Chapter Twenty-Seven

Avery’s heart expanded watching Lucas’s face as he saw himself defy gravity and win for the team. It almost made her forget that the thing he loved her for was a lie. Every time he mentioned it, the lie, or at least lie by omission, hung in the air, leaving her uneasy. She should have told him about her father, but it almost felt like it was too late now.

He clicked through to the comments. “Don’t you know better than that? You never look at the comments on social media,” she said, jokingly trying to cover them with her hand. The comments had actually all been supportive, except those who thought it was some kind of video editing voodoo.

The views were increasing as they were sitting there. “Wow,” she said. “It’s one o’clock in the morning and people are still watching it. It must have gone international. I’d be surprised if the local TV news won’t cover it.” Mr. Duchamp would be thrilled seeing his logo on the back of the team jerseys.

But Lucas didn’t reply. He actually looked worried in the dim light coming from the screen. “What’s wrong?”

She put her hand gently on the back of his neck and stroked his short hair there. It felt strange but natural. Like it was hers to touch. She’d never felt that with Blaine. She rolled her eyes behind Lucas’s head. Hell, nothing that she was experiencing with Lucas was the same as she’d experienced with Blaine. Literally nothing. And that felt really, really good.

Until she remembered again that she was lying to him about why she’d been helping him all these weeks.

“I can’t do this, Avery. I can’t stay on the team. This”—he pointed at the screen—“it’s too much. I didn’t want this. I have to leave. I’ll tell your dad in the morning. I’m so sorry.”

Her stomach clenched. “No. Don’t. This is good. It’s good for you, it’s good for the team, and it’s good—” She wanted to say “for my family,” but she stopped herself. “It’s good for the town.”

“No, it’s not! You don’t understand.” He took a breath. “And that’s okay. But I can’t play anymore.”

Avery suddenly felt as if she were teetering off the edge of a cliff. She could feel herself falling, but there was nothing to hang onto. “You need to stay in the team. Please stay,” she begged. “For my dad. For me.”

He shook his head, as if he was trying to clear the fog from his brain. “For your dad? What are you talking about?”

She swallowed fast. This was do or die. She had to tell him. This was her Hail Mary. “The day I met you, I overheard Mr. Duchamp tell Mr. Hardy that unless the Hammers reached the playoffs this year, they were going to fire my father. I was so scared. Football helped drag the family back when my mom died. So when Dad brought you home—something he’s never done before—and referred to you as a player with skills, I realized that if you could get out of your head, you’d help my dad keep his job.”

He pushed himself back from her so the desk chair was in the middle of the room. “So none of this was for me? You helped me just to stop your dad from losing his job?” he asked. There was no emotion in his voice, like, at all. He wasn’t angry, but Avery wondered if this was worse.

“Yes, but that’s—” she began.

He held his hand up. “Nope. That’s all I needed to know. All this time I’d thought that you were this kind, giving person. But you’re not. You helped me to help yourself.” He got up and opened the bedroom door. “You have no idea what I risked playing on this team. But I did it because I thought you believed in me. That you actually cared about me.” His mouth opened as if he was going to say something else, but instead he just shook his head and left.

Avery looked blankly at the video of his touchdown still frozen on the laptop. What had just happened? She looked at the bed, where she’d been fantasizing about being with Lucas. She jumped up and ran downstairs, just as he was closing the front door.

She yanked open the door and chased him to the end of the driveway.

“Please wait,” she whispered, holding onto his arm. “Please.”

He gently shook off her hand but turned. She could tell from the instant before he composed himself and adjusted his expression that she’d really hurt him.

“Please. Let me explain.” She wanted to explain how, sure, it started with her fear of her father losing his job, but after the first practice, it had been about him. Mostly, anyway.

“You’ve explained plenty. But I’m curious. How did you know I needed to get out of my head?”

Her heart started to chill at the lack of expression in his voice and the corresponding emptiness growing inside her. “Because I’ve been so far inside my head that I couldn’t see anything else. I know what it’s like.”

She thought of the rows of binders on her shelf—the ones that held her future plans in their cardboard hands. She wanted to tell him that he’d changed her. He’d given her a comfort that eased the sharp edges of her brain. She’d felt safe with him since the first time they’d met. Her heart didn’t palpitate when she deviated from what was written in her planner the way it used to.

He shook his head and sighed. “Avery, I can’t play on the team anymore. I can’t. And I don’t want to be around you for a while. Just let me be.”

For a second, she thought he was giving her the chance to say something, but that wasn’t it. His expression said goodbye. It said he wanted to remember how she looked before leaving. It said she wasn’t going to see him again.

He turned and took off down the street. Away from her.

…

Lucas managed to shut off the regrets and anger ripping through his head while he ran, but as soon as he got home, he allowed himself to think about the mess he’d gotten himself into. And it was him. As much as he wanted to blame Avery—and she did share a bit of it—he knew that for all her efforts to get him out of his head and regain his place as MVP, all they’d been doing was drawing more attention to him. And that same attention would wreck the team and her dad.

He was dying inside. It was like he’d pulled out the bottom piece of a Jenga puzzle, and the tower was collapsing in slo-mo on him.

He’d accused her of being fake, of lying to him, only to deflect the complete guilt he felt for deceiving her. Hell, for deceiving everyone in town. His plan had been stupid.

He was stupid. It was like he hadn’t learned from his mistake.

Fuck. It hadn’t been a mistake, though. When was he going to start being honest with himself? He had a feeling that taking gifts from the college was wrong, and yet he’d done it anyway. But instead of learning, he’d come across state and done exactly the same thing at Hillside. More lying and cheating by playing even though he was banned. Why? Because he thought he was better than people living within the rules?

He threw himself onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow. He fucked up, and in all probability he’d brought down Avery’s family, not to mention LeVonn. If anyone saw that video and realized Lucas Black was in fact the disgraced and banned Lucas Westman, the team would be expelled from the conference, Coach Stone would probably lose his job anyway, and no one who needed to use the Hammers as a stepping stone to college would succeed.

It was on him. And as much as he’d just snarked on Avery, he knew he’d only said those things to try to deflect the awful guilt.

It hadn’t worked.

There was only one way to fix this. They had one more game to get to the playoffs. One more game for him to make sure the team would be okay. Win that game and he could quit, and no one would be the wiser. He didn’t need to go to college; hell, he didn’t even need to graduate. He would leave. Leave before he hurt anyone else. He would go get a job. A decent job. Start paying his fair share so his mom wouldn’t have to work so hard. That’s all.

If by next game no one had figured out who he was, he’d play. Maybe he’d help them get through to the playoffs. But then he was getting the hell out of dodge and not coming back.