Page 45 of Red Card (Prescott University #1)

He never answered my text messages, and his phone is still going straight to voicemail. Radio silence.

I pull myself off the floor, wincing because my limbs are asleep after sitting on the hardwood for hours. I walk to my bedroom and strip out of my clothes before slipping beneath the covers and burying my face into the blankets that still smell like Cillian.

There’s a fresh new wave of tears, and the last thing I remember before sleep pulls me under is all I want is Cillian to prove to me that this was all a mistake.

A loud noise rips me from sleep, and I shoot up in bed, my heart pounding as I glance around my darkened room.

A flash of lightning lights up the room followed by a ferocious clap of thunder that nearly shakes the walls.

A thunderstorm apparently moved in, and now I can hear the heavy sound of hail clinking against my window.

God, what time is it? I look over at the glowing alarm clock.

1:28 a.m.

Then I hear the noise again and realize it’s not the storm. Someone’s pounding on my front door frantically. I toss the covers off and walk to the entryway, then peer through the peephole on the front door.

My heart thuds heavily in my chest.

Cillian.

I wrench the door open and find him standing on the doorstep, completely drenched. Jesus, it’s fucking freezing; he’s going to catch hypothermia.

“Cillian, my God,” I whisper thickly, opening the door wider so he can step inside. I can feel the chill radiating off him as he passes by, shrugging out of his soaked jacket, rain covering his shoulders. He hangs it on the hook with a shaky hand and turns to face me.

When he reaches for me, I take a step back and hurt flashes in the depths of his eyes.

“So I’m assuming you’ve heard?” His voice is low and hoarse. Heavy with emotion.

I nod, running my hands up and down my bare arms for warmth. Even with the heat on, the chill from outside has seeped its way in and sends shivers down my spine.

“I…” I start, trailing off. My throat feels so tight that I don’t know if I can even speak. “My dad came by earlier. He wanted me to find out from him first. I texted you all night. I called you probably a hundred times and you never called me back.”

His eyes are solemn, dark and stormy like the one he just walked in from. “Do you believe it?”

My brow pinches. “I don’t know what to believe, Cillian. I saw the test. Both of them. They were positive for amphetamines.”

For a second he’s quiet, and then he shakes his head, rubbing his palm roughly over the back of his neck. “It’s bullshit, Rory. You bloody know that I’m not on fucking drugs.”

I wince when his voice raises an octave, and he sighs as his eyes drop shut briefly like he’s trying to hold on to his composure. When he opens them, the raw pain and betrayal I see shining back almost breaks me.

“I asked for the test because I knew that I would pass, Rory. I haven’t taken any drugs, and you of all people should know that.

I would never fucking do that; not after everything in London.

I would never hurt Aisling or you like that.

I would never leave the team in a spot like this.

Baby, please believe me. I need you to believe me. Believe in me.”

“I do believe in you, Cillian. I have believed in you since the moment you got to Prescott. Hell, I’ve believed in you before I even really knew why I did.

I just blindly put faith into someone I didn’t even know.

I trusted my gut. I knew deep down that there was more to you than the rumors that swirled around me like wildfire.

You shut everyone out because you didn’t want to feel any more hurt, and I still wanted to be here, trying to break past your walls,” I cry, waving my hands in the air with each word, exasperation taking root and blossoming into something that feels bigger.

“I have never doubted you. Not until now. What am I supposed to believe when my father, the man who has never let me down in my life, who has never lied to me, who has never given me reason to doubt him, shows up at my doorstep with proof that you failed a drug test? Not once but twice. I’m so confused, Cillian, and I’m just…

I’m hurting . I don’t know what to believe anymore.

When I tried to reach you and I couldn’t, I was so worried.

God, Cillian, I’ve been worrying for hours about you.

Where you were. If you were okay. If you were hurt. ”

“I’m sorry that I disappeared, Rory. I turned my phone off and sat by the river walk.

I just needed a little space to get my shit right in my head.

In the past, I’ve always shut down, pulled away from those who care about me when shit gets to be too much.

I’m proud of the guy I am now, and pushing everyone away is not who I am anymore.

” His jaw clenches, his nostrils flaring as a darkened look passes through his stormy eyes.

“But you’re right. There is one piece of the truth I’ve kept from you. ”

My heart drops into my stomach. It feels as if the floor has fallen from beneath my feet as his admission floods through my veins like pure ice.

In two strides he closes the distance between us, lifting his freezing palm and curving it around the edge of my jaw, the rough pad of his thumb forging a path along my skin. I feel the slight tremor in his touch, whether from the cold or the intensity of this moment, I can’t tell.

“It’s the only thing I’ve never been a hundred percent honest about.

The only thing I’m guilty of. That night in your bed, I told you that I was falling for you, but the truth is I’m already in love with you, Rory St. James.

So fucking in love with you that sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe.

And I would rather take a hundred beatings on the pitch until every inch of me is black and blue before I ever purposely hurt you.

Rather rip my heart out of my chest than be the reason behind your tears. ”

Those tears are falling freely now, hot against my cheeks. He swipes them away carefully, so tenderly that my heart aches to the point of pain.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you right then, drop to my fucking knees and tell you that every single piece of me belongs to you.

I was scared and that’s not an excuse. But, baby, you know me.

Better than anyone else in my life besides Ais.

You know that I’m not on drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. ”

He pauses, his eyes searching and holding mine intently while I try to process everything that’s happening.

My pulse is pounding so loudly that I can hardly hear anything over the steady woosh in my ears.

Tears well in my eyes, and I shake my head, a strangled laugh bursting free that’s partly a sob.

“You idiot, how dare you tell me you love me right now ? I’m supposed to be angry at you. I was so worried, Cillian.”

“Be angry then, baby, but don’t fucking cry.

It makes me want to die. Throw shit at me, hit me with a fucking shoe.

Push me. Do whatever you need to do that helps.

But it’s not going to make me love you any less.

It’s not going to change the fact that I’m laying my heart at your feet and begging you to trust me.

To help me figure out how the fuck this happened.

Because I left that shit in London, along with the broken version of myself and, Rory, I never want to go back to him. I can’t go back.”

His tortured gaze hits me full force, and the ache in my heart feels unbearable. I hate this. I hate it so much.

I hate that I doubt him.

“I truly don’t know how or why I failed that piss test, Rory.

It has to be a mistake. I don’t understand, and I swear to you on everything that I love, I’m clean .

I didn’t do this. All I can think is that the test is faulty, or it’s a false positive.

I know that sounds crazy and I can’t explain it, but the tests have to be wrong. They have to be.”

It’s not as if I didn’t think the same thing when my dad told me that he failed the test. I thought there had to be some explanation, some reason that the test could be wrong.

And now that Cillian is standing here in front of me, and I can look into his eyes, seeing the unshed tears shining back at me and the fierce determination to prove his innocence, I can’t help but…

believe him. Not just in him. In his potential.

I believe he’s telling me the truth, and that he would never hurt me.

Believe in what my heart is trying so desperately to tell me. To ignore my head and the what-if.

To trust my gut, the same way that I did when he first arrived at Prescott. Cillian isn’t the same guy he was the day that he walked onto the pitch. And he’s not the same guy that he was when he was drowning in grief back in London. Numbing himself the only way he thought would help.

He’s the guy who trusted me when almost everyone he’s ever trusted gave up on him. He put that trust in me, and right now I have to put the same trust in him.

“I believe you, Cillian.” My voice is barely above a whisper as I reach for him, cradling his jaw in my hand.

I feel his entire body sag in relief, and those tears that were welling in his eyes fall. “Fucking hell, thank God. Baby, I swear on my mum’s life that I didn’t do anything to fail that test.”

His words sink into the depths of my soul. I swear I can feel the weight of them piercing my skin. He would never swear on his mom unless this was the truth. “I know. We’ll figure it out. Whatever it takes, we’ll figure it out. Together? Okay?”

Leaning forward, he drops his forehead gently against mine. “I love you, Rory. You breathed life into me again, and now I just… I can’t live without you.”

My hands slide around his jaw, curling around his nape, and pulling him into me. I feel his breath fan against the slope of my neck as he buries his face there.

Steadily, inhale, exhale.

“I love you, Cillian. I’m not going anywhere.”

Even if that means going to war for him.