Because the way to Linnea’s heart is her stomach. And her stomach loves guacamole.
Over chips and guac, Gavin joins Linnie in her artistic efforts. Linnie’s mouth moves like she’s talking at him nonstop, though I can’t hear her over the music, her butt bouncing to Encanto.
I could watch those two act like old friends in my kitchen forever, but then my stomach goes from bad to worse, making me speed-walk to the bathroom once again.
And then there’s nothing pleasant to say or think for quite a while.
20
GAVIN
Playlist: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” Ben L’Oncle Soul
“One hug, Kladdkaka,” Linnea says, big pale-blue eyes blinking up at me. Wrestling free from underneath the sheets Oliver tucked her into, she opens her arms and says, “Pleeeease?”
I scowl at her from where I stand, arms crossed, leaning against the doorway of her room, or rather, the room Oliver clearly has set up for her. I push away the memories, the stark contrasts to my own history evoked by this scene, and tell her, “Don’t push it. I blew a kiss, and that’s all you’re getting.”
Her pout deepens.
I roll my eyes, pushing off the doorframe. “Fine. But do not tickle me.”
She giggles. “I respect your boundaries.”
“Now you do. After you tickled me.”
She shrugs as she smiles, all wide-eyed innocence and dimples. “I didn’t know you don’t like tickles.”
“No one likes tickles, rug rat,” I grumble, bending over her and gently wrapping her in my arms. She’s strong, a powerful little athlete already, but she’s still so small, so vulnerable.
The old, sharp pain I’ve buried for so long slips through the cracks made by just one evening with her. My shitty childhood is a chapter of my life that I’ve done everything possible to leave behind me. But holding this little girl who’s so trusting, so clearly loved, wrenches old, awful memories to the surface.
Living with those miserable excuses for family, my aunt and uncle. Realizing very early on I was better off living anywhere but with them. The backpack with all my possessions inside it that I took everywhere I went. The places I found to stay. To hide. Then, finally, Fred. And soccer. And never ever looking back.
“Goodnight, Kladdkaka,” Linnea whispers, before she plants a soft kiss on my cheek.
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Goodnight, Linnea.”
I have every intention of walking out of that room without so much as a glance over my shoulder, but like a fool, I stop in the doorway and turn around.
I’m rooted to the floor.
Oliver smooths Linnea’s hair back from her face as she turns, curling up with a stuffed dolphin. He rubs her back in slow circles and sings softly in a language I don’t understand but that I recognize from the many that I became familiar with while playing abroad. Swedish. I don’t know much, just enough to recognize the words that matter. Safe. Love.
Something splinters inside me. Cracks clean in two.
And that’s when I know I am in serious danger. In danger of wanting so much more from Oliver than just to make him come undone, to scratch this exhausting itch that I’ve been denying the past few weeks.
You’ve been denying it longer than that, says that unwelcome voice in my head.
I force myself to walk away, to remember this is what I’m good at, because it’s walk away or be walked away from, and I choose to leave on my terms. To hold on with both hands to the control I ached for in my life for years and finally found in soccer. The control that’s already slipping through my fingers. Here, in his house and in mine. On the pitch and on planes and in hotels and in the locker room. In my body. In the cold, jagged corners of my heart that have started to thaw and soften.
I’m halfway down the hall when I register the sound of Oliver’s alarm system, making the same alerting ding it did when I opened his back door. My pace quickens, my hand forms a fist. Just as a precaution, ingrained, long-ago-learned self-preservation.
A man walks in, quite tall, though not as tall as me, ball cap tugged low and obscuring his face. A thick, scraggly brown beard drifts down to his chest.
He walks in like he owns the fucking place, tossing a pair of keys absently onto the side table next to Oliver’s sofa as he toes off his boots.
The world tints a furious, pulsing red. “Who the fuck are you?” I ask.
The man glances up, his face still hidden in the shadow cast by his ball cap’s brim. His head dips down, as if he’s raking his eyes over me. “I’d ask you the same.”
I’m simply too stunned, too angry to make my mouth work. When he deduces I’m not going to answer him, he strolls past me. My pulse pounds in my fists as I stand, helpless, furious, watching this man walk through Oliver’s home with such familiarity.
Wandering into the kitchen, he flicks on the lights and opens the refrigerator.
“Answer me,” I growl.
He pauses, then turns, an open container of leftover quesadilla in his hands. I want to wrench it out of his grip and slap the lid on it, because that’s for the little girl down the hall who begged for another quesadilla even when I knew she’d never have room for it, who is now determined to have her leftover quesadilla for breakfast.
“Put the food down,” I tell him. “That’s for Linnea.”
He tips his head, then sets the container on the counter, snapping on the lid. Which is when Oliver strolls into the kitchen from the hallway, one hand on the baby monitor he’s turning on. He comes up short, blinking at the man in his kitchen.
“Viggo?” Oliver stares at him, blinking in surprise, then glancing over at me.
Viggo. I remember that name. He’s the one Oliver was yelling at, the one who’d somehow locked him out of the house. Were they lovers? Had they fought? Are they reconciled now?
Fuck, I feel sick at the thought.
“What are you doing here?” Oliver asks him.
“Hi, honeybunch.” This man—Viggo—closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around Oliver, pulling him close, before he smacks a kiss on his cheek.
The world darkens. Blood roars in my ears. I want to rip his arms off. I want to yank him by the collar and throw him out the window and wipe every trace of his touch off Oliver’s body.
Fuck. I’m shaking, rage and shock and possessive hurt slicing through me, revealing the raw, undeniable truth: I want Oliver. All of him.
I know I can’t have him forever, but I want him for however long I can. Until whatever it is that finally finishes me off from professional play and I disappear to lick my wounds and figure out what the hell to do with myself. I want him to myself. To drive wild and hold and give him hell and please and protect him from handsy, lanky, mangy-bearded fuckers with no respect for personal space.
“Get off,” Oliver tells him, wiping his cheek as he scowls at this Viggo. “What are you doing?”
“I came to help,” he says, shrugging and going back to raiding the fridge.
“He already has help,” I growl, then turn toward Oliver. “Do you want him out?”
Oliver blinks my way, eyes wide. “What?”
“Do. You. Want. Him. Out?” I ask. “I will gladly remove him from your property.”
The man glances over his shoulder as he tosses a handful of blueberries into his mouth. “Not very hospitable of you.”
“Not the hospitable type,” I tell him. “Especially if he doesn’t want you here.”
The man flashes a smile beneath that gnarly beard that makes the hair on my neck stand on end. It feels…vaguely familiar. “What’s he to you?” the man asks.
“Viggo,” Oliver says sharply. “This isn’t funny. Get out.”
The man shuts the fridge with his hip, glancing between us. “I take it I’m not needed, then.”
“Absofuckinglutely not,” I snap.
Oliver peers at me curiously, before he turns back to Viggo and glares. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s messed up. I told you I was going to figure this out on my own, and I did. Now go. Raid someone else’s fridge.”
Viggo sighs. “Fine.” Pushing off the fridge, he walks back through the living room, tugging on his shoes. He flashes another wide smile Oliver’s way, then at me. “Enjoy your evening, gents.”
With a salute, he swipes his keys off the table and slips out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.
I turn back toward Oliver. “What the hell was that?”
Oliver crumples onto a stool at his kitchen island and buries his face in his hands. “A man trying to make a horse wear swimming trunks.”
“What the fuck does that mean? Are you delirious? Dehydrated?”
His laugh echoes inside the space of his hands. “I’m going to throttle him,” he mutters.
“Oliver,” I growl, making his head snap up. “What was that? Who the hell was that?”
Silence hangs in the space between us. Too late do I realize how…intense I sounded. How much I’ve just revealed.