Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
No answers, but talking was loosening something inside his chest, making him feel less on the knife’s edge of anxiety than he’d been since Dylan had moved out. “And I couldn’t be that guy without you. That’s what keeps getting me. Before you, I didn’t know about relationships...being a partner...being a dad. You taught me all that. Gave me a blueprint to a future I never knew I wanted. But I knew I wanted it with you. I knew what my place in the universe was, but then you were gone and I had no place. No blueprint.”
He was crying now, real tears, the kind he hadn’t shed in...maybe ever. Big fat angry tears rolling down his face. “Damn it. You didn’t leave me a map. Nothing.” His hand squeezed around the ring. “And I was so, so fucking angry about that. For so long. Everyone thought I was this ball of grief and sadness, but really, I was raging. Furious. At you. For leaving. But then something happened...”
He took a deep breath, sinking to sit on the floor, kicking a stuffed goldfish aside. “One day I wasn’t so angry. I wasn’t so...anything. I was just existing. And something—someone—made me want more than just breathing. I want to live again, Neal. I need to live again.”
He shut his eyes, head coming to rest on his hands. “And you...you’re happy for me. I can feel it. I’m the one who’s scared, who’s holding back, who’s using you as an excuse. And you don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to be my ghost. You never would have wanted that. Right?”
The warmth of the metal in his hand was his only reply, but he felt a strange calm descending over him, the sort of full-body exertion that followed a tough workout, his body feeling warmer than it had in years, like the ice around his soul was finally melting in the flood of anger and truth that he couldn’t deny any longer. Truth was that Neal would never have wanted to be Apollo’s albatross, the 180-pound weight he lugged around with him every day, the shrine to the heart he used to have.
God, Neal would have hated who Apollo had become for a while there, but he’d be pretty damn proud of the guy who shredded his triceps reaching overhead to paint trim. The guy who was finally, finally taking charge of his future again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“We won!” Dylan looked around for Ben to high five. The fall soccer season was well underway, and today’s scrimmage would be a great warm-up for their game next week. After his help in the exhibition game, the team had welcomed him back for their competitive season, and he was loving the team camaraderie and the outlet of the game.
Because of his schedule, Ben didn’t make all the practices, but when he did, they often rode together, grabbing a beer on the way back. Back home, watching Isaiah’s revolving love life was just as entertaining as the game, and come Monday, he had a job he loved waiting for him. He had a great leaf craft in mind for the kids this week. All in all, it wasn’t a bad life.
And yet, he was still lonely. Soul-crushingly, painfully lonely, constantly aware of exactly what he was missing.
“Great job.” It wasn’t Ben’s voice and Dylan whirled around, scarcely hoping, but there he was. Apollo.
“You...you came to watch? The girls dragged you?” Chances were high this was about the girls, not the weird limbo they’d been in ever since their...hell, it wasn’t really a fight even. Their discussion. Him moving out. The weeks of second-guessing himself and barely restraining himself from going to Apollo, begging and cajoling him to try. But he’d known, deep in his marrow, that Apollo had to be the one to come to him.
And now he had. And Dylan honestly wasn’t sure how—or if—to react.
“No girls.” Apollo’s smile was a bit lopsided. “Just me. That okay?”
“I suppose.” Dylan scarcely trusted his voice to speak, and his body was still deciding whether it was angry. It had been a long damn wait for this moment, and his hope muscles had all but given out these past few weeks, replaced instead by his old enemies dread and doubt, and it was hard to get his mind to shift on a dime just because Apollo had shown up.
“I was thinking we could walk a bit? If you’re finished here?”
“We are, but I rode with Ben—”
“I can give you a ride back,” Apollo said quickly. “No problem at all.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” Dylan’s shoulders curved in, as if they could protect his heart by sheer bodily force. Now that this moment was here, he wasn’t sure he was ready for it, wasn’t sure he was ready to trust Apollo, wasn’t sure he trusted himself when it came right down to it.