Page 104 of False Start

His next kiss cemented how he felt, the power in it so electrifying I felt as if I could float off the ground and right up into the clouds covering the moon.

Kyle held me for a long while, the two of us too greedy to let go as we leaned against his car. We touched and kissed, eyes wandering over one another as if the other wasn’t quite real, as if it all may be a dream and we never wanted to wake.

Somehow, eventually, Kyle found the strength to say goodnight.

But it was only with the promise that he’d see me tomorrow.

Kyle

My knee bounced like a basketball under the kitchen island of the apartment I was renting, my eyes on the phone clutched between my hands.

The last week had been a whirlwind. Whenever I wasn’t training with Braden, I was looking at houses with Madelyn. And any time she’d let me, I was there at her house with her and Sebastian, getting to know them both better, giving her a helping hand.

I didn’t know how she did it all on her own.

I hated that she’d had to for so long.

The week had been so busy, we hadn’t really talked much about what we were or what came next. Still, it seemed we were both on the same page, and for me, at least right now, that was enough.

We didn’t want to let each other go.

We spent every free moment we had together.

She was letting me in, and I was doing the same.

Part of me wished she was here with me now to face my demons. The other part of me was glad she wouldn’t see me like this.

I was going to try real fucking hard not to blow a gasket, but I couldn’t make any promises.

I debated booking a private flight out to Massachusetts to face my parents in person, but my common sense wouldn’t let me. Because the truth was that I didn’t trust myself not to hit my father square in the jaw as soon as I saw him.

And unlike him, I didn’t want to resort to violence — no matter how much he might have deserved it.

“Just fucking do it, Kyle,” I said to the empty apartment, and then I hit the green phone button next to my mother’s name.

As soon as the phone started ringing, so did my ears. My heart leapt into my throat and stayed there even after my mom’s voice sang over the line.

“Well, if it isn’t our superstar son,” she said, and though I couldn’t see her, I could hear her smile, could see it in my mind.

She used to be a place for comfort for me in a house of hell.

Now, I felt like she was an accomplice to the worst crime ever committed.

“How’s it going out there in the Pacific Northwest?” she asked.

“It’s going.” I swallowed, wondering if I should indulge her with small talk before I laid into why I actually called. But I didn’t have the stomach to even try. “Is Dad there?”

“Oh,” she said, surprised — because Ineverasked to speak to my father. “He is. He’s in his study.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Is everything okay?”

“No.”

Mom paused for a long while. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“I know.”