Page 31 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)

TWENTY-THREE

LENNOX

I stepped back like he’d slapped me.

My body moved without conscious thought, putting distance between us, between me and the ghost standing on my doorstep.

Because that’s what he had to be, a ghost, a hallucination brought on by too much alcohol and not enough sleep and the ripples of heartbreak that made me see things that weren’t there.

“What do you want?”

The words came out harsher than I intended. I was going for venomous, for the kind of cold fury that would make him flinch and turn around and leave me alone with my misery. Instead, I sounded wounded. Broken.

Pathetic.

Oliver didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, swaying slightly on his feet like he was fighting to stay upright. His chest rose and fell with the kind of ragged breathing that came after a long run or a panic attack or both.

Then he opened his fist.

The gold medal hit the wooden deck with a dull clatter, bouncing once before settling between us. It lay there like an accusation, like proof of everything he’d chosen over me, catching the porch light and throwing it back in fractured golden pieces.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said, and his voice was wrecked. Raw and hollow, like he’d been screaming. “I won, and it doesn’t mean anything without you.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, but I fought against the hope they carried. Fought against the way my heart leaped at the sight of him and the sound of his voice.

“Bullshit.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together. “That medal is everything to you. It’s what you’ve been working for.”

“I was wrong.” He took a step forward, and I took another step back. “God, Lennox, I was so fucking wrong about everything. I thought winning would fix me, that it would prove I was worth something, but all it did was show me how empty I am without you.”

Stop it.

I wanted to tell him to leave. Wanted to slam the door in his face and go back to my pathetic pacing and self-pity. Because this desperate, broken version of Oliver was almost worse than the silence had been. At least when he wasn’t here, I could pretend he was happy without me.

“Please,” he whispered, and the word broke something in my chest. “Please, can I come in? Can we talk?”

I should have said no. Should have protected myself, protected what was left of my pride. Instead, I stepped aside and let him into the cabin, into the space that had haunted both of us for six months.

He walked past me like he was in a trance, taking in the familiar surroundings with wide, desperate eyes.

The same couch where we’d played games and fallen in love.

The same bed where we’d kissed for the first time.

The same everything, except now it was poisoned with all the words we hadn’t said and all the choices we’d made wrong.

“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out of him like he’d been holding them back for weeks. “I’m so fucking sorry, Lennox. For choosing the meet over you, for not telling you about the schedule change, for letting you walk away instead of fighting for us. I’m sorry for being a coward and an idiot and…”

“Stop.” I held up a hand, trying to find my anger again.

Trying to remember how much it had hurt when he’d let me leave.

Yet I was angry with myself for leaving in the first place, and that opened a pit of fear in my stomach.

“Just stop. You don’t get to show up here and apologize and expect everything to be okay. ”

He flinched, but he didn’t back down. “I know. I know I don’t deserve you. I know I fucked up beyond repair. But I had to try. I had to tell you that losing you was the worst mistake of my life.”

I wanted to believe that this broken, desperate man in front of me was real, that his pain was real, that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally figured out what mattered.

“You chose,” I said, and my voice cracked on the words. “When it came down to it, you chose your career over us. Over me.”

“I know.” His shoulders sagged with the weight of it.

“And I’ve regretted it every second since you walked out that door.

I thought I needed to prove myself, that I needed to win or else…

” He shook his head. “But all I proved was that I’m an idiot who threw away the best thing that ever happened to him. ”

I wanted to get angry with him, but it was elusive. I wanted to make him hurt the way I’d been hurting for the past week. But looking at him, I could see that he was already there. Already drowning in the same regret and loneliness that had been eating me alive.

“The medal,” I said, glancing toward the door where it still lay abandoned on the deck. “You really won.”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “Yeah. I won. Set a new meet record and everything. And you know what I felt when they put that thing around my neck?” He looked at me with eyes so raw it hurt to meet them.

“Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Because the only person I wanted to share it with was gone.”

Stop it. Stop making me hope.

“That’s not my fault,” I said, but the venom I was aiming for fell flat. “You made your choice.”

“I made the wrong choice.” He took another step closer, close enough that I could smell the familiar scent of his shampoo mixed with sweat and desperation.

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him it was too late, that I didn’t dare give us another chance. But then he kept talking, and something in his voice made me stop.

“Do you know what I thought about during that race?” His voice was soft now, almost wondering.

“Not the time I needed to hit. Not the technique I’d been drilling for months.

I thought about you. About the way you smiled when I told you stupid stories from school.

About how you made me feel like I was more than just a swimmer. ”

My chest was getting tight, hope and hurt warring for control.

“I thought about how you’d look at me after I won,” he continued. “How proud you’d be, how you’d probably tackle me in the hotel hallway and kiss me until I couldn’t breathe. And then I remembered that you weren’t there. That I’d chosen this moment over you, and it felt like drowning.”

God, he’s killing me.

“I stood on that podium with gold around my neck, and all I could think was that I’d traded you for a piece of metal. That I’d given up the only person who ever made me feel like I was enough exactly as I was.”

The last of my defenses crumbled.

Before I could think, before I could talk myself out of it, I was moving. Three steps across the space between us, hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him down until his mouth crashed against mine.

The kiss was desperate and hungry and weeks overdue. He tasted like salt and regret and coming home, and I couldn’t get enough. My hands tangled in his hair, still damp with sweat, and he groaned against my mouth.

We kissed like the world was ending, like we were trying to make up for every moment we’d lost, every word we should have said. His hands found my waist and pulled me closer until there was no space between us, until I could feel his heart hammering against my chest.

When we finally broke apart, gasping, he rested his forehead against mine and stared at me like he couldn’t quite believe I was real. I pulled my head back and looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry I left,” I said in a huff. “I’m sorry I walked away from you. I should have trusted you.”

“I love you,” he whispered as if he hadn’t even heard my words.

As if they didn’t matter. And those three words hit me like lightning.

“I’m in love with you, Lennox. I think I have been since that first night, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.

I’m sorry I was too scared to admit that you matter more than any race, any medal, any dream I’ve ever had. ”

The words I’d been waiting to hear for months hung in the air between us, fragile and precious and absolutely true.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back and felt something broken inside me finally start to heal. “God, Oliver, I love you so much it’s been killing me.”

He kissed me again, softer this time, like a promise. Like a beginning instead of an ending.

And for the first time in a week, I felt like I could breathe again.

The kiss deepened, months of separation and longing pouring out between us like a dam finally bursting.

Oliver’s hands found my face with desperate reverence, his palms warm and slightly rough from years of gripping pool edges.

His thumbs brushed away tears I didn’t realize had started falling, the touch so gentle it made my chest ache even as fire burned through my veins.

I could taste the salt on his lips when he kissed me harder, could feel the tremor in his fingers as they mapped my cheekbones like he was trying to memorize every angle.

“God, I missed you, Lennox,” he breathed against my mouth, the words vibrating through me like a physical shock.

His voice was wrecked, raw with emotion, and something wild and desperate ignited in my chest. The sound of him saying my name like it was the answer to every question he’d been asking himself for the past weeks.

I grabbed the front of his shirt, some soft cotton thing that smelled like him, and spun us around with more force than necessary.

His back hit the door hard enough that the wood rattled against the frame, the sound sharp and satisfying in the quiet cabin.

Oliver’s eyes went wide with surprise, pupils blown with want, and I watched the exact moment the shock transformed into hunger.

“You missed me?” I kept my voice low, dangerous, letting all the hurt and anger I’d been carrying leak into the words. “You missed me while you were choosing your precious medal over us? While you were deciding I wasn’t worth fighting for?”