Page 55 of The Comeback Pact

I don’t say any of those things, though, because my mind snags on what him being NoOne means. “You’ve been talking to me this entire time? Since right after I got hurt?” My scar tingles, and I reach up to touch it.

West grabs my hand before I can. “I didn’t think you would talk to me if I wrote you as me.” He shuffles his feet. “I wanted to tell you.” Grimacing, he looks away. “Actually, that’s a damn lie. I kind of liked being able to talk to you while not being me.”

“While not being someone I hated?”

“Not just that.” His face starts to close off. “You’re mad, aren’t you?”

He peers at me again with those shadowed green eyes, and I don’t even know what to say. I check in with myself. I’m more in shock. Not really mad at all, I guess. In fact, once I got to know West, there were some things that rang similar, like the badass warrior comments. I just— He should’ve—

Shit. This is not about me right now. I squeeze his hand. “Your dad?”

He drops his head, gaze lowering to the sidewalk between us. “I’ve been walking around your neighborhood since we got back into town. I didn’t know how to tell you. I—” He blows out a breath. “I’ve got daddy issues.” He cracks a smile, but I know he doesn’t feel it. He curses, his voice barely above a whisper. “No one likes to think that people like me have issues like everyone else.”

My stomach squeezes. God, how many times have I thought that he’s had the perfect life? That he’s the golden boy while I was stuck in hospital rooms?

“It was easier to tell you as that stupid name I made up. I wanted you to know, I just didn’t know how to say that I wasn’t sure I’d be good company, even though I made you promise like five times that we’d hang out tonight. Please don’t be mad.”

He’s a far cry from the West Brooks I saw out on the field today, and this version of him gets under my skin even more. I tug on his hand and walk him back to my place.

Silence lingers between us as I shut the front door and head into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. I’m just procrastinating. I don’t know what to say to him. Soft, careful footsteps sound behind me as I reach for a cup, and I immediately feel his warmth. Before I can turn, he closes his arms around me, wrapping tight around my midsection while he buries his head in the crook of my neck.

Heat engulfs me. West Brooks is like a teddy bear. A giant teddy bear that has an erratic heartbeat. I can practically feel it through his large chest,thump-thumpingaway.

“I hate the way he makes me feel,” he says so softly that I’m not sure I heard him right.

I turn in his arms, keeping us attached as I lean against the countertop, and he follows me, pressing his hips into mine. “What did he say?”

He flinches. “He’s been trying to get a hold of me, but I didn’t know because I don’t have his number. My mom told me he called her upset that I hadn’t been picking up his calls, so I guess that unknown number was him.”

I take all this in, my mind working through what he’s not saying. I can’t imagine a relationship with my dad where I didn’t have his number.

“He was mad?” I guess.

West scowls. Behind me, his hands turn to fists. “That fucker hasn’t even come to any of my games, and then he shows up to scold me like I’m five years old.”

Reaching up, I run my fingers through the hair above his ears. His lids flutter closed. When he speaks again, it’s much softer. “I’ve been trying to get him to one of my games for… Well, forever.” His Adam’s apple bobs with a large swallow. “That’s why I couldn’t believe I saw you there today. No one ever comes to see me.”

“You’re West Brooks,” I tease. “Everyone is there to see you.”

“No one I care about. Until now.”

He locks gazes with me, and the world tilts a little. Like the universe has to accommodate for the fact that West Brooks is staring at someone the way he’s staring at me.

I want to promise him the world. That I’ll keep going to his games because no one deserves to feel like he has, but fear runs through me, so I bite my lip instead. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings trampling around inside me, running over every muted thought I’ve ever had.

My heart leaps around inside me. “Your dad sounds like a jackass, and he doesn’t deserve you.”

His chest brushes mine, our lips mere inches away from one another. On the one hand, his dad problems are a serious talk, but he’s turned it into these life-altering words about us. I don’t know what to dwell on first. Is this what being into someone like this is like?

My thoughts aren’t my own. They’re all jumbled and scrambled, like a game of Scrabble, and I’m just trying to come up with any words that are coherent enough to speak.

West has other ideas, though. After searching me with his gaze, he lowers his lips to mine. A soft embrace; a press of one piece of anatomy to another that turns into something more when it’s between us. I don’t think God invented kissing. I think we did.

A shockwave rolls through me at the connection, the same I’d always felt around him but didn’t want to admit it.

His mouth barely moves, but its imprint is on me forever.

He pulls back far too soon. “I think I’ll have that water now.”

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