Page 63 of The P*ssy Next Door

“How is that even possible?” I mean, I know he said he'd studied and watched porn, but how could someone this good in bed have kept himself from the world for so long? If I wasn't directly benefiting from his loving right now, I'd declare it a travesty and, honestly, a tragedy for all of womankind.

“I didn't have sex because I didn't make time for a love life.” He shrugged and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. “I saw a lot of guys get all up in their heads because of a woman and that messed up their games. That would have thrown off my plan. So I opted to focus on my family, football, and school. In that order. That was more than enough. Until you.”

Aww. He was making me go all soft and squishy for him. “Your plan?”

I knew he'd been gunning for the pros since he'd played with Xander in high school. But this sounded like more than that.

“Since I was five, the plan was always get a scholarship to DSU to play for the Dragons, get drafted to the Mustangs.”

Okay, maybe it wasn't that complicated. But there was something in the way he recited it that made me think there was more he wasn't saying.

“When you were five?” He had to have been reincarnated or something to know what he'd wanted practically from birth like that. “I was painting with my fingers and wished I was a unicorn who pooped marshmallows when I was that age.”

He smiled at me and rolled us again so we could get under the covers. “That is also a noble plan, and I'm sure you can still be a marshmallow pooping unicorn if you really put your mind to it and work hard.”

I slipped out of the Mustangs jersey I'd been wearing. “Umm, I think I'd rather work on something else hard right now.”

“That is a much better plan.” He pulled me closer and gave me a long, lingering kiss.

But I still couldn't get over the idea of an adorable little five-year-old Hayes thinking about getting a scholarship to a well-known football school so that he could go pro. Sure, we all wanted to be like the stars we idolized in our youth, but scholarships weren't usually a part of that fantasy. “But really? Five? What happened at such a tender age to give you grown-up goals?”

He stared at me for a breath or two, like he was deciding exactly what he should or shouldn't say.

Wait. Had something happened?

Oh. Oh fuck. I knew, and I was such a dumbass. “It's okay, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm sorry I was just being... I didn't put the pieces together.”

“No, it's okay.” He looked up at the ceiling again, but then brought his eyes back to mine and my chest got tight with the amount of trust he was putting in me right now. “I don't usually talk about it much. Most people don't really think a five-year-old could understand what was going on, but I did.”

“You can talk to me about it if you want. I'll understand.”

“I know you will, and I love you for it, Willa.” He took a deep breath and then said the words I knew he would. “My mom died when I was five, and everything in our world changed overnight.”

He swallowed and blinked a few times. “I do remember her, but a lot of it is more a feeling of being loved than real memories, you know? But what I do truly remember from back then is how fucking devastated my dad was. And somehow, he still kept going.”

I did the math in my head really quick. He'd have had to, because Mr. Kingman had eight kids at that point, at least two or three not even in school yet. “He's amazing for the way he was able to raise all of you as a single dad.”

“That first year, we all spent a lot of time at DSU football practices.” He chuckled for a moment. “There's this one picture of him on the practice field with Jules in one of those Baby Bjorn things strapped to the front of him with big orange earmuffs protecting her ears that I swear were made for the guys on aircraft carriers. My dad is clearly chewing some player’s ass, and Jules is grinning from ear to ear.”

And where was a five-year-old Hayes for all of that?

“Football saved us,” he said. “It brought us all together, gave us goals, gave us something to do and looking forward to when our lives were in pieces.”

I laid my head against his chest and hugged him so tight, because I didn't know what else to do. Nothing had ever been that important to me in my whole life. This one moment in time had defined him, and I still didn't even know what I was looking for in life, or, really, who I was.

“So, yeah. I knew at five what I needed to d to help my family, and be the best Kingman I could be.” He wrapped his fingers into my hair. “And that meant not having time for girls. Until now.”

“I'm not sure I've ever felt lucky in my life. I mean, everything growing up was fine, you know? But nothing was ever extraordinary.” Family, school, even traveling the world and becoming a teacher was all fine and dandy, but none of it was ever truly fulfilling. “Except for seeing you, naked, holding up my cat to return him to me on the very day I came home.”

I hadn't realized it then, but that was a perfect moment, and I was going to try really hard to hold onto what I had with Hayes for as long as I possibly could.

Even though I could never truly be good enough for him. My whole life had proven that to me. But my life and my world had changed when I'd let him in, let him love me, let myself love him. And I wasn't letting go.

I fell asleep clinging to him and woke later to an empty spot in the bed beside me. I blinked a few times and heard a soft humming in the dark.

Hayes was sitting at the end of the bed, illuminated only by the light from the moon outside shining through the window. He was singing something softly and had a kitten in his arms.

“Hush little kitty, don't say a word. I'm gonna buy you a baby bird.” He held one of the squeezy tubes of kitten food I'd had delivered to the coffee shop earlier, and the kitten was lapping it up, looking blissed the hell out.