Obviously, I had no complaints. After what happened last night, I needed to feel closer to him myself.
I can’t lie. What he said scared me, and while I thought I had him figured out at least a little bit, the whole being addicted to meth and living on the streets completely took me for a ride. It was far, far worse than I ever could have imagined, and my heart broke with every single heartfelt, raw word that came out of his mouth. No wonder he was so intense, so broken, so misunderstood. The man had gone through hell and back, and even though he rose like a phoenix from the ashes to become the man he is, that smoke still clings to him. I can smell it.
And that’s what scares me. It’s the fear that it’s not all over. Because how can it be over? How can a person go through all of that and just brush it off? You can’t. Not even with the best therapy and the best medication can you ever get over being abandoned, adopted, on drugs, homeless. It’s one terrible thing after another, and just the fact that he’s alive and well has me completely dumbfounded.
But I don’t want to live in fear for him, and I don’t want to believe that he could slip up at any moment, even though I’m not naïve enough to ignore certain things, like his relationship with alcohol. I want him to keep being strong, powerful, noble. A proud beast. I want him to not be ashamed of who he was because it’s only made him the amazing person that he is. Though I know he thinks the opposite, learning the truth about Lachlan made my respect for him go through the roof.
And now, now I really understand his passion for the dogs, for rescuing the “bad dogs” who are cast aside and forgotten. He literally was just like them, depending on the kindness of strangers.
Yet here is, and here I am, about to head into the stadium where I’ll witness just how he pulled himself out of the rubble.
“Now I must warn you,” he says to me as he slides a key card into one of the back entrances. “You might fall asleep. We’re not going all out quite yet. I’ll be working on my sidestepping today, especially since I have a tendency to just plow through people.”
“Oh, I know,” I say brightly. “I read it on your Wikipedia page.”
He groans. “I have one of those?”
“That only means you’ve made it.”
“Bloody hell. Anyway, I can’t really run people over anymore without risking injury to myself, so that’s where the sidestepping comes in handy.”
“Will I at least see you in a scrum?” I ask as we walk down a dank, cement tunnel toward the lit green field at the end.
“Nah. As the wing you just watch the scrum. Wait and see what happens.” He gives me a wry look, pursing those lush lips together. “Don’t you remember any of that rugby I taught you?”
I laugh sharply. “Let’s be honest. I was just trying to flirt with you, maybe get a good feel of your ass.”
“If I recall correctly, you were definitely flirting with me.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, you didn’t seem to know it at the time.”
He stops and pulls me to him. “I knew it at the time, love. Just had to work up the courage to do something about it.” He kisses me on the forehead, and we continue on our way.
We’re a bit early so he leads me up into the stands where he selects a good seat for me. “You’re close enough to hear Alan, our coach, yelling at us, and at me especially, and you’ll be able to see everyone. I better go check in on the locker room.”
I anxiously grab his arm. “What, you’re leaving already?”
“I’ll be right back. Down there.” He points to the field. “Try and stay awake.”
He trots off down the stairs and I watch the muscles in his ass bounce as he goes. After a few minutes, when I realize it might be a while before it all starts, I bring out my phone and start emailing people. I email Steph and Nicola, wanting so bad to tell them what Lachlan told me, but knowing it isn’t their place to know or even understand. It’s Lachlan’s past that he entrusted me with, and I cling to that with reverence.
I email my mom too. The last email I got from her was a few days ago. She said she misses me, which hurt like hell, but that she was fine and that Toshio and Sean had been over. She hadn’t mentioned my other brothers, Nikko, Paul or Brian, at all, so I also drop an email to Toshio to see if he can remind them. After everything that Lachlan told me, I feel strangely weak and shaky inside, and my need to know that everyone will be okay is stronger than ever. I wish there was a teleporting machine so I could go back, just for a moment, and give my mother a long hug. Those kind of hugs fix everything.
But that doesn’t exist, and instead I’m on the bleachers of an empty stadium waiting for a man that I’ve grown hopelessly, helplessly in love with. I hate that I can’t have everything, and I hate that it’s human nature to want more when you finally have it.
Finally there’s shouting from below, and I stop emailing to crane my neck down to see a bunch of big burly men in tight shirts and shorts heading out onto the field. Lachlan is at the back of the pack, talking to a shorter man in a windbreaker that’s nearly as wide as he is. I assume that’s Alan, the coach.
I can’t deny that my heart does a double back flip at the sight of Lachlan on the field, in those clothes that show off every thick, sinewy inch of his muscles. He’s a fucking god and a god I’m fucking. I have to pinch myself, even though my own pulse is threatening to step out of bounds.
Though he walks with a familiar swagger, he holds himself differently here. Proud. He’s beyond confident. He acts like he owns the field, owns the very game. If I was a girl living here, I’d be at every single game watching him. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what half the stadium consists of—girls wanting to get their Lachlan McGregor on.
The practice itself isn’t very interesting. There’s about a dozen or so people on the field, and the coach alternates between having them play each other full on for a few minutes, then pairing players off to work on exercises. Just as Lachlan said, he spends a lot of time running with the ball, dodging players coming at him. He sidesteps them, sometimes causing the other player to fall flat on their face, sometimes spinning off a tackle. Sometimes he doesn’t sidestep at all and just goes for the opponent’s shoulder. I can tell he pulls back at the last second and doesn’t hit with all his strength. If it were an actual game and that wasn’t his teammate he was slamming into, I bet he wouldn’t hold back at all. He really is a beast.
And he’s fucking fast. Though he’s not used all the time and often spends a lot of the game hanging at the edges of the team, when he is passed the ball, he takes off down that field like he’s about to take flight. It’s amazing how a man of his stature can run so damn fast, those muscular legs pumping like a machine.
I could literally sit here for hours watching him. I can’t take my eyes away. He’s so into the game that he only looks up in the stands a few times. But when he sees me, he gives me a nod, and I find myself waving shyly like a school girl.
It’s hard to even imagine him skinny and scrawny on the streets, doing drugs and feeling so hopeless. What a different man he is on the field.
Eventually practice ends, and as everyone heads back under the bleachers and to the locker rooms, he runs up the stairs toward me, tireless and taking the steps two at a time.
“How you doing?” he asks, sweat glistening on his scrunched brow as he stands over me.
“Good,” I tell him. “You’re like…a rugby machine.”
He looks over at the field, wincing while he wipes his arm across his forehead. “Yeah? Didn’t feel like it.”
“Well, you look like it. I’m…lucky. I’m lucky. You’re amazing. You’ve impressed the pants off of me.”
He looks at me, the corner of his mouth lifting up. “Is that so?”