Chapter 96 The Talk

Chapter 96 The Talk


CASSIAN’S POV

I knew Torin was scared before he said a word.

He had been quiet all evening, which was never a good sign, especially when the room was full and the season was moving fast and he was trying to pretend his body was not hurting him more than he wanted to admit. He sat beside me on the couch with one hand resting loosely on his knee and the other wrapped around a water bottle he had not touched in twenty minutes.

I watched him over the top of my phone and knew something was coming.

He kept looking at the floor.

Then at the window.

Then at me, but only for half a second each time.

When he finally stood up, he did it with that careful motion he used when the knee was bothering him and he did not want me to notice. He crossed to the kitchen, set the bottle down, and leaned one hand on the counter like he needed the support for more than balance.

I put my phone down.

“Talk to me,” I said.

He kept his head turned away for a second too long. “I am talking.”

“No, you are not.”

That got a small breath out of him, not quite a laugh. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and looked at me then, and the expression on his face made my chest tighten immediately.

There it was.

Fear. Not the loud kind. The quiet kind that had been sitting under everything for weeks.

I stood up and took a step toward him. “Torin.”

He looked at me but did not answer.

I stopped in front of him. The apartment was quiet except for the air conditioner and the low sound of traffic outside. The television was off. The lights were dim. It felt too late for a fight and too early for bad news.

He finally said, “I need to say something.”

That was worse than silence.

I folded my arms. “Okay.”

He did not move right away. His jaw tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. That was the only sign he was fighting whatever this was.

“I have been thinking,” he said.

I waited.

His eyes met mine, then dropped, then came back up again like he hated the words before they left his mouth.

“I am scared,” he said.

I did not speak.

He let out a breath and looked away for a second. “That if my knee gives out, the team will push me aside.”

The room went still.

He kept going because he had already started. “And then you will move on.”

I stared at him.

He looked back at me, face tight, voice rougher now. “You will find somebody younger, healthier, somebody who does not need to think twice before taking the stairs or pretending to be fine after practice.”

That landed hard enough to make me stop breathing for a second.

I took one step closer.

He continued anyway, eyes fixed on mine now like he had decided to get all of it out before his nerve failed. “I know how this works. I know what teams do when a player starts breaking down. I know what people say when they want to be kind about it.”

My jaw tightened.

He was still talking.

“And I know what it looks like when someone gets tired of waiting for the damage to catch up.” His voice dropped. “I do not blame anybody for that. I just do not want to be stupid about it.”

I stared at him, and the part of me that had spent all season trying to hold him together felt something sharp twist under the words.

He thought I would leave.

He thought the team would replace him.

I took another step closer, and this time he did not look away.

“You think I would do that,” I said quietly.

He swallowed once. “I think it is a possibility.”

The honesty of that almost made me angry enough to laugh.

Instead I reached for his face.

He froze immediately.

My hands came up to his jaw, thumbs brushing along either side before I could stop myself. He looked at me with that same focused, guarded expression, but I saw the tension in him immediately. The way his breathing changed. The way his shoulders loosened by a fraction when I touched him.

“Torin,” I said, slower this time, “I need you to listen to me.”

His gaze stayed on mine.

I kept my hands there, steady on his face. “I did not fall in love with your knees.”

That hit so hard I saw it on his face before he could hide it.

I did not let him look away.

“I did not fall in love with your body only when it was perfect,” I said. “I fell in love with you.”

His mouth parted slightly.

The room felt much smaller now.

I held his face in both hands and made him keep looking at me because this had been building for too long and I was done letting him sit alone in it. “I fell in love with the way you show up even when you are hurting. The way you think about everybody else before yourself. The way you carry too much and still try to smile at me like it is nothing.”

His throat moved once.

I leaned in just enough for him to feel how serious I was. “So no. I am not going to find somebody younger and healthier. I am not waiting for the first sign of weakness and then walking out.”

He blinked once.

“Stop talking like I am here because you are useful to me,” I said, quieter now. “I am here because I want you.”

That did it.

I saw the change in him immediately. The fear was still there, but it had cracked open enough for something else to get through. Relief. Maybe. Or disbelief. Maybe both. He looked at me like he wanted to believe me and was still afraid of how much.

My hand slid from his jaw to the back of his neck. “You hear me?”

He nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

I was already too close by then. He was too close too. The air between us had changed. The fight was still in the room, but it had moved under the surface and become something hotter, more dangerous. The kind of tension that makes it hard to think about anything except the person in front of you.

His voice came out rough. “You make it sound easy.”

“It is not easy.”

“Then why say it like that?”

I looked at him and felt the answer before I spoke it. “Because it is true.”

His eyes held mine.

Then he said, very quietly, “I am scared of losing this.”

I tightened my hand at the back of his neck. “You are not going to lose me because your knee hurts.”

“I am not talking about the knee.”

I knew that.

He knew I knew that.

The truth between us sat there for a second too long.

Then he let out a breath and said it plainly. “I am scared that if I cannot give you what you deserve, you will finally realize you could have had someone easier.”

That hit me harder than the rest.

I just looked at him.

His expression was so open now it almost hurt to see it. Not weak. Honest. The kind of honesty that leaves no room to hide.

I stepped in and kissed him before I could think about anything else.

It was not soft. Not at first. It was too full of everything he had just said and everything I had been holding in. He made a quiet sound against my mouth and kissed me back immediately, hands landing at my waist like they belonged there. The fight was still there in the room somewhere, but it was drowned under everything else now.

Heat. Relief. Want. The awful, beautiful thing we kept doing where we fought and then had to remember we were still in love after all of it.

When I pulled back, his forehead came to mine automatically.

His hands were still on my waist.

I could feel his breathing, uneven now, and the tension in his body was changing by degrees. Not gone. Just softened enough for the truth to have room.

“You do not get to decide who I choose for me,” I said quietly.

He gave the smallest laugh, rough and shaky. “That sounded like a threat.”

“It was.”

He smiled then, just a little, and the sight of it nearly undid me.

I kissed him again, slower this time, because the first one had been too full of panic and fear and all the things that needed to be said but not all at once. This one was steadier. He sighed into it and held on tighter for a second before we separated.

He looked at me after, still close enough that I could feel the warmth of him.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For thinking that.”

I studied him. He meant it. He really meant it.

I brushed my thumb once over his cheek. “You are allowed to be scared.”

His mouth tightened. “I do not like being scared.”

“I know.”

He looked at me for a long second, then his shoulders finally dropped. Just a little. Enough to tell me something in him had shifted. He was still afraid. That did not disappear because I kissed him and said the truth back.

But the lie between us had loosened.

We stayed like that for a while, close and quiet, until he finally said, “What if the team pushes me aside anyway?”

I let out a breath through my nose and touched my forehead to his. “Then I will be right there when they try.”

That got a small, real smile out of him.

“And if the season starts and I am still not right?” he asked.

“Then we deal with that too.”

He searched my face. “Together?”

I did not hesitate. “Together.”