Knox grabs me halfway down the stairs.
As I turn back, I see Ty leaning against the open door. He’s judging me. “Let her go.”
“Shut up. Did you really not know?” Knox doesn’t believe me, or he doesn’t want to.
I give the best acting job I can. “I don’t know.” I wave a flustered hand between the two of them. “I don’t even know who’s standing in front of me right now. Is it the brother, or is it Knox?”
Knox looks like I’ve slapped him or something else here.
“Sorry, I know you wanted me to be the one. Sorry I ruined it for you.” I’m surprised at the calmness of my tone. I knew this would happen all along. I’d expected it. Knox is too decent of a person for someone like me. I knew I never deserved him. All this time I’d fooled myself more than anyone else. Jack isn’t the dumb one in the family. It’s me. It’s always been me. Somewhere I find the ability to give Knox a half smile. It strikes him like a physical blow and he jerks back. “Think of it this way. Your seal is broken and you can take advantage of all the girls available to you.”
Knox hisses and drops my arm.
“Let her go,” Ty says again.
And this time…
This time Knox does.
31 Knox
She doesn’t look back. Not even once. Behind me, Matty shuffles awkwardly in the kitchen. Nothing about this seems right to me. Not Ellie leaving. Not her completely defeated. Not her walking off without another look.
None of it.
Matty breaks the silence. “Take a page from the Matty Manual. Fuck the girls you don’t care about. It’s a lot less painful when you both move on.”
He gives me a half-hearted pat on the shoulder and disappears down the stairs. I go inside.
There’s an ache that develops at the core when you have a bad loss. It seeps into your bloodstream and it takes days for that regret and sorrow to work its way out. In the pros, when you’re injured, sometimes they take your blood and send it into a centrifuge to spin out all the bad shit. It’s called a PRP—a platelet rich plasma injection—and supposedly it works like a miracle drug to ease your pain, promote healing, even reduce swelling and ligamentous injury.
That’s what I need right now. A PRP to my heart—Pulp Fiction style. One needle jabbed into my left pec repeatedly until this hideous fucking pain disappears.
“Bro, I am so sorry.” Ty sits, hunched over on the sofa. His hands hang between his legs, tossing the remote back and forth. I stare at the sidewalk Ellie walked down. A few of the guys mill around on the porch.
Snow starts to fall onto the common area of the Playground. At some point, the guys downstairs will throw on their gear and start tossing the ball around, messing up the pure white blanket.
“I messed up back there,” I conclude.
“Yeah, by not waiting. Why didn’t you come up for the bye?”
“She had a softball game.” I grab the remote from Ty to force him to look at me. “No, I messed up by going through with the test. I know she worried about it. She acted weird all week, asking me questions about the draft and then breaking up with me in a fake way. It must be because of the test. You don’t do that sort of shit to people you care about. You don’t put them through a fucking obstacle course and withhold your affection at the end of it if they trip up. That’s what Ellie’s parents have done all her life.”
“I could have taken her into the bedroom right there,” Ty snaps angrily.
No, she had already drawn away. The contact between them was slight. It made me sick to see it, but she barely touched him.
“She’s not Marcie,” I tell him.
“She’s not the one,” he shoots back. “You got it wrong. But like she said, you don’t have to hold back now. You can do anyone you want.”
The idea of being with another girl makes me sick. I can actually taste the bile in the back of my throat. “No.”
“Forget about her. She’s nothing. Besides, you can’t let this affect you.” Ty states the obvious. I don’t bite his head off for it though. He only wants to help, but he doesn’t know Ellie like I know her.
I stand up.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
“Out.” If I tell him, he’ll want to stop me.
I’ve got nearly a foot on Ellie and I work out daily, so it’s easy to catch up with her. I grab her shoulder, and when she turns, she has tears on her face and her nose is Rudolph red. My heart squeezes.
“I’m sorry.” I try to pull her against me but she resists.
“For what? Me not able to tell you two apart?”
“No, for making you go through with it. It doesn’t matter.” I reach for her again but she backs away. “I don’t care.”
Her lips twist in a bitter line. “I kissed your brother. There’s absolutely no difference between the two of you in real life. It even felt the same.”
I ignore the stabbing pain, the image she’s conjuring. “Why are you lying to me?”
She presses her lips together. They’re trembling. She’s trembling. I can’t take it anymore and I pull her rigid frame against mine.
“I can’t be with you, Knox. I told you I wanted to sleep with a virgin and now…now you deserve someone better than me.”
“Don’t say that shit, Ellie. You don’t believe it.”
“You don’t want to believe it. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I’m not the one. I’m not. Go home, Masters. Please.”
It’s the use of my last name that breaks through my thick skull. My hand drops to my side. This time when she whirls around and runs, I don’t chase her.
Ty is still sitting on the sofa where I left him. ESPN is on. They’re talking about the matchups tomorrow but none of it registers.
“You want to talk?” he asks quietly as I toe off my boots.
“No.” What’s there to say? I fucked up. “Let’s eat.”
The food is cold but Ty and I eat it anyway. We talk about the Cougar’s offense and the inability of their offensive line get their pads low enough to stop a hard charging pass rush like ours. It should be an easy win for us. The Cougar’s are the second-worst team in our conference.
After dinner, Matty comes up to tell us some of the guys are going to watch Any Given Sunday. I beg off citing tiredness as an excuse and they let me go without calling me on my bullshit. Knowing I need some privacy, Ty accepts the invitation and leaves.
In the quiet of my bedroom, I take myself in hand and close my eyes. There I see Ellie as she looked that night at Hammer’s party. Her eyes went wide as saucers and she licked her lips as if parched as a sinner in the desert.
In every line of her body, I read she wanted her hand around my dick. She wanted me in that moment more than I’ve wanted most things in my life, until I met her.
She started panting. I don’t know if she even realized it. Her breath came short and her chest heaved, pushing those pretty tits against her sparkly top, making my vision blur.
I tighten my grip around my dick, using all the precome to lube my shaft. I cup my balls with my free hand and let my head fall back onto the pillows. The images in my head shift from that night to the one where I took her for the first time…or maybe it’s more appropriate to think of her taking me. Whatever. That night I knew a God existed. That heaven existed.
The hot suck of her body on my dick gave more pleasure than I thought I had in me. I move my hand more rapidly and my hips jack into the air.
I love you.
I don’t know who’s saying it in my head—me or her or us together, but the memory of it makes me come in one long shuddering motion. The orgasm rips through me, tears open the scar tissue over my heart, and renders me a gasping, pained mess.
The lonely night stretches endlessly in front of me.
••• Game Day: Warriors 7-0