Blindsided (42 page)

I feel numb. That’s all I can describe it as. There’s so much anger and pain and heartbreak coursing through my body that I can’t even think of it anymore. I don’t want to hold on to it, but I can’t let it go either. I can’t do anything but sit here, crying into Cole’s shoulder, and let it flood me.

The worst kind of love is the one you didn’t know you had.

If you don’t know you have it, you can’t appreciate it. You’ll never tell the person who holds your heart in the palms of their hands. You’ll never have to tinge every memory with that gorgeous, pink haze that comes with being in love. Because
you don’t fucking know.

And that is absolutely, completely, and utterly the worst kind of love to ever exist.

Everyone should know they’re in love, if only so they can tell the person they love. Everyone should know if they make someone’s heart beat like crazy, if they set butterflies in their stomach, make their hands tremble with longing. That shit should be common knowledge.
Common fucking knowledge!

Everyone deserves to know if they’re the one person who makes someone’s world light up like a thousand city lights illuminating the night.

Tears. On my cheeks.

It’s a never-ending flow skimming across my skin with the same speed as I fell in love with Corey.

Fast.

I fell in love with Corey Jackson in the only way I know how. Headfirst, with no regrets or expectations. The very best way to fall in love.

I experienced heartbreak the same way. Headfirst. The very worst way to experience heartbreak.

T
wenty-four hours since I was forced out of her house by some puny-ass fucking actor. If Cole were anyone else and I didn’t respect him, I would have had him on his ass and told him to mind his own fucking business.

Instead, I stood there and walked away. I did exactly what I told her I wouldn’t.

She told me to.

S
he also told me once that ‘go’ means ‘stay and fight.’

Either way, I fucked up by going. I just wish I could have stayed and told Cole to get out—told him that he needed to fuck off while I fought for the only girl I’ve ever loved.

For all I know, Leah’s the only girl I will ever love. Right now, I can’t see how anyone could compare to her. I don’t know how anyone could come close to her smile, her laugh, her touch. I don’t know how there could be a single person in this world as fucking perfect for me as she is.

And that’s the problem with finding the person you think is ‘the one.’ No one compares to them. Every girl who walks past me, every chick I see eyeing me up? They’re shit on my shoe compared to Leah. She’s everything I never knew I wanted, and now that I don’t have her, it feels like I have next to nothing.

All I have is football and an empty space where she used to be.

It’s like before I met her—except, this time, I know her beauty. I know the tinkle of her laugh and the sass of her smile. I know the thrill of her fingers across my skin and I know the softness of her body as it presses against mine.

She’s everything I never knew I wanted, but everything I’ve always dreamed of.

But now, it’s gone. She’s gone. And there’s nothing I can do to make her listen to me.

There’s a knock at my door, but I ignore it. Fuck everyone else. I don’t care.

The door opens and Jack walks in with Reid and Leo.

“Uncle Corey!” Leo yells, running through my house at lightspeed and throwing his seven-year-old body at me. “I caught the ball at practice yesterday and got a touchdown!”

“No way!” I hold up my hand, and he slaps it. “Good job, buddy!”

“Will you come watch my next game? Will you? Will you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. Make sure your dad reminds me, yeah?”

“Done!”

“Hey, bud,” Reid says. “Why don’t you go out the back and shoot some hoops?”

“All right, Dad.” Leo climbs off the sofa and runs through the kitchen to the back yard.

“You look like shit,” Reid offers once his son is fully out of earshot.

I rub the side of my head. “Feel it.”

“It’s quiet here,” Jack states.

“No shit. Leah isn’t here.” It’s the truth. She was always the noise in this large, cold house. She was always the person who made this house feel like a home. Whether she was covered in chocolate cheesecake mix, running around the kitchen, or lying on the sofa in her sweatpants, this house has never felt as warm as it did whenever she was here.

Now that she’s gone, it’s a cold, empty shell with a mere dream of being something.

Now that she’s gone, the house is a reflection of me.

“I can’t believe you’re gutted over pussy,” Jack says as they both sit on the sofa opposite me. “There’s a fuck-ton of that downtown if you want it.”

“It’s not about pussy,” I reply, meeting his eyes. “It’s about her. Fuck, it’s her. Always her.” I rub my fingers across my scalp roughly.

“Just because you’re a cold, hard fucking machine doesn’t mean everyone else is.” Reid directs that to Jack. I look up and he says to me, “Anythin’ we can do?”

“You could pin her arms down and duct tape her mouth so she’ll listen to me, but if you value your dicks, it probably ain’t the best idea.”

Jack chuckles. “Word. She almost had my balls once before.”

There’s another knock at the door and I lean back on the sofa. Fuck this. What’s with all the people in my house?

“Want me to get that?” Jack asks, getting up and walking toward the door without waiting for an answer.

“I guess,” I mutter sarcastically.

“Is Corey there?” Cole’s voice follows the door opening.

I sit up straight. What the fuck is he doing here?

“Yeah, but who the hell are you?”

“Let him in!” I shout to Jack.

There are no words until the door shuts and Cole appears in my front room. He looks much the same as he did yesterday, and he looks at me seriously.

“Did you do it?”

I shake my head. “No. Never.”

He studies me so intensely that I want to squirm. “Come here and tell me it.”

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Reid moves to stand, but I wave him off and get up.

“I’m the closest thing Leah’s got for a fucking brother, and if Corey’s telling the truth, I want to know, all right?” Cole snaps. His eyes find me when Reid doesn’t respond. “Did you do it?” he repeats.

I don’t say a word. I just meet his stare. If he needs me to tell him, he’s a fucking idiot.

“All right. I believe you,” he says after a long minute. “And I’m gonna help you make her believe you, too.”

“You are?” I frown. “Why?”

“Because she’s so fucking hung up on you that it’s killing me to see her hurting. And don’t tell her I said this, but my dad proposed to Grace last night, and I think I should be some kinda hero in her eyes.” He raises his eyebrows. “You get me?”

“I get it. But my sister is already tracing the leak.”

“Seriously?”

“She is majoring in computers or some shit. I don’t know. She knows more than I do.”

“How close is she?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, bro.”

Cole nods and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I have a friend who can do the same.”

“Pointless.”

“Nope.” He grins. “Leah will listen to me. If I can show her proof that it wasn’t you, she’ll believe you and you’ll have a shot at getting her back. He’ll probably have the leak sourced in twenty-four hours.”

“He isn’t the guy behind this, is he? My sister has taken almost three days already.”

Cole laughs. “No. But he knows what he’s doing. Do you want my help or not?”

Leah’s face springs to mind. The soft curve of her jaw, the pout of her pink lips, the expression in her eyes, her long, blond hair.

“Yeah. I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.”

His phone is by his ear before he’s even left the front room. I watch him go without another word exchanged between us.

“Well, fuck me,” Jack says, his surprised words ringing out through the silence. “Corey Jackson fell in love.”

“Are you sure you’re fine?”

I look at Mom. “I’m good, honestly. I’m just…going with it.”

It’s not an entire lie. I’m on pins and needles waiting for either Lottie or Cole to call and tell me that they’ve fixed this mess for me. I’m stuck in a fucked-up sense of limbo where my girl isn’t my girl but she is.

Because that fact doesn’t change, a fact I have to continuously remind myself of.

Leah is still mine. She can say that she isn’t, but she is. As long as she cares and she cries, she’s mine. And she does both. I saw it.

Leah Veronica is mine just like she was two weeks ago when I first realized it. She’s mine just like she was when I saw her across the bar what seems like a lifetime ago. Mine, mine, mine.

No other way about it.

“Did you know Lottie’s flying in today?” Mom hands me a grilled cheese sandwich.

“She is?”

“Yes. Your father is at the airport now to get her.”

I blink at her. Lottie’s flying in? That better mean she’s found the original leak website. If not, I’m gonna kick her tiny little ass.

“Why?” I ask, biting into my sandwich.

“Something about needing to show you something?” Mom frowns. “Why she’d fly across the country to show you something, I don’t know, son.”

“She’s been looking into when the thing where Leah’s line got leaked,” I explain. “She said she’d call me.”

“Your sister has been willingly doing something for you?” Mom exclaims. “Did you drug her?”

“Ha! No. She offered. Maybe we’re becoming friends.”

Mom sighs. “If only you could have done that when she was in kindergarten.”

“Hey. I never let the older boys pick on her. You think I got suspended for punching those guys randomly?”

“Yes.”

“Nice. Well, I didn’t. They were being dickheads.”

“And how about your senior year? Remember when you punched Ian Nelson?”

“He had his hands all over her!” I protest. “Homecoming or not, no one touched Lottie like that.”

Mom holds her hands up. “All right. Well, she’s in L.A. now, and she’s coming here. For you, I assume.”