pillowtalk.

thirty eight | selfish

"Open up the door Klay!" Stephen yelled as he continued to pound on Klay's door. Draymond sighed heavily as he watched Klay open the door, fresh out the shower shirtless and in basketball shorts. Stephen clenched his jaw as he pushed the man deeper into his room. 

"What the hell, Stephen?"

"Oh lord." Dray took this as his signal to slip himself into the room to make sure the two wouldn't kill each other. 

"What the hell is correct! What the fuck is wrong with you, Klay?" Steph's voice rose. Klay stood with his hands on his hips and his face tilted to the side a bit.

"Just say it."

"You're really going after my girlfriend? Were you really that dumb to believe I wouldn't find out?"

"No one said that. I knew you would."

"Are you crazy?" Steph scrunched his forehead in anger and confusion. He turned to Dray and scoffed. "Is this dude crazy or am I trippin'?"

"I told that dude he was crazy from the jump, but don't drag me in this. I'm only here to make sure ya'll don't fuck each other up before our game. I'm not trying to explain to Coach."

"I don't understand you, man. First, you do all this judging bullshit & you claim you don't like her cause of the most nonexistent reasons. Then, you find yourself going after her as if I'm fucking invisible! You're fucking crazy!" Steph felt his blood boil, so without thinking, he swung at Klay. As his fist made contact with his cheek/jaw area, Klay felt his back hit the wall. 

"Don't fucking take me there, Steph." 

"Do it and see what happens" Klay tended to his jaw quickly before attempting to swing at him. The two continued to aggressively grab each other and fight each other off before Draymond shook his head and quickly devised a plan to get the two to talk like adults.

"No, this isn't going down!" Draymond stepped in between the two, hands against their chests to put space in between the two. "Damn, Steph. You couldn't even wait until he put on a shirt? Nasty." Dray scrunched his forehead as he quickly took his hand off of Klay's chest before sighing . "Look, for one thing, I warned your dumbass." He turned to Klay before turning to Steph. "Second, I know you can handle this better. Ya'll need to sit down and talk about this like adults. None of this swinging and missing with each other. Ya'll look stupid." The two sighed as they watched Draymond pulled two chairs for the two to sit in. "Here. I'ma leave the room and let ya'll talk." He watched the two grumpily take their seats before comfortably leaving the room. 

The two sat in silence a bit, Klay slouched in his chair while Steph leaned onto his knees to try and make sense of everything. The one guy he thought he could trust, ended up being someone he couldn't. Someone who's just totally been against him at all costs recently. Although Klay's been good  to him majority of the time, everything adds up. And with Heart being someone he really cared about, Steph couldn't help but feel overly defensive and protective.

Was he wrong for doing that?

"So are you gonna talk or what? You stormed into my room to kick my ass yet once again."

"I just don't get what the hell goes through your head."

"A lot, actually."

"You know how much that girl means to me. You're supposed to be my best friend, why would you do that?" Steph slowly felt his anger turn into hurt. He couldn't understand why he was acting the way he was and he just felt like he had a right to know what was going on with him.

"Because Stephen, do you really think you're capable of loving that girl the way she deserves to be loved?" Steph looked at him in confusion once more.

"W-what? How could you ask me that? Of course I am, or else I wouldn't be here with her." Klay shook his head.

"You're so selfish, you know that?"

"Selfish when it comes to Heart? I mean, I kind of have to be--"

"See there you go. You don't listen to yourself, do you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You're so selfish that you're willing to bring that girl into a world she's unfamiliar with." Klay kept his gaze on the view outside of his window and clenched his jaw before speaking up once more. "You've got so much going on in your life. You're the MVP of the league. Hell, you get named Western Conference Player of the week damn near every week. There's so much expected of you and so many people look up to you. You do interview after interview, commercial after commercial, ad after ad. As much as you want to believe that you have your own personal life to care for, everything's already out there Steph. You don't do things on your own, or for your own good anymore." Steph sighed and joined Klay by looking out at the view.

"I guess."

"& Yeah, I was wrong. Heart's a sweet girl. She's great. But she's not familiar with this life. You can't just bring her into it thinking she'll be okay with it all the time."

"I mean, I'd like to believe that if both of us were invested in our relationship, it wouldn't be an issue."

"Yeah but that goes back to being selfish. Imagine if ya'll traded places. I'm not trying to tell you what to do or tell you how she feels. Cause I'm in no place to do so."

"I don't know."

"And no, I'm not trying to say I'm better or that my life is different, but it just hasn't been as demanding as it's been for you. Sometimes you just gotta think about her, man. I know you love her, but the life she knows is her and Logan. Her life was rough, but simple. A lot of it could be overwhelming to the girl. Ya'll both been a blessing to each other so far but I just don't think you've been looking at your relationship in full view."

"Yeah." And weirdly, as Steph was piecing everything together, he could see where Klay was coming from. It was slowly starting to make him think about every aspect of the relationship and whether or not it was fitting. 

"My bad. I was pretty drunk that night, I shouldn't have came off that way."

"No, not at all. Gotta keep her away from you for a minute." Steph chuckled a bit before looking down at the floor. "But I got to tell you."

"What?"

"I just don't think you'd care about her as much as I do." Klay shrugged.

"We're all different." 

Stephen figured it was time for him to head to his room. He didn't expect the night to turn out this way at all. Let alone did he see himself talking to Klay the way he was after the screenshots he's seen. 

But unfortunately, the guy somewhat had a point. He wasn't sure if Klay was just saying it just to say it and cause a rift between the two, but he made some sense. Steph learned to love that girl with everything, through everything. But even as good as it looked, he hasn't been looking out for her wellbeing the way he should. He's been caught up in the moments that he liked to believe he was good for her.

He wasn't so sure about that after tonight. 

Getting to his room, he plopped on his bed and looked at the ceiling in complete darkness. He allowed his thoughts to devour him, piece by piece.

And it was killing him.

HD: Babe, are you alright? You didn't hurt him, did you? I told you not to do anything drastic, Wardell! 

SC: Yeah, I'm alright. Look, I'm pretty tired. I'll just talk to you tomorrow, alright?

HD: Okay. I love you.

SC: Love you too.

He felt so different.