Page 118 of Game on, Love
His gaze flickered between the three of us, waiting for one of us to reply. And before I could, Dev tugged on my hand and shook his head.
“I only want us to do this once.” My shoulders dropped as I nodded.
Pulling out his phone, Dev left the room, Rihaan hot on his heels as I met Oliver’s eyes.
And just like that, a calm, gentle tide wiped over me as he closed the distance between us. Wrapping his arms around me, he placed a kiss on my temple. “I’ve got you.”
“How much of that did you hear?”
“Pretty much all of it.”
I released a breath before placing my head in the crook of his neck. “Still want to be part of my chaos?”
“There’s nothing in the world that could make me not want to be part of your chaos,” He whispered, tightening his grip on me.
THE MOMENT DEV FINISHEDexplaining all of it to Vedant and Rihaan; there was a different kind of air that surrounded us. Rihaan was sitting with his arms hunched over his knees as Vedant stared at the ceiling. Dev was pacing, and I was sitting on the end of the couch with my knees pulled by my chest. Oliver was sitting a couple of spaces next to me, but every so often, I caught his hands twitching like he wanted to reach over and hold my hand every time I tugged on my sleeve.
“You should’ve told us, Raina.” It was Vedant who broke the silence, and I was a little surprised. I expected this from Rihaan, not him. “You’ve had so much time to say something.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t like you guys hadn’t done the exact same thing?” I asked, my voice shaking. “After she died, all of you left me there just like him. But I understood. Because after he had left me there without so much as a goodbye, It started making sense why you all hung up the minute Ma gave me the phone or why Dev visited me to check I was breathing every couple of months before he threw himself in the business, or why Rihaan blamed me for making him lose Ma or why you ignored me until you noticed me getting close to Axel.”
“That’s not fair, Raina. We all were grieving.”
“You think I don’t know that? But at least you had each other. Do you know what it feels like to be left behind with two old parents who lost their only child? To see them grieving so much that it ultimately took them? Do you think I wasn’t haunted every second of a minute when I was in the house where she grew up, trying to figure out how to grieve when everything reminded me of her? But do you see me blaming you for not being there for me?”
Vedant rubbed the back of his, guilt creeping up his face. “I thought I was giving you space, Raina. I didn’t know what to say to you.”
“When I asked him why you weren’t coming home,” Rihaan spoke for the first time, his hard gaze still on the ground. “He told me that it was because you wanted to stay there. And I couldn’t understand after all of that why you still didn’t want to be with us.”
“And instead of asking me,” I whispered, trying to steady myself. “You told me you never wanted to see my face again.”
A silence crept up in the room. Besides me Oliver had stilled as he took my words in, and Vedant and Dev were glaring at Rihaan.
“I was angry,” Rihaan frowned.
“Well, I granted your wish, so I guess it worked out for you.” I shot back, the words coming louder than I intended. “But you made them pick between the two of us, Rihaan. All because you were upset that I wasn’t coming home.”
“I had my own issues, and I didn’t know how to handle it all.”
“Then why are you upset with me for the same damn thing? I didn’t know how to either!”
“I’m upset because you never cared about me!”
I froze. “What?”
“Even when we were younger, you always went to Vedant’s races or stayed back with Dev when you couldn’t go with Ma. You never once cared about cricket or came to my matches. Not once.”
His words knocked the air out of me as I stared at him, speechless.
I had spent years nursing my own wounds, and I hadn’t realised that I’d been the first one to hurt him.
“I just wanted you to care about what mattered to me.” His voice cracked slightly. “And then, years later, when you do finally get a chance to be a part of something, you chose Formula One, and I see pictures of you three on track, and it just constantly feels like history repeating itself.”
Tears stung my eyes as I felt my heart break. “It wasn’t you, Rihaan. It was him. The first time I ever went to the nets with you and him, that was where I had my first heartbreak, and after that, even knowing anything about it felt too painful.”
He nodded as he understood, but his voice was still laced with hurt when he asked. “And after? When you got moved tocricket, you chose mybest friendto work with instead of your brother?”
I sucked in a breath. Every nerve in my body screamed at me not to turn and look at Oliver or wanting to ask how he knew. But I replied honestly, “Too much had been said by then. You couldn’t stand to be around me for longer than a second, and you wanted me to ask for help?”