Football and Ballet - Jason Collins Page 0,58

stomach, a realization forcing me to face the facts.

I couldn’t have gone through with it.

I couldn’t have lived the rest of my life like that, being Hunter’s secret that he kept in the dark. And what was I supposed to do when Hunter was in the news again with Dakota, their ongoing charade still the talk of the town?

My heart would’ve broken, a little more every day, if I had to live in Dakota Webster’s shadow.

And by the time I’d gotten out of the bathtub, wrapped a robe around myself and headed back to bed, I forced myself to confront an awful truth.

I was never going to be happy with Hunter Perry.

Because Hunter was never going to claim me as his own.

Because a life lived with Hunter was going to be a life only half-lived, a life where I wouldn’t have ever been able to express how I felt about him with anything louder than a whisper.

And as I lay down for bed, the reality of the situation weighing down on me like a heavy blanket, I closed my eyes and tried to reach for a sleep that never came.

17

Hunter

It’d been two weeks since I’d last spoken to Patrick.

I was doing exactly what he wanted me to do, staying away from him, giving him all the space in the world. I’d even tried to convince myself that it was going to be easy living without Patrick, since it wasn’t like he’d been in my life for a long time anyway.

But being without him had turned out to be one of the hardest challenges that I’d ever had to face.

Everywhere I went it just felt like something was off. And the more I tried to ignore the way I felt, the more I ended up being uncomfortable no matter where I went, whether that was at practice on the field or just at home in my bedroom.

Fuck.

I was trying my best to keep it all together, but I knew I was hanging on by a thread, my body present but my mind barely, barely there. Life was suddenly a jigsaw puzzle, and each day felt like I just couldn’t find the right pieces to fit between the images, something always missing no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was already whole.

“Good play, son!” Lou was patting me on the shoulder as he offered me a bright smile. “Things must be looking up for you and Dakota, huh?”

“What?” I shook my head, trying to shake myself back into the conversation. “What was that about me and Dakota?”

Shit.

How long had I been standing in the middle of the football field? I’d come to practice, like I always did, arriving early with the goal of leaving as late as they’d let me stay. I’d figured out pretty early on that one of the keys to not thinking about Patrick was keeping myself busy, which made football practice the perfect solution to my painfully optimistic daydreams about someday kissing Patrick against a sandy beach shore.

“I was just saying you must’ve fixed things with your girlfriend?” Lou suggested. “You haven’t played like that in a while. It was like watching you back in your prime!”

“Are you saying I’m already out of my prime?” I smirked. “I thought I was still doing pretty good for a guy who just turned thirty.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re amazing for your age.” Lou held up a hand, as if in defense. “Seriously, though. I’m happy you were able to work things out between the two of you. Tristan told me about that night at the bar. He said you looked pretty rough.” Lou’s face fell before he went on. “He said he was really worried about you. He didn’t even know if you were going to be able to recover from a heartbreak like that.”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal—”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Hunter,” Lou interrupted. “Trust me. I’ve been there. You fall for someone and you fall so hard sometimes you don’t get back up. I’m just… happy you got back up.”

“I’m happy I got back up, too,” I lied, forcing a smile in his direction. “Hey, do you have any notes for me? Besides telling me how great I am.”

“Yeah, just one,” Lou continued. “Whatever training regimen you’ve been doing, you should really keep it up. Now, I don’t know if that’s a mixture of sex with your girlfriend or those dance classes you were taking—”

“Lou, what the hell?” I was shell-shocked by