean it.
The man has taught me more in a few days than all the men I’ve ever dated combined. He’s taught me that it’s okay to be me. He’s made me feel confident and gorgeous. I’ve witnessed loyalty and know what it’s like to have a guy around whose eyes don’t troll on a room for other beautiful women. While in my presence. Not even beautiful Bellamy. He stood up for me to Sebastian and made an effort to talk to my family. He listened to me ramble about my day and worked through his hang-ups to open up to a woman who desperately wanted to get to know him.
The thought of not telling him about my day tomorrow makes me want to cry. Considering that I won’t know if he’s happy or what he’s working on feels like a fraying rope in my chest.
I’ll never be able to put all of those strands back together.
“I do love you,” I tell him, my heart breaking. I’ve never felt this before. I’ve felt as treasured as I have with Hollis. Yet, he was going to walk away without even facing me. “I get that you were leaving Savannah. I’ve known that from the beginning, and I haven’t asked you for any promises. Or any recip
rocation of feelings.” I sniffle, my lip trembling. “But you weren’t even going to say goodbye.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, and I don’t even try to stop them. I’m trying to fight my insecurities that, once again, someone will leave me—does this stem from my mom’s pain from when my dad left?—but this hurts more because I gave away my heart.
“Don’t cry,” he begs.
“Why not? Because it makes it harder for you to face reality? That you’re walking away from someone who loves you?”
He groans. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this.”
“We don’t ask for a lot of stuff in our lives, Hollis, but we have to deal with it.”
“You don’t think I know that?” His voice rises. “Look at all the shit I have to deal with. I think I deal pretty fucking well, if you ask me.”
Something about his tone pisses me off. I jam a finger in his direction.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “You will deal with this pretty fucking well too because you’ll just shove it in the back of your mind and not think about it. You’ll just pretend I don’t exist just as you pretend Philip and Kim don’t love you. You just—”
“Watch it, Riss.”
“Or what?” I say, my voice rising. “You’ll leave? Because you already are, and if you’re going to leave, then I’m going to make sure you do it and know what you’re leaving behind.”
He growls through the air, tugging at his hair.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted some man to love me madly,” I say, my tone softening. “I wanted a safe place to create a little world where I could garden and make dinners and raise kids.”
Images of Bellamy’s grandparents filter through my mind. They made love look so easy. They fought. They forgave. They loved. They showed me that love can sustain a relationship. It can sustain a marriage when both people are committed to put in the work. Giving up wasn’t an option.
It makes my tears fall again.
“I wanted someone to look at me like I was the most important thing in the world to him. That would tell the whole universe that I was his girl,” I say, wiping my cheeks. “That’s all. I didn’t want money or cars or fame. I just wanted to find my best friend and to create a beautiful corner of the world just for us.”
My words stall in my throat.
Hollis stands in front of me. His arms hang at his sides.
“And I found you,” I say, the words so muffled that I don’t know if he can hear me. “And you don’t want me.”
“That’s not it,” he says quickly. “I swear that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
He looks me in the eye. I think he’s trying to put up a front and make me think he believes his own bullshit, but it doesn’t work.
“You have to find the person in your life that you can share stuff with,” he says. “Find the door you should walk through. And I’m not that guy. I’m not,” he says again as though saying it twice will make it more believable. “I have nothing to share with you. And eventually, you’d realize that.”
I cover my face with my hands and cry. I cry for me, for him, for a life we could’ve figured out. Together.
I’m sure of it. I’m sure we could’ve made something work. It’s too good between us to have failed.
Only it did.
The realest thing I’ve ever experienced is over.
He doesn’t come to me, and he doesn’t reach out. But I don’t reach for him either. Why make things harder?
I get myself under control the best I can and look up at him through blurry eyes. I take in the last glimpse of Hollis Hudson that I’ll probably ever have and commit it to memory.
“Eventually, you’ll realize there are people in the world who love you,” I whisper. “And you pushed them all away. Just remember that I was one of them.”
He just looks at me, and I can’t take it.
I turn on my heel and leave the only man I’ve ever loved behind. I’m walking away at what I had stupidly believed might be my slice of happiness. And even though my heart aches to an unfathomable level, I’m also hurting for Hollis.
That man is filled with so much goodness, strength of character, loyalty, and … well, love. I’m so afraid he’ll always be alone because he refuses to see all that. He won’t accept it.
It’s not right. It’s so terrible.
But there is absolutely nothing I can do.
Twenty-Four
Hollis
My luggage is gathered and on the other bed.
As soon as the sun comes up, I’m going to get up and drive to the ocean. I haven’t had a day sitting on the sand in three or four years. Hopefully, the salty air will clear my head, and I can show up to the Catching-A-Care thing without wanting to hurl.
Then I’ll come back here, grab my shit, and go back to campus.
I roll over onto my side. A spring I can’t escape stabs me in the hip.
Even the bed is pissed at me.
“I hate you, too,” I tell it.
It cares about as much as anyone does when I dislike them.
This was the longest day of my life. The afternoon melted into the evening, and the evening got dark lasted forever. The nighttime has worn on and on. I’ve just laid here and sulked.
It’s not my fault things are this way. I’m just really glad I understand the reality of shit so I can act accordingly.
Could I have fucked around with Larissa? For sure.
Would that have been the right choice? Nah.
Do I have to pay the price for trying to do the right thing? Of course.
And I will. I will pay the price because I love her.
My body stills against the unyielding spring. My breathing stops. I mull that word in my mind. I sit with it. I feel the vibrations of it from head to toe.
“Do I?” I ask aloud, as if the fucking spring will back off and squeak out an answer.
I don’t know if I do or not. I don’t know what love means, really.
I also don’t know if it matters.
The only thing I can compare this to is Crew and River. And that’s not an exact comparison. I’d take a bullet for those guys. I’ve taken massive hits to protect them on the field more times than I can count. I’ll show up for them every time they need me.
Larissa’s laughter plays through my mind, and I can’t help the smile that graces my lips. I can still smell her on my shirt. I remember the softness of her skin and the twinkle in her eye when she taught me that stupid dance at Jack’s party.
I’d jump in front of a bullet for her, no questions asked. I couldn’t imagine living with myself if I didn’t. And even though she probably hates me right now and will never speak to me again, if she called and needed me tonight? I’d go.
But it’s more than that. It’s a softness in the core of my body when it comes to her. It’s the way time flies when we’re together. It’s that things are more optimistic when she’s around. Life is more fun with jokes on another level when they come from her. She also saw me—the real me. The me behind all the crap I shove out there to keep people from looking.
I smile sadly.
She didn’t take no for an answer, crazy woman.
She could see my pain and wanted to be my balm.
How did she do that? Why?
I don’t want kids, but if I did, I’d want them with her. I’d trust her to take care of them and love them. But I won’t be a burden to her. I refuse.
Even if it kills me in the meantime.
I glance at the clock next to the bed and check the time. It’s ten minutes past four in the morning.
“I can’t sit here anymore,” I say, getting up and turning on the light. It’s bright, making me squint. I can barely see to type out my text.
Me: Anyone up?
I wait for a full ten minutes to no avail. So I brush my teeth and then grab my wallet and room key.
I switch off the light and head to the beach and away from everything that remi
nds me of Larissa.
Fuck this.
Twenty-Five
Larissa
“I blame you,” I say, looking at Bellamy.
She’s stretched out on my sofa with a Nerds Rope in her hand. She twirls it around while she watches me accuse her of ruining my life.
“You should’ve had my back. You should’ve told me not to get involved with Hollis,” I tell her. “You let me down, Bells. Bad best friend.”
She snorts. “Yeah. That’s a different tune than the night he had you on the rooftop, and you were … I was basically the greatest best friend in the universe that night.”
“What? How? Please. Explain your logic.”
“Because you would’ve written off all men if it weren’t for me.” She chomps off the end of her candy. “I made you see the light.”
“You pushed me into the light.”
“And into how many orgasms? Please. I’ll wait for you to thank me later.”
I take a pillow off the chair beside me and throw it at her. It has a little more pizazz than I intended, but maybe getting walloped will do her some good.
She giggles and presses the pillow to her chest as she continues to eat her candy.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says. “But you actually look like a raccoon today.”
“Bells, you’re pushing it.”
She just shrugs.
I settle back in my chair and tug my blanket around me.
My entire body feels achy yet numb. It’s the weirdest sensation. It’s like I’m numb to anything but the complete sadness that starts in my chest and radiates outward until every piece of me succumbs to the pain.
I miss him. Dammit, I miss him. I miss being able to hear his voice if I call and seeing a text here and there. To think I’ll never hear from him again feels like I’ve fallen into a hole that I can never escape.
It would have to be an escape because Hollis completely captured me.
And I let him.
“Cut yourself some slack,” Bellamy says. “You took a chance, and it didn’t work out.”
The Relationship Pact: Kings of Football Page 21