Chapter Thirty-Two
MILLER
What a day from hell.
And we still had practice that next day, which meant that we were all supposed to get along as if nothing had happened with Thomas.
I got there early, hoping to talk to Sanchez, since, when he got home the night before, he’d said he just wanted to crash.
But he was already suited up and on the practice field. His back was to me as I approached him. He was watching the cheerleaders practice.
I didn’t blame him.
“Remember that time you said that you would have never walked away? And that’s what made us different?” I stood a foot away from him, not taking my eyes off the field as I clutched my helmet in my right hand.
“Yeah.” He sighed.
“You’re doing it by not going after her now, by not explaining yourself.”
“It’s called self-destructive behavior.” Sanchez turned to me. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. I just don’t know how to make her listen, make her understand. And the sick part is that I know I don’t really deserve her.” He paused. “Neither of us do.”
The girls were doing a dance routine, and Emerson was helping one of the girls with her moves. That’s the thing about her. Screw her over, make fun of her, tell her she can’t do something and she would always be the bigger person by helping out even if that same person was the one who took her clothes a few weeks ago and stashed them in the guys’ locker room. It was something I had conveniently forgotten six years before, when I’d assumed she’d left me. “You got that right.”
“But I want to be good enough for her. It wasn’t even about sex. I mean at first it was, but now? Now, I just . . . I don’t know, man. I think I’d die a happy man if she’d just hold my hand.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I know what messing up feels like. Don’t be that guy, Sanchez. Six years ago, she had no second string—” I bumped him with my helmet. “And now she does. And like you said, it’s about being in the game, so know this. I won’t hesitate like I did then, not after all this shit.”
“Are you challenging me right now?” The bastard was smiling.
“Well . . .” I shrugged. “If you aren’t gonna man up, someone will.”
He hung his head. “I fucked up.”
“So don’t take six years to make it right.”
When he looked back at me, it wasn’t with anger, but guilt—a hell of a lot of guilt. “She hasn’t told you yet, has she?”
Chills spread down my arms. “Told me what?”
“The reason she called that day.”
He knew?
Of course. He wasn’t just the guy she was with. She’d replaced me with him, completely, in every way. She told him things.
“No. Part of me thinks the past needs to stay there.”
“Agreed.” This time his eyes flashed with anger. “Let’s get this practice over with and figure out Sunday’s game before I start turning into a chick and asking for more advice from the only guy who’s ever slept with the girl I love.”
The minute the words left his mouth, I stopped walking.
He froze, as if he couldn’t believe the words that he had just blurted, and then shoved past me.
Love. He loved her.
Of course he did.
And then like a punch to the gut the rest of what he said registered like a neon sign.
The only guy she’d ever slept with—was me?
That wasn’t right.
Six years?
Did I do that to her? Was it my fault? Had she been waiting? And did that mean they’d never slept together?
My respect for Sanchez grew.
And I wanted so badly to hate the little shit for it.
Instead, more respect happened.
Because he’d had her for two months—I’d seen the way she looked at him and the way he devoured her with his eyes. For sixty days, he hadn’t slept with her.
And yet, when I knew I was leaving her, and we’d been only eighteen . . .
I’d taken that from her, granted, she could have said no. But I was grieving and it was Em—I took her virginity regardless of the situation, I was the one who initiated the sex.
I took her heart with me.
And selfishly had never given it back.
I stood there—I don’t know how long—seconds, minutes. I stood and hated myself.
Because it really was clearer than I wanted it to be.
I’d been the stand-in.
Until Sanchez, the better man.
“Get your ass over here, Miller!” Jax yelled at me. “Champions don’t stare at cheerleaders all day!”
“Or do they?” Sanchez asked the group, cracking the tension with ease.
I glanced one last time at Emerson across the field, only to see Kinsey staring back at us.
Back at me.
Glaring.
I jerked my head away as if I was in high school and then rolled my eyes at myself. Good one, Miller.
She didn’t belong to me, not anymore. And for some reason, a part of me felt . . . better because of it. All this time I’d been thinking about myself, about wanting her because of the way we left things in the past, needing her, because I didn’t know how to live without her and be happy. And selfishly thinking that Sanchez was a playboy man whore who didn’t know what type of woman she was.
It was painful.
The realization that he’d been there for two months, sharing his life, earning her trust, gaining her love. And I’d been so worried about winning her that I hadn’t even asked if her dad was okay.
Or why they were living in the apartment in the first place.
Because it had all been about me.
He was the better man.
She deserved a man like that.
I smiled through practice even though I got the shit beat out of me.
And when it was time to shower, it felt like a part of the past was finally righting itself. I just hoped nothing more happened. I wasn’t sure I could live with more drama.