Remy(59)

“You mean he agreed to . . . lose?”

My body tightens at the disbelief there, at the pain. She thought I did it because I’m a fucking BP, and I know it.

She starts shaking her head, clinging to my eyes with hers. I see her pulse pounding, her face changing in color, her eyes darkening in pain.

“You did this for . . . Nora?” she breathlessly asks me.

She’s so exquisite, she’s my girl, my little firecracker, and when her eyes flood with tears, I want them to fall only so I can lick them away.

Pete grabs a green duffel bag from the back of the Escalade and heads inside with Nora. “Let me take this in for you, Nora.”

Riley stands by me, and the girls are looking back at us. No. Melanie is looking at Riley. But Brooke can’t take her eyes off me. I push my hands deeper into my pockets. I could grab her to me. Crush her to me. Give her a punishing kiss for leaving me, and then a loving kiss because I’m fucking insane about her.

She wraps her arms around herself and drops her head. “Why didn’t you tell me? That you threw the fight for . . . her?”

She looks forlorn, and, god, I wanted her to feel protected by me. Not ashamed of what I will do for her. “You mean for you,” I softly tell her.

“I didn’t know either, Brooke,” Riley says. “Or Coach. Only Pete knew. He’s the one who found him that night, and he helped secure your sister while Remington delivered the win.”

Her eyes briefly meet Riley’s, then they come back to roam all over me. I can feel her touch. Her want. It’s in her eyes, trembling in her voice. I want to reach it, touch it, see it, feel it closer.

“How are you? Are you all right?” she asks me, and her sweet concern makes it impossible to think straight. I only nod. I’m not all right, little firecracker, not even near all right.

“What does this loss mean for you now?” she asks. She wants to talk, but I don’t want to talk about the Underground. I lost something far more important that day and I want it back.

“Other than we’re poor?” Riley answers for me. He chuckles too hard. “He has a couple million to get him through the year. We’re making a comeback when the new season starts. Remy’s fans demand retribution.”

“You do have loyal fans, don’t you?” Brooke asks, those gold eyes softly massacring me.

I want to tell her that for a month I have not been aware of everything I have, only what I don’t.

“Well, time to go.” Riley slaps my back. “Actually, Brooke, we’re also here because we’re looking for a sports rehab specialist for the upcoming new season. Good to get a head start on training.” Riley gives her the card with the details. “In case you’re interested, Mr. Tate’s number, if you consider, is on the back. There’s the hotel where we’re staying too. We leave in three days.”

Riley climbs into the car, and so does Pete, but I wait for her reaction.

She looks at me, and I stare directly back at her.

My pulse is wild as I want to say a thousand things, play her a thousand songs, and nothing comes out. Out of the mess inside me, the roil and tangle of emotions, I can’t say a single word. Not even Why? Why did you leave me. Why did you say you loved me and leave me.

“You’re looking good, Remy,” Melanie says happily.

I smile briefly because I like the way she makes Brooke laugh. I like that Melanie gave me the phone number that started all of this.

She skips away and Brooke remains watching me, and I don’t even know where to begin. In my life, nobody has ever told me what she told me in that letter. I’m used to being dropped. I’m conditioned to expect it. But when she said she’d never tire of me, I believed her. When she played me a song about loving me, I fucking believed her. And I need her to come back to me on the same two long, sleek legs she used to leave me.

“You know where to find me,” I murmur, then I get in the car with the guys and we ride off.

I grab her letter and squeeze it, and for a moment I’m angry again. At myself. At her. At my fucked-up body. I could go back and carry her up to her own fucking apartment, fuck her brains off, and remind her who she cries for, who her man is, perfect or not.

But my pride is so battered, I feel like that stupid boy left at a mental institute, who kept waiting for somebody to come and get him out.

♥ ♥ ♥

I RUN AND run until I am dripping, and even then, every inch of me is tense and waiting. Tomorrow we’re scheduled to leave. And I know I can’t leave without her. I know me, and I’m going to come back and take her if she doesn’t come.

Still, I want for once in my life for someone to come to me because they feel I’m worth it. No, not someone. Her. I want the woman I love to come to me because at last someone in this world understands me. How the fuck am I supposed to leave, to live, without her?