Page 72 of Let Me Love You
“Why do they target you?” I repeat.
“Who?”
“Everyone? The women obsessed with sleeping with hockey players. They know you’re off the market. Why won’t they leave you alone?” The words tumble out of me, gaining momentum with every passing second as all the stress and frustration since Colt started playing hockey rises to the surface. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the spotlight. The women stalking my boyfriend and writing completely inappropriate things on poster boards during the games, let alone walking up to him and trying to flirt with him like I’m not even there. Add in the whole paparazzi fixation on top of everything else, and I’m ready to throw in the towel. To walk away and say goodbye to everything. And I would. If Colt would come with me.
The metallic taste of blood seeps onto my taste buds as I bite my tongue to keep from rambling and lashing out any more than I already have, but it doesn’t calm me down. It doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me want to knee the paparazzi in the balls and rip out every single handsy woman’s extensions until they’re all walking around the arenas bald and miserable.
Yeah, that sounds pretty great, actually.
“I asked Mia the same question,” Colt admits. He lifts his head and looks at me. “She was at SeaBird tonight.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said it’s because you’re a wallflower.”
“And there’s something wrong with being a wallflower?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You’re perfect, Sunshine, so, no. There’s nothing wrong with being a wallflower. But even if there was, it wouldn’t matter. I don’t want you to change because of my profession. This isn’t on you. This is on them. I only woke you up and told you about what happened because I thought you should hear it from me. I’ve already fucked this up once by keeping the truth from you. I don’t want to mess it up again.”
I touch his hand, wishing I could take away the sharpness in his words along with the hint of self-deprecation. “You haven’t screwed this up, Colt.”
And it’s true.
He hasn’t.
I’m still in this. Still here. Still fighting for what I want, even if he can’t see it right now.
“Don’t let them win. Please?” he rasps, slipping under the covers beside me without bothering to strip off his clothes. He lays his head against my breast, right above my heart. “Don’t let them make you question shit. About us. About how I feel.”
I flick off the lamp on the nightstand and close my eyes, grateful for his warmth. For his touch. The way it calms my racing heart. The way it soothes my annoyance and frustration. This. This is why I love him. Why I’m willing to put up with this stuff. Because it isn’t Colt’s fault. It’s an unhappy side-effect of dating an attractive man who’s good at hockey, and I hate how it’s slowly killing him.
His hair is soft as I run my fingers through it, comforting him the only way I know how because my words haven’t done shit lately.
“I hate how I can’t control them,” he continues. “The women. The paparazzi. I can’t control what they do or what they write. But I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry they keep dragging us through the mud. Sorry they make you question shit.”
“They’re not the ones making me question shit, Colt,” I murmur, tangling my fingers in his silky hair and tugging softly on the roots.
“Is it me?” he asks. “Am I the problem?”
I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “No. You’re not the problem.”
“Then how can I fix this?”
“One hurdle at a time,” I remind him. “After your…whatever with Eleanor, we’ll cross this bridge. But until then, it isn’t worth our energy. Not when we don’t even know if they’re going to post anything about what happened tonight.”
“They’re gonna post,” he mutters against my chest, and I swear I can taste his defeat. His resignation.
“How do you know?”
“Because every new player on the Lions’ roster was there. They’d be missing out on a huge opportunity by letting tonight pass by without sharing all the sordid details.”
He’s right. And the starting Center for the Lions pushing a girl at a bar in the middle of the night is excellent click-bait, no matter how inaccurate it is. Like the previous articles, they don’t care what’s right or wrong. They care about how many people click on the link. How many people tell their friends about what they read and who wrote the piece. It’s all they care about. And me and Colt? We’re nothing but news fodder for gossip-loving vultures. And I hate it. But what I hate even more? It feels like my hands are tied. Like there’s nothing I can do about it.
My eyelids feel heavy, and I close them as I continue playing with Colt’s hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault. It’s mine.” He lets another gush of pent-up frustration seep out of him, melting into me even more. “All of this is my fault. I know I shouldn’t run from my problems, Ash. But sometimes, I feel like it’d be easier if I walked away. If I stopped playing. If we moved to a no-name town and disappeared. Just me and you.”
Just me and you.