Page 108 of First Shift

He lifted his hands up to cup my face, his thumbs sweeping over the planes of my cheeks, gathering up the wetness that had spilled over. He brought his lips to mine, pressing them together gently—once, twice, and a third time.

“I’m so fucking sorry you went through that, Hunter,” he whispered, his voice a mixture of sadness and tenderness. “I want you to know nothing could ever change how I feel about you, and that I understand if you’ll never be able to say those words back to me.”

The sob I’d been holding in broke free, tears cascading down my face in earnest. I curled into him, pressing my face into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, and wrapped my arms around him, anchoring myself to the man who had become my port in the violent, turbulent storm that was my life.

Mikey’s arms wrapped around me, one hand on the back of my head, as he let me cry for the stupid, naive young man I’d been, and the broken, emotionally stunted one I’d become since.

Eventually, my tears slowed, and my breathing evened out. “The thing is,” I said into his skin, my voice trembling. “I do love you. So fucking much. And I’m sorry I didn’t say it back right away. Stupid fucking brain.”

He squeezed me tighter. “Don’t you ever apologize for how your brain works. I love your fucking brain.”

I heaved out a relieved breath. “That makes one of us.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

MIKEY

Cally was using my left pec as a pillow, his mouth hanging slightly open. A little pool of drool had formed in the indentation of my sternum, his breaths fluttering the smattering of hairs on my chest. My arm had started to prickle with pins and needles where it was pinned under him.

I rolled my head along the pillow to glance toward the window. Through the gap in the blackout curtains, the sky had started to lighten from deepest black to a milky, indigo blue.

Our alarms would be going off soon, but I hadn’t slept a week. Frankly, I didn’t know that I’d ever be able to sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the scene he’d described, and it made my gut churn with unbridled fury.

I had no idea which of his Harvard teammates had done … that to him, but if I ever found out, there was a very strong chance I’d wind up in prison.

To say I finally understood the concept of a villain origin story would be an understatement.

Cally shifted against me, nuzzling in closer and making a low humming noise in the back of his throat.

I hooked my elbow around his shoulder and tugged as gently as I could, trying to roll him without waking him up. Of course, moving a six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound hockey player who was passed out cold was no easy feat.

He snorted, muttering something about forechecks and backhands, then burrowed deeper into my side. Fortunately, the movement shifted him just enough to allow me to pull my arm free and flex my fingers, letting the blood rush back in. Unfortunately, this left me without a spot for my arm, so I rested it above my head on the pillow, only for my shoulder to twinge in protest.

I could breathe through the pain until it was time to get up.

The pain.

As if I even knew what real pain was.

Coming to terms with my feelings for Cally meant coming to terms with his baggage, though I’d assumed most of it was related to his dad and all the ways he made Cally feel like shit. I’d had no clue whatsoever that he was carrying this kind of trauma, in addition. Knowing what I knew now, it was amazing to think he had the capacity to trust anyone at all, let alone fall in love.

I probably would have withdrawn completely. Shut the fuck down.

Which, I supposed, did describe Cally in a way.

He didn’t really socialize with any of our teammates. Hell, he barely acknowledged most of them. Some of that, I knew, could be attributed to the fact that he thought those guys weren’t good enough and were doing fuck all to become better.

Cally had strong opinions about laziness and wasted opportunities, and if he thought you fell into either of those camps, he wrote you off as worthless.

But I couldn’t help but wonder if, for some of the other guys—the ones who were good enough and who were trying to turn this team around—it was simply fear of letting them get too close. Of letting them get to know him. Because if they did, then they’d have the power to hurt him.

So why the fuck had he let me in? What made me the exception?

I was just a regular guy—maybe I was a little bit funnier than some of our teammates, and a lot more tolerant and empathetic than most of them. I worked hard, I tried to be a friend to those who deserved it, and I was legitimately grateful for everything life had given me.

But I wasn’t special.

But for some reason, he thought I was.