Page 56 of Wrap Around (Forbidden Goals #7)

GIDEON

The grass is warm beneath my back, soft and reminiscent of all the days we spent out here as kids and teenagers.

My shirt is somewhere behind me, crumpled and half-damp from sweat and lake spray.

The sun is hot, hanging overhead like it’s refusing to set.

Like it’s trying to give us a few more minutes to enjoy our moment of silence.

Silas is beside me, one arm draped across his stomach, the other close enough that our pinkies touch.

We don’t say anything for a long while. Not because there’s nothing to say, but because there’s probably too much to say.

The silence is heavy, but not uncomfortable.

If anything, the last twenty minutes or so have solidified the one thing I’ve always known but refused to trust—Silas and I are in this for the long run.

Our paths and hearts are so wrapped around each other, there’s no way out of it. We’re inevitable.

Eventually, I break the silence.

“I’m sorry. ”

Silas’s eyes stay on the cloudless sky. “It’s Lily that needs to hear that most. From both of us.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did though. I questioned her when I should have trusted her. She told me–“

“–how could we have known?”

“By listening to her. She might have been young and na?ve back then, but she’s a grown woman now. She’s spent the last few years educating herself, soaking up knowledge and worldliness like a sponge. Lily doesn’t need us to protect her from herself. That’s something else we need to unlearn.”

I nod, voice rough. “You’re right. And I shouldn’t have hit him. I just lost it. I was so caught off guard.” I rub my hand over my face and expel a breath. “I mean, Zac? Really? I did not expect that.”

“Didn’t know he had it in him,” Silas finishes with a faint smirk.

“Too soon,” I deadpan.

He hums but doesn’t argue. He turns on his side to look at me, setting his hand on my chest. “What you did back there, standing up to your father like that. It was brave.”

I give my own non-committal hum and let my head fall to the side to meet his gaze.

“I’d just had enough. I went to confront him about how he treated Lily, how he’s still treating her, and he didn’t hear a word.

He just started on about praying with him, asking for salvation and repentance and I lost it.

” Silas’ hand comes up to cup my jaw, a thumb swiping over my cheek.

I didn’t even realize a tear had fallen.

“I think I could feel that you were there. That I wasn’t alone. ”

“Never alone. Never again. ”

Our lips meet in a soft, slow caress before I sigh and sit up on my elbows, needing to get the rest off my chest.

“It’s more than just today. I have a lot to apologize for,” I say quietly.

“I let everything build up inside me until it tore me apart. I’ve been a wreck, and I’ve been scared, Silas.

Scared I’m not enough. That you’d leave for something bigger.

That I’d hold you back if I said how much I need you. ”

He sits up on his knees and levels me with a serious gaze, the green of the trees and grass reflecting in his hazel eyes. “You could never hold me back.”

He says it with such certainty that I nearly lose it.

“I know that. I do. But I felt insecure, and instead of talking to you or anyone else, I let it fester into jealousy and feeling inadequate. I let myself believe you were already living your best life, and I wasn’t part of it.

Like an idiot, I closed in on myself instead of letting myself be part of it.

I was happy for you, but I was resentful because of your new team, your new friends, and life.

All of it was taking you away from me.” I take a deep breath, feeling embarrassed but also finally understanding that we can’t grow from these experiences if we don’t talk about them.

If we don’t work it out, I really will be holding him back.

“The night you made your first goal, I was so proud of you, but also hurt and mad. I couldn’t understand why you weren’t celebrating with me, but I realize now it’s because I was already pushing you away. ”

“That’s partly my fault,” he says. “I got it into my head that I needed to hold back, to downplay anything big or celebratory. I didn’t want you to feel like you were missing out, because I know it’s your dream, too. What I should have done was share the experience with you.”

“If you felt that way it was because I was acting like a jealous asshole. But I promise I was, and am, more proud than I ever was jealous. I want to see you out there just as much as I want to be out there myself. Maybe more, because your happiness means everything to me, Silas.”

“I can’t be happy without you by my side, not after everything we’ve been through.” He swallows. “They offered me an official contract,” he whispers, like he’s confessing something he’s done wrong.

My heart thuds. “ What? ”

“I turned it down.”

I sit bolt upright. “You what ?”

He sits too, watching my reaction like he’s bracing for impact. “Coach Ryan wants me to think on it, but… these weeks away, all they taught me was that I don’t want to live without you. Or my baby girl. Or Lily.”

I’m stunned. “Silas, this is your dream . You have to take it.”

“I don’t want a life away from my family, Gideon. I love you more than hockey.”

“We’ll go with you. All of us. We’ll move to Calgary.”

He scoffs. “Gideon, you can’t leave Red Valley.“

I roll my lips in. He looks at me questioningly.

A little sheepishly, I confess. “I’m not sure I have a spot on the team anymore,” I confess. “I might’ve finally burned my last bridge. Coach said they needed me and I left, walked out of practice and got on the plane to come here.”

I barely gave them any notice beyond a two-line email sent from the airport and I turned my phone off after that. Which is probably why I didn’t know Silas was on his way, considering he couldn’t call me.

Silas is quiet, but I can tell he feels sorry for me .

“This place,” I mutter, raking a hand through my hair.

“It’s toxic. It gets under your skin. I’m afraid Lily wants to stay.

Or worse, feels like she has to. Like it’s her duty, but somehow not mine.

Not that I’ll be welcome any longer.” I chuckle bitterly.

“Honestly, I’m surprised we haven’t been run off with torches and pitchforks. ”

Silas laughs under his breath and mumbles something about his dad leading the charge.

As if just now realizing we’re naked in broad daylight, we start gathering our clothes.

Pulling on our pants, we walk over to the edge of the lake to splash some water on our faces, chests, and stomach, washing off the worst of the cum, smears of dirt, and grass stuck to our skin.

Silas’ dress shirt is missing a couple buttons and looks like it’s been trampled in the brush.

My t-shirt isn’t much better, but at least it’s a darker grey color instead of white.

Once we’re dressed, we head down to the edge of the lake and sit on the flat boulder we used to carve our initials into, letting our feet drift in the water.

“I still think you should take the contract,” I say eventually. “We don’t know what the future looks like, but we’ll figure it out. Together.”

I’m not sure if he’s agreeing to take the contract, but he smiles softly like he believes we can get through this. Like I’m the dream, not Calgary.

We talk about everything that’s happened between us, and the things we missed, until the sun starts to dip and our stomachs let us know it’s getting late. Before we can pull on our shoes, we hear a little voice squeal, “ Dada! ”

Addy barrels into Silas and climbs into his lap, chattering about bubbles and flowers and something she saw by the water. Lily trails behind, smiling faintly.

Then my little pickle leans over and hands me a smooth, grey river rock that she must have found on their walk along the bank to get to us. I kiss her chubby little hand and thank her for the present.

Silas smiles at me like he has the whole world right here, and it hits me?—

I don’t need anything more than this.

I can see it, our future. All of us. Silas on the ice, Addy in my arms, and Lily next to me as we cheer him on together. Waking up every morning with the man I’ve loved my whole life next to me.

I only catch the tail end of what Lily is saying. Something about coffee with Zac tomorrow, trying to explain, trying to make it right.

Silas has gone pale.

I can see the fear on his face without him saying a word. I’m sure he has the same questions burning through him. What if she does stay? What if Zac becomes a fixture in her life. Their life? What if he wants parental rights and she doesn’t have a choice but to stay?

Would Silas stay too? Give up everything to move back to this pit of hate and despair?

I reach for his hand, and he lets me hold it. I close my eyes and send a prayer into the universe.

Please. Let us keep this. Let us keep each other .

We walk home like a family.

I’m on the outside, my hand clasped in Silas’s. Addy is between him and Lily, giggling as they swing her up into the air. Silas is still quiet, but I can feel the tension radiating off him. I squeeze his hand. I’m here. We’re okay .

The truck in the driveway is the first thing I see. It’s the same one he’s been driving forever. It’s old and rusted, with bumper stickers about Trump, God, and guns. Unmistakable.

Silas stops short. His father is leaning against the tailgate, arms crossed, eyes burning holes through us. Unbridled hate and disgust roll off him in waves, filling the humid air with an ominous tension like a storm rolling in.

My hand feels cold and empty when Silas pulls his hand from mine. He steps to the right, putting himself in front of my sister and his little girl. “Lily, take Addy and get her inside somewhere. She doesn’t need to see this.”

Lily doesn’t argue. She scoops up Addy and hurries towards her parent’s house, throwing one last look over her shoulder. Abraham Caldwell doesn’t take his eyes off his son.

“I went looking for you, boy,” he spits. “And you know what I saw?”

Every muscle in my body clenches.

“I came looking to set you right, and had to see the boy I raised, that I fed and housed under my roof, and him rutting like animals in the woods.” He sneers and spits again. “If I’d had my gun, I would have shot you on sight.”

Silas’ spine straightens, chin lifting in defiance, but he doesn’t say anything to his father. In the past, it was just better to let the old man run out of steam, but I don’t know that we’ll get that lucky today. He’s on the war path.

“You’re an abomination,” he snaps. “I knew you were fucked up. You were born wrong, even killed your mother on your way out.“

“You killed her,” Silas says sternly. “She needed medical attention, and you gave her scripture. She would have been fine if not for you.”

Abraham ignores his son’s interruption and keeps ranting. He goes off about how everything wrong in his life was because of the devil inside the abomination posing as his son.

“I knew I should have buried you with her, but the good Pastor Shepherd cautioned me against it. And look what he got for that wisdom, you turned his son into a–“

“Nothing made us this way,” Silas snaps back, cutting him off. “It’s not nature or nurture. It’s just part of who we are, like the color of our eyes or being left-handed or right. Lord knows if it could be beaten out of someone, it would’ve been done.”

The old man snarls when I step up beside Silas and lace my fingers through his. He glances at me, and we share a smile that keeps all of my pieces together.

“You can’t change what God never hated in the first place,” he says, and squeezes my hand.

Abraham Caldwell can’t stop us from loving each other. And he can’t break Silas anymore, just like my father can’t break me. For our entire childhoods, we dealt with them on our own, never knowing what the other was truly struggling with. But now, today, we have each other. And we will from now on.

A click reverberates in the air. The sound echoes in my teeth. We both turn.

Abraham Caldwell is holding a pistol, aimed directly at his son.

“You will burn ,” he says. “Leviticus 20:13: ‘They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.’ ”

Silas raises both hands, calm as he can, like he’s trying to soothe a wild animal.

He takes a step to the left, in front of me, and another towards his father.

I can’t hear what he’s saying, trying to talk the unstable, ignorant asshole with a gun down.

I can barely hear Lily’s screams from the front porch, or Addy’s frantic cries.

Someone calls out Abraham’s name, my mother maybe?

The rushing of my blood drowns it all out, until I can’t hear anything over the slow, rhythmic thumping of my heart.

Thump Thump

Everything happens in slow motion.

Thump Thump

Silas keeps moving away from me.

Thump Thump

A finger twitches over the trigger, almost imperceptibly.

Thump Thump

And then the gun goes off.