“I’m just going to head out and hit the road,” Ronin said with a sigh. “I guess my stomach can hold,” he grumbled. “Call and let me know what the docs say,” he ordered Dom before exiting the room.
“I’ll check on you later.” Zeph directed a chin lift at Dom, then left. Jason and Renee followed, bickering.
Silence permeated the room, the dim sounds of voices and the beeping of machines beyond the closed door low background noise.
The frenetic energy and anxiety that had driven her to the hospital and to his room waned, and she sank down on the bed. Leaning forward, she cupped his face, studying him closely. Noting the weariness, the strain, and glimmers of pain.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she murmured. The remnants of that terror still hummed.
For a moment, she thought he would turn his head and press his mouth to her palm like he’d taken to doing this past week. But he didn’t; he remained still under her hand, showing no reaction to her touch.
A sliver of icy unease slid through her, freezing her veins.
Dropping her hand to her lap, she tried to ignore the sensation. “Have the doctors taken you for tests yet?”
“Yeah.” His mouth firmed, and he glanced away from her. “That’s what I’m waiting on now. To hear the results. But I already know what they’re going to say. I know my body. It’s a sprained ankle and a bump on the head. Not a big deal.”
She snorted. “Funny. I don’t remember seeing your medical degree on the wall of your house. Besides, you and I both know the team has a doctor and trainers right there in the facility. If it was ‘not a big deal,’ they wouldn’t have brought you to the hospital.”
“I rolled my ankle during practice, fell, hit my head, and blacked out for about twenty seconds. They just want to make sure it’s not a concussion. Like I said, not a big deal,” he repeated. “The foot, my head—I’ll be okay in a few days. Just long enough to miss a game. Just long enough for my backup to replace me on Sunday. Shit.” He thrust his fingers through his hair and fisted the strands at the back of his head. Then he released a sharp bark of laughter. “How could I have been so stupid? So careless? My head should’ve been on practice, on the game. Because it wasn’t, I made a dumbass mistake. One that could cost me.”
He pressed his thumbs to his eyes, and his harsh breathing reverberated off the cream-colored walls. Her heart ached for him, and if she could, she would’ve taken his anger, frustration, and hurt onto herself. For him, she would gladly bear it. But she couldn’t.
Instead, she laid a hand on his hard thigh. The muscle bunched under her palm. “I know you’re upset,” she began, softly. “But it could’ve been worse, and I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Could’ve been worse.” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, a bitterness she rarely heard from him coating his words like a dark oil slick. When he lowered his chin and met her gaze, she forced herself to meet the dark swirl of emotion in his blue eyes. “Yeah, it could’ve been,” he continued, a harsh edge to his tone that raked over her skin. “I have a sprained ankle and possibly a concussion because I couldn’t keep my head in the game. And now, with my contract up for renewal, I’ve just handed my backup the opportunity to show his skills and maybe convince the coach and team that he might be a better bet than me.” He released another of those humorless, serrated laughs. “So yeah, I’m not so sure about it not being worse.”
“Dom…”
“No.” He held up a hand. “Tenny, Just… Do you want to know what preoccupied me? What I was thinking about at practice instead of concentrating on the play I was supposed to be running?” He didn’t give her an opportunity to answer but barreled on. “You, Tenny. I was so distracted by thoughts of you, of what’s going on between us, of you leaving, that I fucked up. I’ve always been focused, able to block everything out but football. But not yesterday. And it’s not the first time I’ve allowed myself to become so consumed that I’m messing up, losing control.” His lips clamped shut, and his jaw clenched, a muscle ticking.
“Just like Tara,” she finished for him, hurt leaving her voice hoarse and barely there. “You can say it. You might as well.”
But he didn’t. Then again, he didn’t need to; she heard it as if it’d been announced over the building’s PA system.
“I almost lost my scholarship because of her, and that would have fucked up both your life and mine. Damn it, Tenny,” he swore, scrubbing his hands down his face. “I don’t blame you. This is all my fault. Not yours. This,” he waved a hand back and forth between them, “was just the catalyst.”
Brian’s words slid in her mind, haunting her.
You’re a liability.
Let him be great without an albatross weighing him down.
The same panic that had crawled inside her, strangled her when she’d entered the hospital doors, crept in on her now.
“I don’t want to be a hindrance to you, to your career,” she whispered, her pounding heart in her throat. “But I’m beginning to think in one way or another, I have been…for years.”
A heavy silence plummeted between them, her short, choppy breaths the only sound. Deny it! Deny it, please! The scream rebounded off the walls of her skull, deafening her. For a second, she thought she caught a momentary softening of his eyes, his mouth. But in the next instant, a firm, cold resolve hardened his expression.
He didn’t reply. Didn’t tell her to stop being a drama queen. Didn’t utter a sound.
And his awful, heartbreaking quiet was answer enough.
She closed her eyes, returning her hand to her lap and struggling to draw breath into her lungs.
“Tenny…”
She shook her head, hard, eyes still squeezed shut.
“Tenny, look at me.” A thin vein of steel threaded through his voice. She wanted to ignore it, refuse him, but in the end, she obeyed. Because she’d never been able to deny him anything. “Why did you come here?”
She blinked. “Wh-what?”
“Why are you here?” he repeated, his blue stare unrelenting, scalpel-sharp. “In this hospital. You braved one of your greatest fears to come here. Why?”
She parted her lips, but no words escaped. A daunting, terrifying thought was dawning on her like an ever-increasing, threatening storm. Where was he going with this?
Oh you know what he means. What he’s asking.
“I-I don’t know…” she stammered.
His gaze didn’t waver, remained penetrating. Knowing. The abyss in her chest yawned wider.
“I always said you were a shitty liar.” His hands came down on either side of his legs, and he leaned forward. “You love me.”
Shock ricocheted through her. “Of course,” she whispered. “You’re my friend.”
Dom shook his head. “You know what I mean, Tenny. You. Love. Me.” Touching her for only the second time since she’d entered the room, he mimicked her caress from earlier and cupped her cheek. “You faced your biggest fear to get to me. Yeah, you love me.”
God, if only she didn’t. What would it feel like not to love him anymore? Liberating?
Weightless?
Empty. The slick, crafty voice crooned inside her mind.
The truth reverberated inside her, a gong that increased in strength and volume. She could deny her overwhelming love and passion for him to save face. Or she could just admit what he already knew, or had guessed. She could take her heart and her future into her own hands and walk out onto that trembling, thin ledge and risk that he would return her love. Want all of her and not just her body.
Not just her friendship.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I do love you. I always have.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he breathed.
Her breath caught. Not at the endearment, but the sadness, the pity in his eyes. That fucking pity. Again.
Pain—agony—surged through her, pouring hot, thick, and heavy. Tears—those damn tears—pricked her eyes. Oh God, not again.
“Tenny.” Dom shook his h
ead, his palm still cradling her cheek, still touching her. She couldn’t bear it. Jerking her head away, she dislodged his hand and stood from the bed. With deliberate effort, she steadied her weak, shaky knees. “Sweetheart, you’re the most important person in my life. But I can’t… Damn,” he growled, thrusting his fingers through his hair once more. “We were supposed to remain friends.”
Her harsh breaths abraded her chest, and the godawful pain continued to tear at her like a ravenous beast with an insatiable appetite. Part of her longed to turn back the clock, not have come to the hospital. Not have said the words that revealed her longest held, deepest secret.
But another part—one she hadn’t known existed until that moment—exhaled with relief. That secret had been a burden she’d carried for so long, and with each year that passed, it’d grown heavier, more difficult to bear. Though the humiliation and hurt vibrated within her, the weight of the truth sloughed off her like dead skin. This new skin, it hurt, was sensitive and vulnerable, but at least it meant she was free.
The writers of the Bible had it wrong. It wasn’t just the truth that set you free; it was the cold, hard, unforgiving truth that left you without protection or covering and with no other alternative but to face it. And walk in it.
Walk in being the daughter of a woman who’d victimized Tenny because of her own emotional and psychological damage. In being a foster child who never felt like she’d belonged, who struggled to find her identity. In being a woman who loved a man who couldn’t—wouldn’t—love her as she needed, deserved. In being strong and weak, brave and scared shitless, dependent and hungry for independence.
In being perfectly imperfect.
“You know, for so many years,” she said, voice husky with the pain that scraped her throat raw, “I always felt less than when it came to you. Someone as beautiful, talented, gifted, and…perfect as you could never want me when I was none of those things, but the women you dated were all of them.”
“Tennyson,” he rasped, more of that damn sorrow saturating his voice.
“No.” She moved back another step until her back pressed against the wall. She needed to get this said before she couldn’t. “I felt that way. Thought those things. At some point, God, I’m not even sure when, I realized I’m worth love. I deserve it. The kind of love that lights up a man’s face when I walk into the room. The kind that movies are written about. The kind that consumes a man so his first thought in the morning is me, and his last word at night is my name. That’s the love I want and am worthy of. And I’m finally accepting that you can’t give it to me.”
She pressed her stacked hands to her chest as if they could contain the storm waging inside her.
“I want to be a man’s everything. His number-one priority above all else. For you, football will always come first. And I don’t blame you for that, I don’t,” she assured him, even as part of her mourned it. “Because I know you better than anyone, and I love you more than anyone. I would never ask you to choose between me and your dream. I understand what football means to you. It’s so much more than just a game. It’s a promise, your stability when the world went to hell. It’s the security you’ve fought for since your parents’ death. Believe me, Dom, I get it. But I also know I need more. And for the first time in my life, I’m not going to wait for someone else to make me a priority. I’m going to make myself one. For me. That’s the real reason I’m leaving Seattle.”
He frowned, and she easily read the confusion and frustration in his expression. “I love you, Tenny. How could you ever doubt that?”
“I know you do. Just not the way I need you to.”
“That’s not fair,” he snapped, but she heard the fear and desperation under the hard, abrupt tone. Recognized it. Because the same emotions rolled and tumbled inside her.
And sadness. As if the end of something loomed near, and she yearned to hold on to it even as she realized she had to let go.
She smiled, feeling her lips tremble with the tears she held back with a will that surprised her. “A fair is a shitfest of carnies and rides. It ain’t got fuck-all to do with life,” she recited Foster Mom #2’s sage advice. And from the pain in his eyes, she assumed he recognized the quote.
Blinking back more tears, she glanced away from him, shuddering out a breath. “I love you with my whole being—I have since I was sixteen years old—and it’s only grown since then,” she said, turning back to him. She didn’t flinch from the storm in his eyes, his face. “But, I refuse to settle for less than what—who—I need. Not anymore. Goodbye, Dom.”
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she exited the room, and fought her way out of the hospital.
All without looking back.
Chapter Fifteen
Dom tipped the bottle of beer to his mouth and took a long pull from it. As the cold alcohol slid over his tongue, he scanned the interior of the packed nightclub from his perch on the VIP leather couch. The cavernous Belltown hot spot boasted three bars with top-shelf liquor, world-renowned DJs, a wide stage, three dance floors, and hundreds of people gyrating to pulsing music that bounced off the three glass walls that separated the main club from the luxurious VIP sections. Though several of his team members partied here often, it was his first time, and if he could help it, his last.
Hell, he didn’t want to be here. Contrary to public opinion, this wasn’t his scene. Yeah, he didn’t mind a night out every now and then, but he didn’t drink much during the season. He damn sure didn’t dance. And if he wanted female company, he didn’t need to come to a meat market like this. But several of his teammates, high off their win over Green Bay, had asked him to come out. Not wanting to rain on their parade, he’d agreed.
No, he hadn’t led them to victory tonight—even though he’d gone through the concussion protocol and had been cleared, and his ankle had felt stable enough for him to play. But Coach and the trainers had disagreed, wanting him to spend another day in the boot. And given the strong showing Jensen had made on the field, Dom’s guts had been twisted in knots all afternoon and evening. Still, he was the team’s leader until the head office said differently at the end of the season. And since he couldn’t be out there with them during the game, he’d decided to celebrate with them here. Free of that damn boot, thank God. He glanced down at his foot. Their team trainer had removed it after the game, and for the first time in days, he felt semi-normal.
Yeah, and even with all that, he’d still rather be home in his favorite sweats, bare feet kicked up on the table, beer in hand, and watching his DVR’d episodes of Murder Chose Me and Homicide Hunter. He glanced down at his watch. Eleven o’clock. He’d give it another hour before he got ghost.
Sighing, he downed another gulp of his beer, his second of a self-imposed two-beer limit. Temptation to lift that restriction crawled through him like an insidious whisper. What did it matter? And at least for a night, he could forget about all the crap that had rained down on him in the last few days. His injuries at practice. Missing an important game. Jensen.
Tenny.
His fingers tightened around the bottle, and he clenched his jaw, bracing himself against the slash of pain and betrayal that tore at him. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind not thinking about how, according to Zeph, she’d left for Dayton the day before, how she would be moving thousands of miles away from home. From him.
And wasn’t that what hurt like a bitch?
No, what hurt more was watching her walk away after he’d told her she was a hindrance to his career. He might not have uttered the words, but his silence had made his agreement with her statement clear.
Fuck.
He tilted the bottle up for another long, deep pull. As if the alcohol could wash away the memory of her face, her brokenness as he crushed her with his silence and his rejection of her love.
He’d been…frozen. Fear and panic had gripped every one of his senses, organs, and limbs, holding him hostage. How could he have explained to her that, with her, he’d done what he’d vowed he never
would again? After the spectacular clusterfuck that had been his relationship with Tara, he hadn’t felt that powerless or helpless since his parents died. His feelings for her had clouded every aspect of his life, threatening the future he’d pursued for his father, for himself…for Tenny. He’d promised himself he would never, ever allow another relationship to influence his career. To distract him from the game that not only had defined him for so many years, but saved him.
Despite his best, most vigilant intentions, he’d failed with Tenny. First, the date that Brian had arranged. Then being distracted in practice. Then becoming injured. He’d broken his own rule. And that couldn’t happen. It was a slippery slope. And at the feet of the slope would be the shattered remains of his career as well as the most important friendship in his life.
And though he sat on this leather couch in a club’s VIP section, that’s where he actually stood—at the feet of that slope.
I do love you. I always have.
He didn’t need her love, damn it. The fingers pulsed in protest at his tight hold on the bottle. Love meant one thing: getting seriously fucked over.
And Tennyson had proved it by walking away from him. From all they’d meant to each other for fourteen years. After his parents died, he’d only allowed people so close. Those in his life—foster parents, his adopted parents, his teammates—could be gone at any time due to moves, too many kids, college, or trades. Even with Zeph and Ronin, though they were his best friends, just the nature of their careers could mean one day they wouldn’t be in the same locker room or city. So while he’d let them further in than most others, Dom still erected a protective wall around himself. Only Tenny had been permitted to enter that place guarded by emotional barbed wire. He hadn’t even allowed Tara inside the places Tenny inhabited.
Now, she was abandoning him.
Just like the two people you loved most.
He shook his head hard, as if the abrupt motion could jar loose the traitorous thought. What the hell? He was too damn old to play the blame game. The twelve-year-old boy might’ve been angry at them for leaving, but the man understood they wouldn’t have if they’d been offered the choice.
Scoring Off the Field (WAGS series) Page 17