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Chapter Forty-Seven

Jordan

I hope like hell Alex isn’t as mad at me as I think he is, or else using his file from work to get his address is really going to come back to bite me in the ass.

It’s totally illegal. So fucking illegal that I would get fired in a heartbeat.

It’s all I think about on the way to his house, outside of what I will say to him, that is.

All of that goes right out the window when I get out of my truck and hear sobbing and shouting from the side of his house. I go that way, thinking someone is hurt. Alex maybe. Only what I find is way fucking worse.

Of course, I know who Vance Harding is. Any hockey fan would. I used to like the guy. His stats are great and he’s a good captain, but he has his hands on Alex—and not in a good way. That would have pissed me the fuck off too, but this… this has me seeing red .

I don’t think about the repercussions that’ll come with this, I only act.

That’s what I’m good at. Getting myself into shitty situations and burying myself so deep that I can’t get out.

Then I just live there forever. I’ve been doing it my whole life.

Avoiding the bad shit. Making things worse.

Figuring out how to work around that, but then making things even worse… It’s just what I do.

Vance rears his arm back like he’s going to punch Alex, his other hand gripping his shirt to hold him in place. I grab a fist full of his hair, yank him back, and my hand goes around his throat, pressing him into the cold ground.

“Touch him again, and I will kill you,” I seethe.

His eyes are wide, confused, as if no one has ever told him off before.

I’m sure they haven’t. He’s Vance Fucking Harding.

But no one, and I mean no one , touches Alex like that.

A ton of things about him start making some sort of sense, but there are too many questions that I need answered before I can paint a full picture.

Dealing with that right now isn’t what I want to do.

What I want to do is turn Vance’s face into pulp.

“Jordan…” It’s a soft voice that comes from behind me. “Jordan, let him go.”

“No,” I growl, tightening my grip on Vance’s throat. I’ve never considered killing someone before, but all the bullshit from my life swarms me at once, anger filling my veins, and I think how easy it would be to end this piece of shit’s life.

It’s then I see the true panic in his eyes. His hands claw at my wrist and he’s trying to get air, but I’m not letting him. I could kill him. It would be so easy.

That would be really stupid though. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done. It’ll really fuck up my life. Worse than anything else I could do.

“Jordan, please…” Alex says, this time pleading and his hand comes down on my shoulder.

I heave out a breath, staring down at Vance and lean in closer to his pathetic face.

“If you so much as think about Alex again, never mind speak to or look at him, I will fucking end you. I will chop your body up into little pieces and feed them to the pigs on the farm down the road, and no one will know any fucking better.”

“Jordan,” Alex says again, and this time I release Vance’s throat.

He rolls over, coughing and gasping for air. He’s shaking, and I get to my feet.

“Ge the fuck out of here, Vance!” Alex shouts, grabbing my arm and pulling me away. I hear the anxiety and fear in his voice, but he has nothing to be afraid of anymore because I will protect him.

Vance is still coughing and mumbling something as we walk away. I hear something about Alex being a useless slut, and I shake out of Alex’s grip, run back at Vance, and stomp my booted foot right onto his knee. He yelps in pain, so I do it again until I hear a crack.

“Jordan, fuck!” Alex shouts, tackling me. I nearly fall to the ground, but shove Alex off me and go back at Vance, stomping on his other knee.

“Keep it up, you fucking prick. I’ll break every bone in your body!”

“Jordan, let’s go! Fuck, get in the house!”

Alex wraps his arms around my waist and tugs me after him until we’re in the house.

I’m sweaty, panting, my heart is racing a mile a minute. I don’t think I will ever unhear the crunch Harding’s knee made and I couldn’t fucking care less for what kind of pain he’s in. It’s the least he deserves, because now I know for sure that him fucking up Alex’s knee wasn’t an accident.

“What the fuck was that, Jordan?” Alex shouts at me.

“I should be the one asking you that!” I yell back.

“It was… nothing.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” I roar.

He blinks a few times, taking a step back. He says nothing. Of course, now’s the time he wants to be quiet. But I know the quieter Alex is, the worse it is.

“I came here hoping to talk to you,” I explain. “To apologize for being a dick the other day, and to tell you I broke up with Maggie, and I walk into… I don’t even know what!”

“I just… we…”

Alex stares at me, and when he blinks next, a tear falls down his cheek.

Fuck.

I go to him, forgetting all the anger and anxiety I have over going to jail for assaulting a fucking famous person. I pull him to me, hugging him as tightly as I can.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Me too.”

He cries softly against me for a while, and I let him.

His hands shake as he settles them on my waist, burying his face into my shirt.

I tighten my grip, still feeling the aftershocks of my adrenaline racing through me.

He needs to let it out, he can let it out.

We have to talk, clearly about a lot of things, but first… we need this.

I hear a car door close, and expect police to knock on the front door, but the engine starts and then peels off.

I have no idea how he drove off with a shattered knee, but that’s his problem.

Guess he’s using his other fucking leg. Good thing Alex stopped me, or he never would have left.

I’d have left him out in the yard to rot.

And I wasn’t kidding about feeding him to the pigs. Those fuckers will eat anything.

When Alex calms down, we head into his living room and sit on the couch, still in silence.

I wait for him to say something, because I don’t know what to say anymore.

Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I’m really terrified the cops are going to show up.

It’s just my luck, and just so me to do something so fucking stupid.

Maybe the only way to get this conversation started, to get Alex to open up to me, is to open up to him.

“My mom died,” I say.

His head jerks in my direction. “Fuck, Jordan. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

I shake my head, picking at a loose string on my sweatpants. “It was a while ago.”

Alex frowns. “Why are you only telling me now?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.” His eyes widen. I always knew it was really stupid, but it feels even more ridiculous now that I’m talking about it.

“I’ve always been real quiet about my home life.

It sucked so badly my dad killed himself and my sister left the moment she could.

She doesn’t even talk to me, probably afraid I’m too much like our mother.

She doesn’t want me poisoning her kids and her perfect life. ”

“I didn’t even know you had a sister…”

I shrug. “Feels like I don’t.”

“And you’re an uncle…”

That hurts a lot. When I think about it, it makes my chest tight. I’ve never been a huge fan of kids, but maybe that’s because I’ve never had the chance to be around them .

“So what happened?” Alex asks gently.

“Drugs. That’s what her life was. I didn’t make an announcement because I was ashamed of who she was and how she lived, so I kept everything quiet.

Swept it all under the rug. No one really knew her except her drug dealers, so it’s not like anyone asked about her.

It was easier than dealing with the pity looks I’d get from people. ”

He nods slowly, reaching for my hand. “I’m sorry you dealt with that alone.”

“Thank you,” I tell him sincerely.

Talking about it sucks, but maybe I feel a little lighter getting it off my chest.

His hand slips from mine, and he brings them to his lap, looking down at them.

He chews on the corner of his lip, and I wait for him to talk.

It’s his turn now, and I hope he’s going to open up so I can know what the fuck is going on.

So I can see deeper into Alex and help him.

Because I do want to help him. I want to be here.

I want to do this… with him. I decided that, and it’s why I came over here at all.

I’m tired of pretending and living a life that’s fake.

I just want to be me and be happy. The only way I’m truly going to get away from the life I grew up in is to do the opposite.

My mother was miserable, and so I should make sure I can be as happy as possible. I think th at’s with Alex.

“I was sixteen when Kyle Shaw fucked me in the locker room before practice and said if I told a soul, he’d beat the shit out of me.

” He shrugs. “He had a girlfriend, so I guess he didn’t want her or the other guys at school to know how much he liked my ass, which is what he bit out every time he’d fuck me.

” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I was twenty-one when I found Eric, the professional dom who proved my dad right. I was a menace, but I could listen. I could be good. With the right code, of course. Rough, brutal touch. A little choking. Degrading words. A deep, smooth sexy voice telling me what the fuck to do and how to do it. Some tears and some cuddling. Once I learned what worked…” He whistles, picking at some lint on his shorts.

“So I chased the pain. Confused it for discipline. Thought if I could just be a good boy, they’d stay.

They’d see I was worth staying for. I kept chasing that high until…

” He looks at me for a quick moment before he looks away.

“Until I learned I wasn’t worth it. Until I learned it was better to run away than to be left.

Until I learned there were only two things I was really good at. Hockey and sex.”

When he looks back at me, I see the guilt in his eyes.

“I wanted to impress him. Vance. I wanted his approval because he was my captain. I wanted to be worthy of my spot on the team, and I wanted to keep it. And then we started fucking around and—” He sucks in a breath, scooting closer to me.

I keep my eyes trained on him. “I thought if maybe I could be a successful athlete, I’d be enough, you know?

” He sighs again, rubbing his forehead. “I just wanted to feel the way I feel when the switch gets flipped.” He stares at his hands, twisting them as his shoulders tense.

“It didn’t happen right away. Our… arrangement. But he knew I liked it rough, and I liked to push my boundaries. He knew he could get me to listen, and I’d be better on the ice. I’d be good. With the right hand to control me.” His words are quiet.

“The first time Vance hurt me, he said it was an accident. He choked me so hard I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to use my safeword, but I couldn’t talk.

I pushed him away, and he laughed. Left me on my floor, coughing, and just walked out.

Sometimes he’d do that. Leave me alone after roughing me up.

Sometimes he wouldn’t show up at all and I’d be left waiting.

Kneeling, naked on the floor.” He shakes his head.

“Sometimes I’d fall asleep and wake up to realize I waited all night, and I’d feel like absolute shit. ”

“Christ, Alex. That’s fucking… awful.”

He stares at me, blinking a few times, and then continues. I’m hearing what he’s saying, but I don’t think I’ve processed it all yet. I knew it was bad, but this? It’s so much worse .

“The second time… he drew blood. Knocked me clean in the jaw and busted my lip up good. We lost the game, and he was not in the best of moods. I cost us the shot. So I paid for it. I locked myself in my room, and he screamed at me and told me he didn’t mean it. He was just so upset. The third time…”

He runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders tense. “I left so there wouldn’t be a fourth.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says it. His gaze falls to my lap, and I don’t think twice about pulling him close. He rests his head on my shoulder, and lets out a deep sigh, sniffling.

“I wanted to tell you. When you asked me that first day in your office what happened, I didn’t want to lie, but I wasn’t sure I could be honest,” he says quietly.

“One, I signed an NDA when we started fucking around, due to the rough nature of our arrangement, and two, you weren’t exactly thrilled to see me. ”

He turns to look at me with watery eyes. “What the fuck was I going to say? Hey, Jordan, how ya been? Oh, yeah, by the way, I broke up with my team captain and he broke my knee because he’s an abusive asshole?’ ”

I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything. How can I apologize for something like this? It won’t matter. Nothing I say is going to fix what he’s gone through. Nothing is going to make it better .

“I just… didn’t want you to look at me how you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m fucking broken.” His voice is barely a whisper, and I hate that he’s right. I do feel that way, and I can’t help but look at him that way.

“I didn’t want you to know how fucked up I am. Because when I’m with you…” He flashes his watery green eyes up at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t feel like I’m broken.”

I wrap him in my arms and pull him as close as he can get. I can’t speak, nothing more than the “thank you” that I whisper, hoping like hell he understands I’m thanking him for opening up to me. Maybe one day I can tell him how much it means, but right now… I just want to hold him.