It's after ten by the time I leave the basement gym and climb up the stairs. The house is dark, but the patio lights are on. I grab a protein shake from the fridge and go outside. Even as humid as it is, the night air is refreshing. I take another step out to look up at the stars, but my eyes catch on the figure swimming in the pool and never find their way to the sky.
She's in a modest black one-piece and doing laps, pulling her arms through the water, her dark hair streaming behind her. She looks like a goddess.
I don't know how long I watch her. Ten laps. Twenty. Thirty. Her body and her movements hypnotize me. When she surfaces, she clings to the edge of the pool and takes desperate gulps of air. I'm not the only one running from my thoughts tonight.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asks without looking at me.
"Not long," I lie.
She hoists herself out of the water, and for the two breaths it takes her to grab her waiting towel, I'm treated to the sight of her curves. Those tight, toned legs, her hips, the modestly covered round of her ass, the curve of her breasts. She wraps the towel under her arms in her best attempt to hide from me, but my mind remembers everything. So do my hands.
"It's all yours," she says with a nod toward the pool. "Enjoy."
"Mia, I . . ." But she keeps her head down and disappears into the house, leaving me alone.
I hit the patio lights and stand in the darkness for a few minutes. When I head back to my room, the shower is running in the bathroom across the hall. My heart thuds and stumbles at the thought of Mia nude under the spray. She doesn't have to hide her curves from me. Every inch of her skin is branded on my brain like the roadmap to salvation. I lean against the wall and wait my turn. There are other showers in the house, but I want to use this one. And I want to see Mia one more time before I climb into bed and surrender to my nightmares.
I close my eyes and listen to the sounds inside the bathroom, but my plans are shattered when my cell rings and the name Coach Wright flashes on the screen.
I answer reluctantly. "Hello?"
"I'm at your door but don't want to wake the baby with the bell. Come let me in."
I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't want to talk to anyone tonight, but especially not my football coach. We used to be close. He noticed my talent when I was young and made sure everyone who needed to along the way did, too. Then when it came time for college, he made sure I not only had a spot on the BHU team but that I actually got the chance to play. He's always had my back and pushed me to be my best, but I can't look him in the eye these days. I've let him down, just like everyone else. "On my way."
I head downstairs and see the silhouette behind the front door. I open it, and Coach wraps me in a hug I don't want. I stare at his black Cherokee parked in the circle drive instead of thinking about what his hug means, how worried he is about me.
When I pull back, I catch the disappointment in his green eyes before I turn to lead him down to the basement.
"I talked to the other coaches today," he says as he sinks into one of the dark leather sofas in the rec room. He adjusts the collar of his polo and bows his head of gray hair to smooth invisible wrinkles in his jeans. "We agree there's no reason you couldn't train with the team again after your house arrest, assuming you pull your grades up during your online courses. Train with the team and then enter the draft next spring. Only one season out before you're back in the game."
I don't sit. I cross to the opposite wall and study the collage of baby pictures Gwen has on display.
His face looks older suddenly, as if his wrinkles have deepened in the last few months. I did that to him. "You do want to play again, don't you?" The hitch in his voice hints at exasperation, as if this is such a simple question.
I hang my head. Football has been part of my life since the day I was born. My dad's NFL dreams were crushed by an early college injury, and he didn't hope his son would have the career he'd missed-he expected it. And I never minded, because carrying a football was as natural to me as breathing. It's just that since the moment I walked into the hospital and saw my best friend had become a vegetable, I haven't much wanted to breathe, let alone play ball. They all expect me to follow my dreams while Brogan's wither right alongside his body.
"It's okay," Coach says. "We'll get you through this and back on track. In a couple of years, you'll be playing professionally, and all this mess will be behind you."
"I can't do it," I whisper. It's the first time I've said it. In our dozens of talks since New Year's Eve, I've thought it a thousand times but I've never said it out loud. "I can't do it anymore. It's too much."
"Arrow, don't. We have to put the past in the past, focus on your future."
I spin to face him. "And what about Brogan? Does he get to focus on his future?"
"Do you think this is what he'd want for you? Spinning out of control, self-destructing?" He pushes off the couch and stares at me for a long minute. When I don't answer, he sighs and starts climbing the stairs. I watch him go, hating this new distance between us but needing it to defend myself from the sympathy in his eyes.
When he reaches the top, he stops. "You're like a son to me, and I'd do anything to protect you. You can hate me if you want, but I only want what's best. You deserve a good future, whether you believe that or not."
The basement door clicks shut behind him, and I listen for his footsteps and the sound of the front door opening and then closing again. Vibrating with frustration turned rage, I swing, barely registering the pain that radiates up my arm when my fist shatters through the glass of a picture frame and into the wall. I scream. From the pain burning my hand, from the frustration of living this life, from the agony of enduring these secrets.
I sink to the floor, my fist drawn to my chest, and barely register the shuffle of feet on the stairs.
"Oh my God. What have you done?"
I blink up at Mia. Impotent rage clouds my eyes, and my fingers are hot and sticky with blood. "Don't." I pull away as she reaches for me, but it's too late. The blood is already on her hands.
"You can't play if you can't hold a ball. Why are you trying to throw your life away?"
I shake my head and push myself up. Glass crunches under my feet. The world spins with the kind of pain I haven't felt since I broke my collarbone in high school. I lean against the wall for support, and the world rights itself. "I don't have a life. I'm just a fuck-up. Ask my dad. Ask Coach. Ask anyone."
She tries to take my hand again, and when I hold it out of her reach, she steps closer until she has to crane her neck to look up at me. Her mouth is so close, so tempting. "Let me help, please."
I blink as her words slingshot me back in time. To my car. To her fingertips brushing under my waistband. "Let me. Please." I want to go back to that night and stay there. Never leave the lake. Never let her leave my arms. "Do you remember that night, Mia? Do you remember letting me touch you?"
Something flashes in her eyes but she closes them, locking the emotion away before I can read it. "We need to get you to the hospital."
"Can't," I whisper. The world's going fuzzy, the edges blurred with pain. "House arrest."
"I think you broke your hand. I'm pretty sure your probation officer will forgive a trip to the ER."
"Do you remember?" I ask again. My voice doesn't sound like my own. "I need to know."
She nods, and there's so much goddamn sadness in her eyes that I should hate this, but I can't. Because she's close. And when she's not, the air isn't fit to breathe. "Of course I remember," she says. "Do you?"
"Yes." Every single moment.
Her gaze drifts to my mouth and her lips part. "I'm sorry." She lifts her hand to my jaw and skims her fingers over the stubble there.
"Why would you say that?"
"Because you regret it," she says, "and I should, too."
I close my eyes, telling myself this is only a moment. I'm so caught up in the pain and the memory, I can allow myself this touch. This contact of her skin with mine that makes me want so much I can never have.
"I don't regret it." My voice breaks on the words, and I step away before I can say more. Before I can admit that memory is all I have. It's the only thing that reminds me I'm alive. The memory of Mia's mouth, her touch, the way she tastes-that was all that kept me from following her brother to the grave I put him in.