Melting into You by Trentham Laura

Author:Trentham, Laura
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

He tensed, his DNA sounding an alarm. “Right now?”

She propped herself up on an elbow, and he shifted to tuck his hands behind his head. “Try to control your enthusiasm, Mr. Football.”

“Are you trying to annoy me?” He had been named Mr. Football in the state of Alabama his senior year of high school, but instead of taking pride, he viewed it as the first creaking step of his downfall.

“Annoyed is better than you clamming up and blanking your face like you’re a robot with no feelings, when I know better.”

“Maybe you see what you want to see, not reality.” Discomfort sharpened his tone, and he squirmed his shoulders a few inches away from her.

Yet instead of going on the defense, she ran fingers over his side. “I want you to tell me about this. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. Henry David Thoreau. I looked him up. He lived a life of relative solitude, you know. Never married or had kids. Died young. Did you get it before or after you quit football?”

He had been expecting questions about his feelings or their possible future, not about his past. Shadows dappled her face, making it difficult to see her expression. She stroked his chest as if soothing a wild animal, and like a wild animal, escape was tempting.

“After. But quitting makes it sound like I had a choice.”

“All right, then why did you get this tattoo after your career-ending injury?”

He closed his eyes, casting back through the snapshots of his memory. Shame and loneliness and regrets got tangled up together. “It all started well before then. Somewhere between the wonder of playing in front of a few hundred fan on Friday nights and getting drafted, I changed. Everything changed. None of it for the better.”

Her hand stilled for a moment, but then stroked again.

“Everyone at Bama treated me like I was special. Girls were all over me, all the time. At first, I loved it. I thought they actually liked me.” He blew out a long sigh. “Eventually, I figured out they only wanted to be with the quarterback, not with me.”

Her nails bit into the skin of his chest. If she ended up hating him, then so be it, but he was done hiding his shit. He pushed up until he leaned against the headboard, and she feathered her hand over the inked quote on his side.

“So I stopped caring about them and stopped wondering if they cared about me. One face blurred into another. I didn’t remember their names. Didn’t even want to know them. I told myself I was giving them what they wanted.”

“What did you think they wanted?”

“Something to brag about later. An experience. How fucked up is that?”

“I’m not going to lie, that’s pretty effed up.” Her voice was rough and hurt-sounding. Probably in female solidarity with all the girls he’d royally screwed over. “But, I can also understand how it happened. When you get burned too many times you learn how to protect yourself.

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