“Why’d you come to the hospital?” he asks softly.
“Because you were hurt.”
“Was it because Ron was there, and it would look suspicious if you weren’t?”
I jolt back slightly. “Is that what you think?”
He shrugs, looking away from me.
“I was there to see you. Believe it or not, I don’t give a shit about your boss, and I couldn’t care less who you are to anyone else. To me, you’re…well, I don’t know what you are, but you’re…important. You as a person, not the player, are important to me.”
I run my palm down the side of his face soothingly, but once again he can’t make eye contact as he fully turns towards the kitchen.
Shifting a bit, I catch his eye. They’re covered in a glossy film, making the color even more vibrant.
I’ve never seen Ryan cry besides a few tears over Stevie’s happiness. I’ve seen him reluctantly show other emotions—hurt, jealousy, concern, joy, playfulness. But I’ve never seen sadness.
He swallows down the tears. “I think you should catch a flight and meet up with the hockey team on the road. Stevie can take care of me.”
“No.”
“Indy, please,” he begs, refusing to make eye contact. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Like what?”
I gently grasp his chin, making him meet my eyes. Tears well at the base of his lashes, but they don’t drop.
“Like what?” I press. “Human?”
“I’m not allowed to be human.”
Those tears fall, but I quickly wipe them away with my thumbs before he freaks himself out too much when he feels them on his cheeks.
“I’m not allowed to mess up. I’m not allowed to step out of line. I’m not allowed to get injured and take a month off. I’m not allowed to turn it all back on. The amount of pressure on me,”—he sucks in a sharp, shaky breath—“feels suffocating. I feel suffocated.”
His chest shakes as he tries to breathe without full-on crying. I’ve never imagined I would see him in this state, and I feel both honored and terrified to fuck it up and make him crawl right back into his emotionless shell.
“Turn what back on, Ry?”
“All of it. Wanting things I know I can’t have. Feeling things I know won’t be reciprocated. Wanting a future that has nothing to do with basketball.” Tears continue to fall from the corners of his eyes. “That’s all I have in this life, and it has to be enough for me.”
What is he talking about?
“Ryan,” I coo, running my thumbs over his freckled cheeks. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
Looking at me with intentional eye contact, he takes a deep breath before angling his head and kissing my palm.
“Can I explain it to you?”
26
RYAN
Indy nods in agreement, offering her full attention.
Turning her waist, I open her legs around mine so she’s not only sitting in my lap, but also looking at me straight on. I’ve run away from talking about this for so long and I can’t keep it in anymore. She’s overwhelmed me, walking into my life with her chaos and kindness and between realizing how much I want her and almost losing everything today, I’m wrecked. Emotionally undone.
It’s unexpectedly liberating. For years, I’ve been emotionally numb and, in a way, refusing to feel anything— joy, sadness, love, or in this case, fear— felt like a death sentence.
I don’t want to be numb anymore.
Inhaling through my nostrils, I attempt to compose what little strength I have left.
“When I was younger and I thought about my future, I saw myself playing in the NBA, but in equal measure I saw myself having a family alongside me while I did it. And I’m not referring to Stevie and my parents, but I wanted a partner. I wanted a wife, kids, all that white picket fence shit.”
Indy’s mocha eyes widen for a moment, before she catches herself, falling back to neutral.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but I was a lot like you when I was younger. I used to trust people, love people. Stevie always gave me shit about being a hopeless romantic because I saw the best in people and when I fell, I fell hard. I had a couple of girlfriends in high school, but it wasn’t until college that I fell in love for the first time. Only time, actually.”
I check on the pretty girl in my lap, looking for any sign of discomfort on the topic, but Indy seems as locked in on this conversation as I hoped she would be.
“You know what happened, but you don’t know the full story. Her name was Marissa. We met at the end of my junior year, and I fell pretty quickly for her, but she didn’t want people to know we were together, so we kept it a secret. To be honest, I liked that. My team had just won the national championship and people were starting to see me as the star basketball player and less as a normal guy. I noticed that people around me were wanting to get a piece of me before I entered the draft. But Marissa…” I shake my head. “She wasn’t like that. She didn’t want the attention that came with being my girlfriend, and her parents were extremely religious, so for those reasons, we didn’t tell many people. But I knew that by the time we graduated I was going to propose and a lot of what she was worried about wouldn’t be an issue anymore.
“You know she was trying to get pregnant. Well, she did. During my senior season.”
Indy adjusts slightly, inhaling a quiet but sharp breath.
“I was stoked, and she was too. She was due that summer, shortly after the draft. I knew I’d be financially set to take care of them both, and this family was everything I ever wanted. The only person I could tell I was going to be a dad was Stevie. Marissa didn’t want to tell anyone, didn’t want her parents to find out until we had the baby, got engaged, and were living in whatever city I ended up playing for.
“The week of the draft, I went number one overall to Chicago. The next day I flew out here and bought this place in cash, furnished it, and got it ready for my soon to be fiancée and child to come home to. Then Marissa went into labor. I immediately caught a flight back to North Carolina and rushed to the hospital. I was too late to be allowed in the delivery room, so I was pacing in the waiting room with an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket for what seemed like hours. Life was like a dream that week. I was going to get everything I had ever wished for in the span of five or six days.
“I remember this guy kept eyeing me in the waiting room, but I had brushed it off at the time. More and more people were starting to recognize me in my everyday life, so I chalked it up to that. I was bouncing, Ind. I was so fucking excited and nervous and happy and scared. Every emotion you could imagine feeling in that moment, I felt. A nurse came and got me once the baby came. She was healthy, Marissa was healthy, but as soon as I walked into the delivery room, something was off.
“Marissa could barely look me in the eye, but I was too overwhelmed to think much of it until she handed me her daughter, and the second I held that little girl, I knew she wasn’t mine.”
Indy sucks a sharp breath, covering her mouth with those red-painted nails.
“Marissa knew it too and I don’t know what caused her to do it, but she spilled every detail right then and there. That guy in the waiting room? Yeah, that was her real fucking boyfriend. It was his kid. He was in on the whole thing. Our so-called relationship was all a scheme. They both played me, and she was trying to get knocked up. They were just trying to get eighteen years of child support out of me.” I laugh in disbelief, hearing how absurd the words sound out loud as I recall that day four and a half years ago. “She was never afraid of the limelight and her parents weren’t religious. She didn’t want anyone to know we were in a relationship because she was playing me the whole fucking time.”