Page 100 of The Club

With Dominic, I’ve been able to feel those words again, unmistakably true. That’s why I can say them to Noah. That’s why I recognize them as real.

Noah says, “I love you too, Rafael.”

The thing is, Iwantto accept those words right now. Iwantto believe them, that they’re really for me. I know that Noah has proven them a thousand times.

But the thing is, every time he says them, every time he proves them, I feel like it’s not about me.

Noah’s eyebrows draw together. I think, maybe for the first time, he sees that those words don’t reach me. I want them to. I try to let me. I just can’t.

“Why don’t you believe me?” he asks.

“Because …” I start trembling, terrified to say what I’ve thought for so long, terrified to replace myself with the name that is never spoken. “Because I know you’re really saying that to Chance, not me.”

Noah lets out a whuff of air and curls forward like I hit him in the gut. Fuck, it’s true. I was right.

“And I’m a shitty substitute,” I say.

Noah yanks upright and looks at me with more anger than I’ve maybe ever seen on his face.

“Goddamn it, Rafael, you are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever known. Chance is dead and has been for fifteen years. I will never get over that—”

“I know that, Noah. And you look at me and you see what happened to him and you try—”

“Rafael, don’t tell me what I see or feel. I don’t see Chance when I look at you. I seeyou. I see that I got so fucking lucky to have another son.”

“But you look away. You say you’re sorry, and you look away. Because you’re not saying it to me. You’re saying it to—

“Goddamn it, Rafael!” Noah sweeps a toaster off the counter and sends it crashing to the floor. “I look away because it’s hard for me to see what happened to you—”

“What happened toChance.”

“What happened toyou!”

“But you kept sending me back to my aunt. You only kept because I wouldn’t stop. I gave you no choice.”

Noah scrubs at his weary face. He drags his hands down and drops them.

“Let me tell you the truth, Rafael, so you understand. Every time you showed up at my door? My heart fucking exploded. I sent you back because I thought it was the right thing to do. Legally, it was, but more than that, I knew I was mess. More than anything, it was that I knew how fucking badly I wanted you to stay. I knew it clouded my judgment, made me grasp at you, so I didn’t trust myself.

“Every time I sent you back, I was devasted. I wanted to die. Then you would come back again and I would feel alive. I would feel like there was a point in being alive. And when I said you could stay, it felt like the most selfish thing I’d ever done—because yousaved my life. I would be dead without you. I would’ve eaten a bullet, I can fucking guarantee you. If anyone’s been a shitty substitute, Rafael, it’s me. I’ve always known that, and when I say that I’m sorry,that’swhat I mean.”

Tears spill from my eyes. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry for, Noah, and you’re not a shitty substitute. You saved my life too—and nobody could have done it but you. Nobody could have accepted me and what I needed butyou. Anyone else would have tried to change me, and when they couldn’t change me, they would’ve tried to contain me. With drugs. With prison. You set me free, even though I’m violent and chaotic and always will be.”

“That’s because I love you, Rafael—and fuck the rest of the world.”

I smile as this time, for the first time, I really hear him.

THIRTY-ONE

Dominic

I turn on the shower when I hear the bedroom door. When Rafael walks in, still marked by my bloody handprints, the tension eases from my shoulders. I don’t like being separated from him. I know I’ll have to get that under control, but I’m not ready to work on it just yet.

I grab him and pull him close. He holds onto me and strokes the back of my head, like I’m the one who needs it.

Maybe I am. I fucking hate being in this house.

Neither of us is hard anymore, so when Rafael unbuttons my pants as I unbutton his, it’s not sexual. His build is a little lighter than mine, so my jeans hang low on his hips, showing all of that sexy tattoo on his lower abdomen.