Page 46 of Red Card (Prescott University #1)

Cillian

T hree months ago, I was packing my life up to leave London and feeling like there’d never be another place in the world that would ever feel like home.

How could it when everything I’ve loved was there? My mum. Aisling. Rugby. My teammates. Friends. The flat I’d spent my childhood in.

I remember the overpowering sense of dread in the days leading up to our flight. Each minute that brought me closer to coming to America was a constant reminder of the sentence I’d been dealt. A new prison to hold me for my sins outside of the grief that I’d been suffering with for so long.

It wasn’t bad enough that I lost Mum, but I had to leave my entire life behind too.

And now I’m facing the same reality once again. I’m no longer on the team, and everything is going to subsequently fall apart.

Which means I’m not going to be able to remain at Prescott.

And I’m fucking devastated because somewhere along the way it became home . Something that I never imagined I’d feel again. Not when my life has been temporary.

Only I found a home in Rory St. James.

I’ve realized that houses with walls, roofs, and memories, they’re not home. They’re simply somewhere you live. Where you go to bed each night and wake up every morning.

But your real home? It’s the beating, breathing heart of the person you love.

The one you’d do anything in the world for.

That’s who she is for me. She nestled her way into my heart, into the seams of my soul. Into my bones, my breath. Everything belongs to her.

I didn’t even realize I still had a fucking heart until it started to beat again for her .

I’m lying beside her in her bed, my arm tucked beneath my head, my fingers gently moving through her long, silky hair as she sleeps, brushing along the soft skin of her cheeks, trailing along the bare skin of her arm that peeks out from beneath the sleeve of my T-shirt.

I love seeing her in my clothes almost as much as I love seeing her out of them.

Last night, after everything that happened, I was going to leave, give her space to process the revelation I dropped on her.

Telling her I’m in love with her in the midst of everything falling apart is not at all what I had planned, but I couldn’t go another second without admitting my feelings.

Because if it all went to hell, and I couldn’t convince her that I was being truthful and she did leave, I needed her to know that I loved her.

Even if it was the only time I got to say it to her.

But she didn’t ask for space. She didn’t push me away or keep me at arm’s length. If anything she pulled me closer. It’s like she knew I needed that more than anything tonight, to feel her with me.

There was nothing sexual about us crawling into bed together, her in my T-shirt, me in a fresh pair of dry athletic shorts that she had tucked away in a drawer.

We just lay on our sides, staring at each other, talking about everything until she started to doze off, her eyes fluttering shut from exhaustion.

Despite the exhaustion that I felt—emotionally, mentally, physically—sleep evaded me. I couldn’t get my brain to shut off. To stop replaying the last twenty-four hours in my head like a broken record.

Trying to figure out how the fuck it was possible that I failed the tests, and how thankful I am that Rory stayed. That she believed me even though she had every right not to.

How I’m going to try to fix this shit and try to keep my spot on the team. My home at Prescott.

Rory stirs in her sleep, her rosy lips falling open as whispers a string of indecipherable mumbles that I can’t make out.

Except three distinct syllables.

My name.

Fuck, my girl is whispering my name in her sleep.

My chest swells, my heart galloping wildly beneath my rib cage. Sometimes I think Rory is the only thing I’ve ever truly gotten right. She saved me in ways that I know she couldn’t possibly understand.

I’ve been lying here for hours, watching her sleep, trying to savor every single bloody second that I have with her because in truth… I don’t know how long it’ll last.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. My entire future is up in the air. When I first arrived in America, I thought the stakes were high, but now it’s no longer just about playing for a professional team. It’s about Rory.

The thought of leaving her makes me physically ill. An entire fucking ocean separating me and the girl I’m in love with sounds like torture unlike anything I’ve ever known.

“Are you creepily watching me sleep, Cillian Cairney?” she murmurs, eyes still closed but her pillowy lips curving up into a sleepy grin.

“Of course not.”

Her grin widens into a smile that makes my heart race. As if her smile commands her pull on my heart, increasing the tempo with each time she looks at me. She’s so fucking beautiful.

“Mmmm. Not true. I can feel your eyes on me.”

My hand shoots out and slowly curves around her waist, tugging her across the mattress until she’s plastered against my chest. She heaves a sleepy sigh, burrowing into the crook of my neck, hitching one leg around my hip.

It’s perfect like this, wrapped up in her.

“That’s because I can’t take my eyes off you, St. James. Can you blame me?” I mumble into the silky hair on top of her head, pressing my lips there, lingering.

The tips of my fingers glide along her thigh lazily, spelling letters that I wonder if she’ll be able to decipher.

“I’ve been thinking. About everything from yesterday…

” she starts, then pauses, lifting back slightly to stare up at me.

Her pretty brown eyes are my favorite shade, darker in the morning when she’s first waking up and still sleepy.

“I was so worried about finding a guy who could see me for who I am, who I really am. It felt impossible, but I think that’s what I found.

I think that you’ve seen me, for all that I am, for exactly who I am since I met you.

The same way that I have you. I never saw you as a guy who could never escape his past, and you never saw me as the hopeless girl who would never make it out of the friend zone. Kinda feels like fate to me.”

I’ve never really given it much thought. Fate.

But I think she may be right. Whatever I’ve experienced in my life, the immeasurable hurt and heartache, the good and the bad, the pain and the healing.

Every piece of it must have led me right here, right to this moment.

“It does.” My throat feels tight with emotion, the same way it has countless times in the last day. “Loving you is effortless, Rory. I have no doubt that I was made solely to love you.”

Her eyes glisten, fresh new tears welling in the depths like pools. “I’m scared, Cillian. That you’ll leave, that we’ll lose this.”

“Hey.” I clasp her chin between my fingers. “We’re going to figure it out, baby. I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight, not just for myself but for you. For Ais.”

“What are we going to do?”

I swallow hard. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

Rory’s lips find mine, the softest, sweetest brush of a kiss that sucks all the air out of my lungs.

I want to deepen it, swipe my tongue through her parted lips and lose myself in her, but the sound of someone knocking on the door stops me from doing so.

She pulls back alarmed, eyes wide. “Shit. It might be my dad. I wasn’t exactly… put together when he left yesterday.” In a breath, she’s off the bed, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from her dresser and dragging them on.

I follow her through her apartment, prepared to hide in the damn closet if I need to. A second later, I watch her sag with relief when she looks through the peephole. “It’s just Fitz.”

When she opens the front door, he steps past her into the apartment.

And then I remember Fitz has no fucking clue that we’re together.

Fuck.

His shocked expression meets mine, and his brow shoots up to his hairline. “Cairney? What the hell are you doing here? I’ve been freaking the fuck out, man. Trying to figure out how the hell we’re going to fix this shit an—”

Rory steps between us, lifting a hand to stop him. “Fitz, wait. You know about Cillian?”

“Yeah, duh. The whole team knows. Your dad sent an email earlier today, before breakfast.” His ass hits the chair as he flops down into it, crossing his arms over his chest. “Fuck that. There’s no goddamn way that shit is for real.

I don’t believe it for a second. That’s why I’m here; because we gotta figure this shit out and pronto . ”

A weird, fuzzy feeling blooms in my chest that he’s even here, believing that I wouldn’t do this, ready to fight.

I hoped that the guys on the team would believe me when I said that there has to be a mistake, but shit, I wasn’t sure. The same with Rory. There’re two positive tests so I get the doubt.

We’ve been through a lot in the short time that I’ve been here, but it feels like we’re forming a brotherhood.

The way it should be between a team, especially in rugby.

Rugby’s about family. Maybe not blood, but the family that you find.

That’s part of the reason this is such bullshit because the timing is something.

Right when we’ve bridged the gap between us.

“I know. We know. We just haven’t exactly figured out how we’re going to do it,” Rory says, sinking down beside him on the couch.

“So.… let’s just get the elephant out of the room, yeah?” he says, looking between Rory and me.

Then Rory’s head whips to look at me, and I look back at Fitz. And we’re all bloody looking at each other.

I stay glued to my spot, unsure of how to go forward. Is this the right time to tell him what’s been going on between us?

“Someone’s set you up. I mean, that’s the only logical conclusion to be drawn,” he finally says, and Rory deflates beside him, eyes still wide.

What he says should be a relief, not having to drop this bomb between us in the midst of everything that’s going on, but if anything it makes my chest feel heavier. I don’t want to keep things between us a secret, and if there’s anyone I trust outside of Rory or Ais, it’s Fitz.

“Rory and I are together.”

The space between his brow furrows. “Yeah, I know. We’re all together.”

“No, mate, I mean together, together . She’s my girlfriend,” I say quickly, clearing up the confusion written on his face.

“I am?” Rory blurts out.

“You are?” Fitz says at the same time, their words overlapping.

“I mean, I thought that’s what was going on here. I mean, we love each other, that means we’re dating, yeah?” I respond, reaching up and rubbing the back of my neck.

Rory rolls her lips together. “Yeah, but like you hadn’t officially asked me, so I wasn’t sure if we were going to, like, put a label on this.”

There’s a loud whistle, and we both look over at Fitz. “Can we focus for a second? We’ll come back to… this in a minute. First of all, we have to figure out how the hell we’re going to prove Cillian’s innocent. Kind of hard to have a relationship from two thousand miles away, Ror.”

He’s right.

But also, now I’m fucking grinning at Rory, and she’s smiling at me so sweet that I wanna scoop her off the couch and carry her to her bedroom and pretend the whole world isn’t burning down.

“I have an idea. But… we’re going to need some help,” Fitz says slowly.

My brow lifts. “What do you have in mind?”