Straddling the Line (31 page)
Besides his parents, of course. And Zane.
But he’d never told anyone. Deliberately, he’d never told anyone.
His throat felt like it was closing up. It was hard to swallow. His heart pounded against his rib cage. He couldn’t do this.
“Trevor. Why can’t you do the literacy event?”
He could barely feel her squeezing his hand as he finally blurted out the words he’d sworn he’d never say to anyone else.
“Because I can’t goddamn read.”
HAVEN’S BREATH CAUGHT. IT WAS AS IF TIME HAD
stood still for those few seconds after Trevor had told her he couldn’t read.
“What?”
His shoulders slumped, the words barely audible. “Don’t make me say it again.”
She saw the pain etched into his features, the agony it must have cost him to admit that. “You can’t read? That’s impossible. I tutored you in college.”
He finally sat on the stairs. Slumped in defeat was more like it, as if a balloon had burst. He had no fight left in him.
And she’d made him admit it. She felt awful.
She kneeled in front of him and said it again. “I tutored you. In English. History. Math.”
“Easy enough to fake it. You did all the work. And I can read some. Just not good. I get confused. So I just . . . don’t.”
Oh, God. Tears pricked her eyes. She hadn’t even noticed. She’d been so focused on her crush on him, on her irritation with him being the hotshot athlete who’d wanted to bargain with her to help him pass his classes, she hadn’t paid attention to why he’d been struggling so much.
She’d thought he was lazy. Her stomach tightened as the guilt poured over her.
She laid her hands on his knees. “How bad is it?”
“Bad.”
Then it hit her. The ridiculous organization in his refrigerator, the fact he hadn’t read the contract his lawyer had brought him. She’d never actually seen him read anything. He played some games on his phone, but that day he’d made her punch in a phone number on hers.
It was starting to click.
“What about your playbook? I know football players have to learn a playbook.”
“My agent and my lawyer know. They helped me through it, taught it to me play by play. Besides, there are pictures in the playbook. Fewer words. It’s easier to understand.”
For a brief moment, she closed her eyes, then reopened them. “That’s why you chose the literacy group as one of your charities.”
“Yeah. But I can’t read to those kids. I can’t let people find out about this.”
“You can be taught to read, Trevor. I can help you.”
He stood and started backing up the stairs. “No. Oh, fuck no. It’s too late for me.”
She stood, too, looked up at him. “It’s not too late for you. It’s never too late. You can’t give up on yourself.”
“Look. It’s bad enough that you know. I don’t want anyone else to know, and I hope you know this is off the record. If you try to
put this in your interview, I’ll sue both you personally and the network.”
She gasped, horrified he’d think that of her. “Do you really think I’d use something as personal as this to get ahead in my job?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Haven. Would you?”
She wanted to slap him, but she knew it was hurt and defensiveness causing him to lash out like this. “I wouldn’t, and you know me. I would never hurt you that way. I’m trying to help you.”
“You can help me by canceling the event at the literacy center. Tell them there was a scheduling conflict.”
She shook her head. “I think it would only help you to—”
“You’ve helped enough. We’re done here.”
He turned around and started up the stairs.
Haven read the finality in his statement. She dashed up and got in front of him, laying her hand on his chest, forcing him to stop and face her. “Done here? What do you mean?”
The severity in his expression cut her deeply. There was no warmth, no caring there. She saw . . . nothing.
“I mean we’re done. I have to concentrate on football, and you have enough footage to finish up your interview. Why don’t you pack it up and leave.”
And just like that, he was pushing her out of his life. She knew why, but it still hurt to hear him say the words.
“Trevor. Don’t do this.”
“You can stay tonight, but tomorrow I want you out of here.”
“Don’t. Please, don’t. We can fix this together. I’ll help you.”
He didn’t budge. She saw no emotion. It was like he’d completely closed off from her, from feeling anything. “Haven. You need to go.”
She’d never seen that look on his face, the way he’d just completely shut down. Part of her wanted to push through, to refuse to leave until he saw reason. The other part of her hurt so badly
because he didn’t trust her, didn’t care enough about her—about the both of them—to even try.
She wanted to beg him to let her stay so she could help him through this.
But why? It was clear he wanted nothing more to do with her. He’d made it nearly thirty years without her, and he intended to go without her. He didn’t need or want her help.
He didn’t want her. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to beg him to let her stay.
“Fine. I’ll be gone in the morning.”
He gave a short nod. “I think that’s best.”
“Me, too.” She turned and went to her room and shut the door, then entered the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink.
She looked into the mirror, seeing the unshed tears shimmer in her eyes.
Screw Trevor. She was not going to cry over him.
She leaned over the sink to wash her face as big, fat tears slid down her cheeks.
Oh, damn. Maybe she was going to cry over him after all.
HAVEN STAYED UP LATE TO FILE HER LATEST PRODUCTION
notes and photos and to make plane reservations.
It wasn’t like she was going to get any sleep anyway.
She’d cried for an hour, miserable and unhappy and wishing like crazy that Trevor would knock on her door and tell her he was an asshole and beg her forgiveness.
Ha. That hadn’t happened.
She’d made plane reservations, but not back to New York.
She took a flight to Oklahoma, and arrived at her mother’s house the next evening.
Her mother was surprised to see her, and as soon as she saw her mom, the tears came again.
She hadn’t wanted to cry in front of her mom. Her intent was to spend a couple of days there, regroup emotionally, then be on her way.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” her mom asked after she’d let
loose a barrage of sobs and her mom sat with her on the sofa and comforted her with hugs and tissues.
When she had finished crying, she told her mom about Trevor, about letting her guard down and falling in love with him, about how he held himself away from her emotionally, and then, because she trusted her mother implicitly, she told her Trevor’s secret.
“Wow,” her mom said. “That’s some painful secret to hold tight to for all these years. And how that poor boy must be hurtin’ inside.”
Haven shook her head. “How could I not have seen it? I tutored him, Mom.”
“Honey, you didn’t see it because he was clever in hiding it. From you, and obviously, from everyone.”
“How did he get through school unable to read? Through college?”
“He said he reads some, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve worked with kids with literacy issues before. You know how easily they can slide through the system. Trevor’s not dumb. He’s very smart.”
Haven nodded. “Smart enough to game me, and probably his teachers through the years.”
“Yes.”
She was still trying to take it all in. Not just Trevor’s literacy issues, but him summarily throwing her out of his house—out of his life.
She took her things upstairs to her room and spent the first day sulking and feeling utterly drained. She slept late, then got up and had breakfast in town, went for a walk to clear her head, and did some work at the house during the day. When her mom came home from work that day, Haven helped her slice carrots and potatoes for dinner.
She had no more answers today than she had yesterday when she’d arrived. She was still smarting from Trevor asking her to leave and didn’t know what to do about it. Her heart hurt, and it was an awful feeling she simply didn’t want to have. She wanted it all to go away.
She had to get back to work. She’d already spent way too much time mourning her father. She wasn’t going to let herself live in this state of hurt again. Burying herself in work was the solution to all her problems.
“So now that you know Trevor’s secret, what are you going to do about it?” her mom asked as they stood side by side at the kitchen counter.
Haven paused, knife in her hand. “What am I going to do about it? Nothing.”
Her mother slid her a look.
“What? He threw me out of his house. I begged him over and over again to talk to me. I offered to help over and over again, too. And still, he told me to leave. He threw me out.”
“Haven. He’s hurt. And obviously scared.”
She wasn’t buying it. She was hurt, too. “He had ample opportunity to talk to me, Mom. The bottom line is, he doesn’t trust me.”
Her mother laid down the paring knife she’d been using and leaned her hip against the counter. “I know you’re hurt. You care about him, so you’re lettin’ your emotions cloud your judgment. You worked with people like Trevor when you were in school. You know how defensive they got when forced to face what they felt were inadequacies. Don’t you think that’s exactly what Trevor did when you backed him up against the wall and forced him to face the truth about himself?”
“I didn’t—” But she had. She’d pushed him and pushed him until she’d made him admit a secret he’d held on to for his entire life. He’d been angry and upset and he’d lashed out at her. She’d
seen it time and time again during her undergraduate studies, when she’d worked with people who had literacy issues. They got angry and defensive, a lot of times with the people they cared about the most who were only trying to help them.
Haven sighed. “This is hard. I care about him. But I can’t help him if he won’t let me in his life.”
“Do you want to help him?”
“Of course I do.”
Her mom picked up the knife and resumed chopping carrots. “Then you’ll figure out a way. If anyone can, Haven, it’s you. I’ve never known anyone more tenacious.”
She thought about it as they prepped and then ate dinner, and long after her mom had gone to bed.
She’d let her own hurt and her own needs get in the way. She loved him, and she hadn’t told him that. Would it have made a difference? She didn’t know, but she should have tried. She’d walked away when she should have stood her ground and stayed. She should have been a support system to him, not a hindrance.
But maybe this break was good for both of them. Not for long, though.
She had to go back, had to make him understand that she would be there for him if and when he decided he wanted help. Because she could help him.
If anyone could, she could.
She wasn’t going to give up on him.
And this time, she wasn’t going to let him push her away.
THE GAME AT DALLAS HAD GONE OKAY. THEY’D WON
, but only by a field goal. And they hadn’t won because of anything Trevor had done. In fact, he’d downright sucked balls in this game. He’d dropped two passes, caught one for short yardage, and otherwise would have done better acting as the water boy on the sidelines for all the contributions he’d made to the team.
Fortunately, his teammates had more than made up for his deficiencies, allowing them to at least stay in the game.
He felt like shit. He’d felt like shit before the game started, and the two days before, when he’d come out of his room to find that Haven had left.
Not that it should have surprised him to find her gone. He was the one who’d asked her to leave. No. He hadn’t even asked. He’d told her to leave. Hell, he’d tossed her out, so what had he expected her to do? And then, like a little boy, he’d run up to his
room and locked himself inside, scared and afraid that the world was going to find out his secret.
He was such an asshole. For someone who always claimed to be big and bad and fearless, he hadn’t shown any of that when he’d told Haven his secret. Instead, he’d hurled accusations at her and hurt her.
He’d blamed her, as if his problem had been her fault. And then he’d hidden away like a goddamned child.
Some big and bad he was.
He missed her. Just like it had been since she’d first shown up in his life to do the interview, whenever she was gone, he missed her absence. It was like there was a part of himself missing whenever she wasn’t around.
He’d never let anything affect his game play. But losing Haven had an effect on his concentration. All he’d thought about during the game was her. It had shown in his performance today, too. Even now, after the game, he wondered where she was—how she was feeling.
He wanted to call her, to talk to her, but he couldn’t. Not after all the things he’d said. Not after he’d kicked her out of his life.
And he had his friends here today. Garrett and Alicia had come down to Dallas to see the game, and his friend Gray Preston was here, since he’d had an auto race in Dallas yesterday. Drew Hogan was here as well, since he’d flown in to see Gray’s race. They were meeting up for dinner tonight.
Right now he didn’t want to see anyone, but these were his college roommates, his best friends. He had to honor his commitments. Besides, they would help take his mind off Haven.
Garrett and Alicia were waiting for him outside the stadium. He grinned when he saw them.
“That was a decent game,” Garrett said.
Trevor laughed. “That’s a nice way of saying we sucked.”
“At least you won.” Alicia gave him a hug.
“We did win. Barely, but we won.”
“One in the W column. That’s all that counts,” Garrett said.
“Considering how badly I played, I’ll take the W.”
“You can’t always be the superstar, stud.”
Trevor stopped and stared at Garrett. “Of course I can. It’s my trademark.”