Page 167 of Dirty Hit
“I have never loved anyone like this,” he says. “I didn’t love my mother; I obeyed her. I don’t even love football. I was good at it,and it got me what she wanted for me. That was it. Then there was you.”
I stare at him, lips parted, trying to picture him in that chair like Kyra said, eyes wet, shoulders shaking. It doesn’t fit. It also fits perfectly.
He exhales, thumb still stroking my jaw. “I came out to Keller,” he says abruptly, like he needs to stack confession on confession before he loses his nerve.
I look at him, not comprehending what he’s saying, and my brain stutters. “What?”
“I went into his office while you were asleep,” he says. “Told him I was with you. Told him my mother is gone, and I’m not hiding anymore. Told him if that means the NFL decides I’m too much of a risk, they can choke on it. I’m done playing golden boy for people who would leave you bleeding on a couch because of who you love.”
My stomach swoops. “What did he say?”
“He said his job is to coach me through plays, not through my personal life, and if anyone makes that an issue in the locker room, he’ll handle it. He said scouts want men who can take hits, not boys who cry when someone has a boyfriend. He also said I’m an idiot for not telling him sooner.”
“And the NFL?” I whisper.
He shrugs, and there’s this reckless light in his eyes that scares and thrills me at the same time. “If they call, they call,” he says. “If they don’t, they don’t. I’m still going to play my hardest because that’s who I am. But I’m done bending myself into a shape that fits better on a poster than in my own skin. I’m not hiding you just so I can maybe get a shot at a league that will trade me the second I tear something. I love you. That weighs more than a contract right now.”
“Why?” I murmur because I need to hear it in plain words.
“Because if you had died,” Dominic says, eyes locked on mine, “I wouldn’t have had a reason to keep living. Not like I have been—killing for her, playing for them, existing for everyone else’s expectations. I’m not doing that without you. I’m not interested in being their golden boy if it means sitting in a big empty house alone with the ghosts of people I’ve put in the ground and the memory of the one person I loved bleeding out on my couch. You’re not just my weakness, Brendon. You’re my fucking reason.”
The room goes very still. My heart is pounding, and my side throbs in time with it.
“You called me your soft spot,” I say. “You said that makes me a weakness. You were trying to protect me by pushing me away. Now you’re holding me and telling me I’m not a burden. Which one am I supposed to believe?”
His jaw flexes, eyes dark. “Both,” he says. “You can tell me I’m better off with someone else all you want. You can call yourself stupid, weak, or pathetic. I’m not listening. I’ve watched you change your entire life because you couldn’t stomach lying to yourself anymore. I’ve watched you kneel for me and still argue about Bible verses. You’re the bravest person I know, even when you’re a mess.”
My eyes blur again, but this time the tears feel different. Less acidic, more gentle.
“I’m overbearing because I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you under my watch again,” he says. “I almost lost you once. I’m not rolling those dice a second time. So yeah, I’m going to hover. I’m going to follow you to the bathroom, cut your food into pieces, and make sure you take your meds on time. I’m going to be annoying as fuck. Because the alternative is you vanishing on me while I look the other way, and I can’t live with that.”
I let out a shaky breath. “You can’t do that forever,” I say, but there’s no real heat in it.
“Watch me,” he says, eyes soft and stubborn. “Or better yet, stay alive long enough to complain about it for the next fifty years.”
A wet laugh escapes me. “Fifty,” I echo. “Ambitious.”
“We’re going to need at least that long for you to unlearn all the bullshit your parents shoved into your head,” he says. “And for me to figure out how to be a person who doesn’t solve all his problems with a knife.”
“You’re really okay with losing football,” I ask, quieter. “For me.”
“I’m not planning to lose it,” he says. “I’m planning to make them adjust. But if they don’t… yeah. I’m okay with walking away. I’ve already killed the biggest monster in my life. Everything else is just logistics.”
The enormity of that sinks in slowly. The boy who once told me football was his way out is sitting here telling me he will set it on fire if it means staying with me. My chest aches in a new way.
“You’re insane,” I whisper.
He grins, finally, a flash of wickedness. “Takes one to love one, Little Sin.”
I snort and flinch because my stitches complain. He immediately fusses, shifting me slightly, smoothing my hair back from my face.
“I’m still mad at you,” I say, just to be difficult.
“I know,” he says. “You can be mad. You can yell. You can cry. You can tell me I’m hovering too much. Just don’t tell me I’d be better off with someone else. That’s the one thing I’m never going to let slide.”
I chew on my bottom lip, looking up at him. “You really came out to Keller,” I say again, because my brain is still stuck there.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m not hiding you anymore. Not from him. Not from myself. We’ll figure the rest out.”
