Page 41 of Homecoming

Seeing him the way he was scared me. I was at a loss of what to do and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I didn’t mean just forfeiting the race, even though I knew that had to cost him a great deal. No, for a brief moment he let all his guard down, and everything that I’d seen glimpses of, came to the surface.

In all the time we’d spent together since we walked into each other’s lives again, that was the first time that I saw him as that boy from so long ago.

He looked hopeless, lonely, lost… I wanted to help him, I just couldn’t figure out what caused all that pain.

“Sorry, honey,” he muttered without looking up from his task of folding clothes and putting it into his ready bag that was by his hip.

The race was tomorrow, it was time to pack up and get on the road.

A new race, a new city, a new country.

Over and over again.

“Please, stop packing, and talk to me,” I begged. I wasn’t above begging him if it meant I could help him.

He looked up at me then. His eyes were vacant, and that petrified me.

“There’s nothing to tell, I lost,” he shrugged casually. “I lost before the race even began.”

Somehow I knew he wasn’t talking only about the race, he was talking about us. But I had no idea what he meant. I could see he was putting up a wall, trying to protect himself. From what, I still fucking didn’t know.

Finally done with it, I went to him, took his clothes from his lap, and threw them on the floor.

He followed my hands, his eyes staying on the clothes before they came up to mine.

They weren’t vacant anymore.

No, he was back to giving me the cold look.

He hadn’t done that since he’d pinned me to the fence and told me he wanted to know me any way he could.

From that moment on, all I’d got was warm blue from Ian.

Still, I proceeded.

Too much was at stake.

Crouching down between his spread legs, I grabbed hold of his knees, “Please, talk to me. There’s more going on. I see you day after day, I see how you’re pulling away. Your walls are building back up slowly. Sure, you’re here, with me, at the moment. but every now and then, you get this faraway look, and then pain slashes you. You can’t hide it. Not from me.” I put up a hand as he opened his mouth to speak, and continued once he shut it. “Don’t insult me by saying that I’m imagining things. I know you, Ian. I know the real you. And it has nothing to do with giving up your spot. Yes,” I nodded before he could object, “It is a part of it. Probably a big part. But there’s more. There’s something bigger. I know you.”

He didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed that same shade of cold blue making me shiver. Not because I was cold. But in fear.

Instinctively, I knew this could break us.

If he didn’t share what was going on with him, it would be the end of us.

And I couldn’t let that happen. I wanted him too much. I wanted a future with this man.

I loved him.

When he stayed silent, I shook his legs and repeated, “I know you, Ian Hall.”

When he heard me using his real last name, his whole body twitched.

“You don’t know a thing about me, babe,” he sneered. He watched me crouched between his legs, his lip curled and he threw daggers at me, slashing me with every look and every word. “You’re like all the others. You see only what you want to see. You enjoy traveling all over the globe, being in the hive of things, and getting high on adrenaline. But, you don’t know me, Lola. You never did. If you did, you wouldn’t want me. You want Ian Williams, not Ian Hall. You’re just like all the rest.”

I almost fell on my ass from his words.