“Yes. Because he was a better choice.”
My heart contracts at this.
Contracts. And constricts.Chokes.
At the pain in his voice. Frustration.Anger.
“So I just watched,” he rasps.
I squeeze him with my limbs, my chest heaving. “W-watched?”
His hands go back to stroking.
Going up and down the sides of my body, from my ribs to the base of my belly, as he rumbles, “All the time.”
And I can’t help but ask, “In school?”
“Uh-huh. At the cafeteria. The library. The soccer games.Especiallythe soccer games. You always came to the soccer games.”
“For Lucas,” I whisper.
“Yeah, for him,” he says, his words slightly clipped. “You’d sit right at the front with a bunch of your friends. You’d cheer for every goal he made. Every fucking pass. Every dribble. Even though you had zero interest in the game.”
He’s right.
I never took to soccer. Even though it was my boyfriend’s life.
But like a good girlfriend, I always went to support him and never ever let it show that I was bored to death at his games.
“Soccer is boring.”
His lips twitch. “To you, yeah.” Then, “Because when something is interesting to you, your eyes shine. They become all dark and wide. You laugh without having to remember that you should. Your cheeks are flushed. Your…” he licks his split lip, “whole body lights up.”
He’s right. Ithink.
I mean, I’ve never actually noticed these things about me buthedid.
Because he watched me.
Hewatchedme.
He had a thing for me.
My ex-boyfriend’s ex-best friend.
“I… H-he liked me being there,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I know that too. He wouldn’t shut up about it,” he says, his thumb pressing on my tummy on the downward glide, making my already broken breaths even choppier. “About how his girlfriend was right there, in the front row, watching him play.” He squints his eyes, as if lost in memories. “Sometimes I thought he was trying to make me jealous.”
“He w-wouldn’t.”
“Iwould.”
“Make him jealous?”
“Fuck yeah.” He licks his lips again and I bite mine, watching him do it. “If you were mine, Echo, if you were there to watch me, I’d makehimand every motherfucker out there jealous out of their minds. And so sometimes I wondered.”
“Wondered what?”