Chapter 20

20

Bodhi

The scent of burned coffee floated up the stairs when I stepped out of Emmett’s room dressed in one of the T-shirts I’d stolen out of his closet. It was well-worn and soft, big enough to reach my thighs and conceal the fact I wore nothing else. All my bags were still in his car, the jeans I had on last night somewhere downstairs. And the thong, well, it was dirty.

He likes it.

The nail polish, crop tops, piercing, and lingerie.

Even when you were only a picture, you were all that I wanted.

He said that. To me.

I was used to random hookups without the exchange of names. To hearing generic lines like, “That’s hot,” and, “Your clothes don’t matter as long as you take them off.” I’d had my fair share of dubious consent fueled by alcohol and one-night stands I didn’t remember after.

Was I ashamed? Yes. But I’d never say that out loud. That shame resided deep inside me beside the hole my sister had left behind. I also thought maybe it was all I deserved.

For a long time, I subscribed to the notion of a happily ever after. Hoped I might find love like my parents and that I’d get to be the fun uncle to my sister’s kids.

One night, it all changed. One stupid decision that set off a series of life-altering events. And now I was here. No parents. No sister. No best friend.

No love.

I’d always been a little free with my style. Or maybe a better word would be fluid. I lived in board shorts and flip-flops on the beach, jeans and tees on the streets.

But beneath the casual surfer style was a lacy thong or a pair of silk bikini briefs. I loved the soft feel of the fabric, the sigh my body gave when I slipped them on. I’d always been on the small side, not really a head-turner like Rush. But when I slipped on lingerie, my unimpressive body was suddenly something to look at. My ass was rounder, hips and waist defined. They made me feel sexy and so did the crop tops.

Brynne used to paint my nails. It’s what little sisters do. I hated it when I was small, but the older I got, the more I liked the color on my tips and toes and the more I realized wearing them that way made me feel like me .

My coach at Pembrook hated it and said I couldn’t wear it to swim. It was unprofessional or some shit. Distracting in the water. I think it made him uncomfortable, but I never made it a thing.

I never used to make anything a thing. I was the quintessential Malibu brah. Live and let live.

And then Brynne died.

My whole life was ripped away. I clung to the nails, crop tops, and panties because they were familiar, comforting … all I had left. All that was left of me.

After being discarded, no one really looked at me.

But Emmett did. And he called me beautiful. He also let me call him daddy. No, he didn’t just let me; he liked it. My heart felt light. I’d grown accustomed to heaviness, the feeling of dragging it around like a dead appendage. More than once this morning, I caught myself reaching up to reassure myself it was still there. I’d feel it beating, and my cheeks would warm. A smile would tug at the corners of my lips. Maybe it did have some life left in it after all.

I was so distracted by my own thoughts and the way my body hummed from last night and this morning that I didn’t realize what I was walking into.

“Where’s Bodhi?” Rush questioned. “The bros said you went and got him. I expected him to be on the couch,”

“Don’t you boys have anything better to do than gossip?” Emmett groused.

“It’s not gossip. It’s a question.”

The irritation in Rush’s voice was what jolted me back to the present. Well, that and the fact that when I stepped off the bottom step and turned the corner, three sets of eyes turned to look at me.

I froze instantly, the tension in the room smacking me in the chest. How could I forget we weren’t alone here?

Sucking in a shallow breath, I turned to flee back upstairs.

“Were you upstairs?” Rush’s words and squinty glare stopped me in my tracks.

I darted a quick glance at Emmett, noting his deer-in-headlights expression, and my stomach dropped. My fingers grasped the hem of the shirt and tugged as I crossed one ankle in front of the other.

“Is that my dad’s shirt?” Landry asked.

A silence that was anything but silent charged the room as Rush’s eyes swept over me from head to toe, speculation ripe in his assessing glare. Whatever he saw darkened his features and pinched his face. I knew that look, had seen it pointed at many people over the last ten-ish years.

Very rarely was I the recipient.

Until now.

I braced myself for the cyclone of Rush’s anger, my shoulders tensing to my ears and my thighs pressing together.

He shot forward, and I chastised myself for flinching. I was used to fighting. Defending myself. This was no different.

Yes, it is. Having Rush angry with me was the second-worst feeling in my life.

I squeezed my eyes shut, heard a slam, and waited for it to rock my body. But I remained un-rocked.

“What the hell, Emmett?” Rush snarled.

My eyes flew open to Emmett being pinned against the wall by Rush’s forearm across his chest. Rush’s body trembled with anger, his profile hard as he glared.

“Get off me,” Emmett warned.

“I will when you tell me why my best frie— ex-best friend— just came from upstairs wearing nothing but your shirt.”

“Jason,” Landry admonished. “Stop.”

“Go wait outside, Landry,” Rush ordered, not looking away from Emmett.

“I will not !”

“He was in the shower,” Emmett said.

Rush drew back slightly. “What?”

“The showers in this house are upstairs, moron,” Emmett said, pushing off the wall and forcing Rush back. “Should I have banned him from the bathroom?”

Rush looked at me, then back at Emmett. “Why’s he wearing your shirt?”

“He borrowed it,” Emmett replied as if it were obvious.

“We got in late. His bags are still in the car.” He glanced at me, the expression in his eyes not at all what it was this morning in bed. “Right?”

My insides twisted, but I nodded. “Uh, yeah. Your closet was right there. Figured it was better than strolling out naked.” I glanced at Rush. “But maybe not.”

Landry made a sound, and I glanced at her. Right now, she was the easiest person in the room to look at.

“I, ah, used Coach’s shower. Didn’t want to invade your space.”

Her blond hair swung a little with the shake of her head. “You’re welcome to use my bathroom anytime, Bodhi. I don’t mind.”

Rush made a rude sound.

Landry spun on him. “Jason Rush, what the hell is wrong with you? The coffee Dad made this morning is better than your attitude right now.”

“It’s not that bad.” Emmett defended.

“Not even you will drink it,” she fired back.

“Why aren’t there any blankets on the couch?” Rush wanted to know.

“What?” Landry replied.

Rush pointed across the room to the couch, which I definitely had not slept on. “There are no blankets. No pillows,” he told her.

While they were busy staring at the couch like a pair of detectives, I stole a glance at Emmett. He avoided my stare.

Ouch.

“I cleaned them up,” he told them. “You know I don’t like clutter.”

Landry snorted. “You’d have to have stuff to have clutter.”

This house was pretty empty. I’d never really thought about it until then.

Emmett folded his arms over his chest and glared. “If you got something to say, Rush, just say it. I got a practice to run.”

Rush glanced at me. “You slept on the couch?”

Oh, now he wants to look at me . I could feel Emmett’s eyes, his silent panic that someone could realize we might be involved. He’s embarrassed of me. Maybe he didn’t mean what he said after all.

Hurt and defiance rose to choke me. I had to swallow three times before I could get enough air to speak. “Where the hell else would I sleep?” I snapped.

A sheepish, embarrassed look washed over his face, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. Didn’t take much to convince him his precious coach wouldn’t want me .

Palming the back of his neck, he glanced at the ground. “Sorry. I thought…”

“You thought what?” Landry pressed.

He shook his head.

“Jason,” she warned.

Rush sighed and gestured between Emmett and me.

Landry gasped. “You thought they… they… ohmigod .” Realization dawned over her face, chased by pure shock. “Why would you think that? Dad is…” She paused. “He isn’t gay.”

What? I jolted, eyes going wide and looking at Emmett.

In an unexpected turn of events, he was back to not looking at me. I thought about marching across the room and blowing that damnable whistle around his neck. Bet he’d look at me then.

But then so would everyone else because my bare ass would be hanging out.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay,” Landry said, suddenly at my side. I hadn’t even seen her move. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

She reached out to lightly touch my arm, and I flinched away. I gazed around anxiously, trying to find my jeans from last night. They were nowhere to be found. I considered leaving with no pants. It wasn’t fully light outside, and this shirt was long. I’d done worse.

They think he’s straight. He straight up denied me after calling me beautiful.

He doesn’t want me either. Thrown away again.

The pleasant humming beneath my skin from earlier was gone, having turned into what felt a lot like the aftershocks of being tased. This time when I laid my hand on my chest, it wasn’t to verify my heart was still there. It was because I wished I could rip it out and throw it aside.

“You made an ass out of yourself, Rush,” Emmett declared, and I wished I could shrink to nothing. The sound of car keys jingling filled the room. “Go get his bags from my car so he can change. Then get to practice. I expect Olympic-level swimming out of you this a.m.”

Rush took the keys and went out the front door.

“Dad,” Landry said.

“It’s fine, ladybug.”

“But I?—”

“I said it’s fine,” he repeated, firmer this time but softened by his kiss on the top of her head. “Though, I do question your taste in men.”

“ Dad ,” she groaned.

A couple bags hit the floor by my feet. Blindly, I grabbed the duffle and hurried back up the stairs to change.

Rush called my name behind me, but I kept going.

In the bathroom, I leaned against the closed door, sucking in gulping breaths. Tears stung my eyes, and the tip of my nose burned. This bathroom smelled like him. I smelled like him.

Ripping off the shirt I’d been so happy to wear just minutes ago, I gave a frustrated yell and balled it up in my fist. On impulse, I rushed across the room and shoved it into the toilet. A sob caught in my throat as I watched the fabric soak up the water in the bowl.

After a moment, I slammed the lid, the sound thundering through the room, and quickly jammed my hand into my bag. A couple pairs of delicates fell onto the floor as I rifled through the clothes, and seeing them was like a punch to the gut.

I threw them in the toilet too.

Only then did I dress, choosing to go commando in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. After jamming my feet into a pair of black-and-white-checkered Vans, I grabbed my bag and fled downstairs to the front door.

The second I stepped off the bottom step, a firm hand collared the back of my neck. I spun, using the momentum to swing my bag, slamming it into Emmett.

He cursed and bent forward, his hand dislodged from my neck.

I rushed forward, but he caught me again, this time locking his arms around me from behind. Another sob caught in my throat as I thought about how different this embrace had been when I’d just crawled out of his bed.

“Let go,” I ground out, violence turning my voice deep.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

I laughed. “If you knew what I was thinking, you’d know not to touch me.”

“Please listen.”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

“I did what I had to do,” he said, a grim finality in his tone.

It sliced through me. The pain was so sharp that I went slack in his arms. “Yeah, you had to say all that shit last night and then act like I was gum on the bottom of your shoe this morning.”

“I didn’t act like that,” he snapped.

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel!” I raged, ripping out of his arms. I wrenched away so hard that the bag slapped into my leg and knocked me sideways.

I landed in a heap on the floor, my palm stinging from taking the brunt of the fall.

Emmett cursed and reached for me.

I pushed his hand away.

He reached for me again.

I gave in, defeated. Everything stung like a million tiny needles were piercing me all at once. Even my eyes burned like I was back in that cell with the too-bright fluorescent light. I longed for a bottle of Jack or vodka. Anything really. Anything I could swallow to numb the pain.

Emmett lifted me easily, and that hurt too.

I wanted to fight and yell, maybe claw out his gorgeous hazel eyes. He didn’t deserve them. They were far too good-looking to be in his face.

But that defeat, brah. It was gnarly. It made me weak, made me crave comfort.

How pathetic to want comfort from the man who’d just hurt me.

He sat on the sofa, tucking me into his lap and pushing my head onto his shoulder. My feet dropped onto the cushions beside him, and my hands went limp against my thighs.

I hated the way he smelled.

I hated how much it soothed me.

“Landry doesn’t know I’m gay,” he tried to explain.

It surprised me honestly. Emmett was such a force . So strong and in control. It seemed out of character for him to hold back something like that. For him to not own who he was.

“Maybe you aren’t,” I replied.

“You can say that even after last night?” he countered.

I didn’t want to think about last night. It had quickly become this perfect thing to me, something good and hopeful after a year of epic disappointment, and it was ripped away… just like everything else.

I didn’t even get to keep it very long.

“Well, your daughter is sort of walking proof that you aren’t gay. Unless she’s adopted.”

“She’s not.”

“Sperm donor?” I tried again.

“No.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought. “So you slept with her mother.”

“That was different.”

“Well, your dick went into her vag and you made a baby, so…” I countered, jealousy rousing the anger inside me. “Fuck this,” I muttered and swung my legs around to get up.

He pulled me down, my back colliding with his chest, my ass right there in his lap.

“I was caught off guard and didn’t know what to do,” Emmett confessed. “It’s freaking five a.m., and you step into the kitchen wearing my shirt and robbing my brain cells. Rush loses it and pins me against the wall, and my daughter is standing there in the middle of it, confused and upset.”

“She’s an adult.”

“She will always be my baby girl.”

My heart ached at that, thinking of Brynne, my own parents, and the way they so easily cast me aside.

“I didn’t want to just blurt it out like that.” He went on. “I was trying to protect you.”

“More like protect yourself.”

“Protect us both.”

“At least you don’t deny it.”

He made a rough sound. “What the hell else was I supposed to do? It’s not that simple! I’m older than you by twenty years.”

“Nineteen.” I corrected him.

He made a sound.

“I’m your coach. An authority figure. You shouldn’t be at my house. In my bed. This is highly inappropriate, and I could get fired. If I get fired, I won’t be here to send updates on your progress per the agreement that got you out of jail. Not to mention, your relationship with Rush is already strained. My daughter has no idea I even prefer men.”

“You have a lot to lose.” I agreed.

“So do you.”

“No,” I echoed, hollow. “There’s nothing left for me to lose.”

I climbed off his lap, and he let me go. I kept my back to him, straightening my shirt, strengthening my resolve.

“What about me?” he whispered right behind me, so close I could feel the warmth of his body.

I lifted my chin. “Can’t lose something I never had.”

He wrapped around me again. This time, it was so much like this morning that a piece of my chest caved in. “You do have me,” he vowed against my ear.

“You just said?—”

“There’s a lot working against us, and I need some time to figure this out.”

Us. God, how I want there to be an us.

“I need to talk to my daughter.”

My wishes for an us withered just as they bloomed. And what happens when she says she won’t support it? It will be me or his daughter. Me or Elite. Me or his reputation. Me or his entire life.

I could never equate to even one of those things, let alone them all.

“We should go. We’re going to be late.” It would look suspicious if we showed up late together.

He cursed and started walking, linking our fingers and towing me along. I was so surprised by the casual contact that I stared at where we touched until he pushed me into the passenger seat of the Mustang.

Once we were on the road, the steady rumble of the engine beneath us, I felt him glance in my direction. I kept my face turned away, watching the landscape whiz by.

“Goldilocks.”

That name was like a vise around my heart.

“Hey,” he said when I ignored him, his warm palm sliding over the top of my thigh. “I want this. You.”

Finally, I turned to look at him. He was so sexy. So solid. It made me ache. “You want me?” I asked, the words a cautious whisper.

“So much it scares me.”

“Why?”

His hand stiffened on my thigh before going slack. “What?”

“Why do you want me?” What do you see that no one else does?

“You feel like mine.”

It didn’t really answer my question… but it was enough. Maybe because he felt like mine too.

“I’ll give you some time,” I said as we pulled into the Elite parking lot, knowing that all I was doing was prolonging the inevitable.

But when you have nothing left to lose, consequences are nothing too.