But this is real.

My head is throbbing with a sickly ache, my mouth tastes putrid, sour, like I can taste my own bloody heart. My knuckles burn where they hit and hit and hit that man again and again.

I’m beyond disgusted with myself.

That feeling hurts most of all.

And I’m terrified to open my eyes.

If I keep them closed, I’ll never have to face up to anything.

But the images come slamming back into me, reminding me that this side of me is never going away. What’s done is done and I did it in front of the woman I love.

“Hey,” I hear her voice and it sounds like an angel, pure and light and the opposite of me. “Hey,” she says again, her soft hand on my arm, shaking me. “I would let you sleep but I know you have practice in an hour.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Practice.

God I am such a fucking wanker.

I slowly open my eyes, the light causing mini explosions deep inside my head. I see Kayla peering over me. Her eyes are puffy and she looks tired. Beautiful, still, but it hurts to know that I’m probably the cause of a restless night, of terror and sorrow.

I lick my lips and try to speak but I can’t. No words come.

“Hey,” she says again, gently touching my cheekbone. Somehow she’s staring at me like she still likes me. I don’t see how that’s possible. She’s finally seen what I’m like. I’m surprised she’s even here at all.

I attempt to clear my throat. “I’m sorry,” I croak, staring at her imploringly, wishing I could open up my chest so she can see how sorry I am. My heart feels damp, waterlogged.

“It’s fine, I get it,” she says.

I shake my head, even though it makes my brain feel like it’s caving in. “You shouldn’t get it. There’s no excuse. I’m just…I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“Well you were drunk,” she says.

I close my eyes, rubbing at my forehead. The god damn shame is like an anvil on my chest and I can’t shake it. And I shouldn’t. “I was drunk, I know, and I shouldn’t have been.”

“But that guy was being an asshole. He was asking for it. He wanted you to fight him.”

“I know. I know and I was trying not to.” I give her a pained look. “But then he called you that name and I just…I couldn’t let it slide. I’m sorry but my tolerance for racist fuckheads is lower than my tolerance for men who disrespect my woman. I snapped.” I suck in my breath. “I just fucking snapped.”

“I know,” she says soothingly but I don’t want her to be soothing. Because it’s not okay. It’s never okay. I don’t deserve to be soothed right now.

I close my eyes for a moment. “And I shouldn’t have snapped. I should have walked away. I should have never been there to begin with. I don’t know what happened, it was all fine one moment and the next…I was punching a bag of blood.”

She grimaces at that and I immediately regret my words.

“Sorry,” I tell her quickly. “I’m just…it won’t happen again.”

“Has it happened before?” she asks cautiously. “Because Thierry made it seem like you’d been in trouble with the police before.”

“Well yeah, I have,” I tell her. “But not for that. I mean, I’ve been in a lot of fights. It’s Edinburgh. It happens. And I’m a rugby player. Everyone wants to prove their worth against someone like me. And I’ve been in trouble in the past. On the streets. You know…back then. But I’ve never been arrested, I can promise you that.”

I sigh and prop myself up on my elbows, the blanket falling down to my waist. I look her dead in the eye. “When I first got Lionel, some wanker complained about him. For no reason at all. Lionel has always been nothing but sweet. But someone had it in for me and hate is a poison. Lionel was taken away from me briefly under the banned breed act. I didn’t see Lionel for weeks while they assessed his behaviour. Thankfully he passed all their supposed tests with flying colors. But they weren’t so sure about me. Somehow though, the judge gave me back Lionel and that was that. As long as he was muzzled, I was allowed to have him.” I pause. “But if I ever get in trouble with the police, I’m terrified they could link the two and Lionel might be taken away for good. Ultimately destroyed, as that’s what they do. I need to be on my best behaviour.”

“I’m sorry to say,” she says, “but last night was not your best behaviour.” She stares down at her hands, a strand of hair falling over her face. “And I hate to tell you this but…you scared me. A lot.”

Fuck. It’s like a bullet to the chest to hear that from her.

She goes on. “Not because I felt I was in jeopardy. I just didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know what you would do. You’re…please, just take it easy from now on. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” She finally looks at me, her eyes wet with tears and it pushes that bullet further in, breaking my fucking heart into a million pieces. “I…care so much about you, you don’t even know, Lachlan. You don’t even know.”

I reach for her, cupping her cheek, completely overwhelmed with every emotion possible. But on the forefront, racing first, is hope.

A memory floods back to me, hazy, but the feeling is bloody clear.

“Last night,” I say gruffly, searching deep in her warm eyes, “I told you that I love you. Did that happen? Or was it a dream?”

A small smile lifts her the corner of her lips. “You told me you loved me.”

I grunt, looking away, nodding quickly. “Okay. What did you say?”

“You passed out before I could say anything,” she says.

I eye her, suddenly afraid for her to go on. “What would you have said?” I ask her, wishing my voice didn’t sound so thin and reedy.

She stares at me for so long that I’m almost lost to the fear, to the rejection, to the fact that I’ve been nothing but a sad, pathetic fool.

“You know what?” I say quickly, my breath hurting my lungs. “I don’t want to know, forget it, it doesn’t matter.”

She leans in quickly and kisses me flush on the lips. Soft, yielding, always beautiful. She rests her forehead against mine, our mouths inches away. “I would have told you that I love you too. That I’m desperately, foolishly in love with you.”

I close my eyes, trying to keep a sob from rising out of my chest. “And now?” I whisper. “In the light of day?”

“In the light of day I love you even more.”

I can’t even handle it. My whole system of being wants to break down.

“In the light of day,” she says to me, “I can see all your cracks and your darkness and your flaws and I fall in love with it all. And I hope you can fall in love with everything that I am, all that lurks in my dark, all that shines in my light. I want you to love every little piece of me, because it all belongs to you.”

At first her words hurt, they hurt, because I’m feeling them so deep down, like a knife plunged straight into my chest. But it’s not pain it’s joy so acute that I can’t even process it. And the knife, the knife is red-hot, then warm and it’s spreading across me, better than the sweetest, most merciless drug.

I want to cry. Yell. Shout. I’m not made for this and I’m a bottle rocket full of energy with nowhere to go.

I can only whisper, “I love you,” even though my voice is broken, even though I feel painfully whole. “I love you,” I tell her and kiss her simultaneously.

“I love you.”

I kiss her cheek.

“I love you.”

I kiss her neck.

“I love you.”

I kiss the swell of her breasts.

And then my hands are sliding down her body and I’m turning on top of her and I’m ravenous and starved for every bit of love I can possibly get.

We move in slow motion, through honey, and it’s slow and sweet. I pull down her underwear and push inside of her and she opens up to me like she’s letting me in for the first time. Her legs wrap around my waist like she’s never going to let go.

And I want to believe that she won’t let go.

That she’s not leaving me in two weeks.