“Do you really mean that?” His eyes twinkle with the glamour of a million shining stars.
“To my last breath, baby.” I pull his plastic helmet to my forehead. God if this helmet wasn’t on, I’d smash his lips in front of the crowd. “I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you too, King.” He lets out a sigh, the joy returning to his smile, like the sun returning on a gloomy day.
“Now go get them killer. Make your King proud.” I give him a hearty pat on the back as he trots over to Jackson to go over the strategy of the first drive. He turns back to look at me and I give him a cheeky grin, blowing a kiss towards his direction.
Never in a thousand years did I think I’d find a man to be mine for more than a few hours. One worthy of my energy, my passion, and my dark desires. One that I’d travel to Kansas fucking City for.
My moment of reverie is short-lived, ruined by an unmistakable annoyance that pierces the air.
“Drew, what the fuck!” Charlie yells, making heads turn on the sideline as he rushes towards me.
“Well, hello baby brother. Long time, no chat,” I snicker. “To what do I owe this unfortunate pleasure?”
“What did you do to him?” he seethes, teeth baring like an amateur at a Halloween scare house.
“I don’t know what you are talking about?” I smile, offering him my cheekiest.
“You branded him?” His voice drops to a rumbling growl.
“I didn’t do anything of that sort, love.” I ooze my words, for extra effect. To maybe witness his eyeballs pop from their sockets.
If only I could be solucky…
I would put him out of his misery for his own good, but that would be painfully obvious for the detectives. I’m not prepared for prison life quite yet.
Charlie’s jaw twitches. “Then tell me what I saw in the locker room!”
“Maybe your eyes shouldn’t be gallivanting on other men.” I taunt, licking my lips and purposefully avoiding his gaze.
“Kind of hard to miss your bloody name tattooed across the entire width of his back.”
“He wanted it… for my protection. To keep people like you away.”
“Like me?” he huffs. “I’ve only been kind and—”
I interrupt his speech. “And afraid to protect him? Afraid to step up when he actually needed you? Did you know that a pack of wolves was about to feast on him before I interrupted their foreplay?”
His mouth hangs open. “Uh… no. I didn’t know that.”
“Hmmmm, that’s what I thought baby brother. Always afraid to say or do something when it really matters. Just like when we were younger. You could have stopped our father. But you didn’t. You just wanted to be the golden boy, while I got ravaged.”
“I’m—”
“You are what? You are sorry? Want to offer me your dearest apologies? A little bit too late for you to step in now, mate. You think you deserve every bloody oyster the world has to offer, but you are too much of a bloody pussy to step your feet in the water. For your toes to even touch the sand. You scamper away from the slightest wad of conflict.”
His eyes are focused down at the white line stretched against the boundary of the field. Words failing to muster from those golden lips.
“Speechless, huh? Really bloody convenient. But what else can I expect from my little brother besides cowardice. Sometimes I’m genuinely surprised that you aren’t castrated, because you sure act like it.”
He starts to stumble towards midfield, scuttling away like the little bitch that he is and always will be. A coward afraid to spar.
“That’s right. Jog away, you spineless bastard,” I mumble mostly to myself.
What my father did to me didn’t break me—it made me a survivor. I didn’t let him torture me forever. That’s the whole reason they sent me away to boarding school. I became a liability to their reputation at home. My father would have landed himself in a jail cell and probably wouldn’t have lasted long. Fellow prisoners don’t take well to molestation.
Thank the heavens they did; it was my black ticket to live across an ocean from them. I found hockey, a perfectly acceptable American tradition to smash teeth and let your anger out.
