AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where the fuck are you going, Alderchuck?”
“I’m kicked out of the game thanks to you.”
“No, I’m kicked out of the game thanks to you.”
“You are?”
“Yep, and I don’t give a fuck. Wanna know why?”
“Why?”
“I love you. I fucking love you so much it hurts to breathe around you sometimes. The possibility that you might not be with me turns my insides into an empty wasteland?—”
“S-Sutter?—”
The entire city is watching the hockey game. It’s a fucking ghost town out here—kinda creepy, actually. But the few people outside Starbucks are getting a different form of entertainment than the ones inside the building—the Sutterchuck soap opera.
“You don’t get it. It’s like Mad Max in here. The apocalypse didn’t start because of zombies, it began because I fell in love with you.”
Casey’s frozen. His mouth opens and closes a few times as he searches for words. “You love me?”
His teeth are blood-soaked, thanks to my fist. My face throbs where he used it as a punching bag, the skin tightening as it swells. We’re sweaty. Disgusting. But I need him to know. I justneedhim to know.
I tear my helmet off and send it clattering across the pavement. Taking a step into his space, I lick my cracked lips, sucking my lower one in, nodding.
“Don’t say that shit unless you really fucking mean it.”
“I really fucking mean it, more than I’ve ever meant anything.” My hands clench and unclench. I need my skin against his. That helmet of his has got to go. I tear it from his head, and it cracks against the concrete. I slide a cold palm onto his cheek. He’s searing hot. Pain and torment rage inside me. I lick my cracked lips again.
“Please say I haven’t lost you.” My voice sounds like I’ve been running sandpaper over it daily.
Silent tears snake over his cheeks, and his eyes wince minutely as the salty liquid stings its way down his face, over the smattering of cuts from the game, until the wetness hits my fingers.
“I’m gonna be too weird, or too much for you at some point.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Sutter!”
“I’ve licked ketchup out of your asshole, Alderchuck. I think the normal train has sailed for me.”
“But it’s more than weird food fetishes. I need … I need someone to … fuck.” He can’t even get the words out, and I get it, they make him too vulnerable.
He doesn’t need to say a thing. I’ve already figured it out. The third thing. Maybe the most important thing to know about Casey, the thing he might feel but doesn’t know how to put words to. He needs someone who’s not afraid to be swept into his storm. He needs to be able to run away, push away, beat away with a fucking bat, and know that I’m not going anywhere. Not only will I not go anywhere, I’ll redirect his Casey hurricane—not suffocate it, because oh what a shame that would be. He’s beautiful when he’s roaring with unspent anger.
I can take it. I want it. I crave it. I love the challenge in his eyes, the tension of a wildcat in his body, and the unspoken dare that I could never handle him.
Yes, I fucking can.
I’m your man, Casey Alderchuck.
“I already know you need looking after, kitten, and how you need to be looked after. Your needs are my needs, baby.”
“My mom … m-my mom …” His lip trembles, shaking with the earth-shattering kind of pain his brother’s spent the better part of a decade guiding to a landing rather than letting him crash and burn.
“You don’t have to say it. You never have to say it.” His mom left in the same way my dad left. Too soon and before they wanted to. Kinda leaves its mark in different ways. I put locks on shit and prep for “just in case”, he needs people who’ll fight to stay with him. “You’ve been challenging me since the day wemet, and I’m still here, aren’t I? Push me away all you want. I love dragging you back to me, kicking and screaming. Especially kicking and screaming.”
He smirks.
