My cheeks flamed so fast I hoped my makeup hid at least a little of the red I knew was finding my skin. “Shut up.”
“You shut up and tell us everything,” Riley said.
I screwed up my face at the paradox of what she’d said, but they were already dragging me to the bed. They sat me down and stood above me, arms folded and waiting.
“You guys are being so weird, nothing is going on,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Riley shot back. “You can’t have one of my teammates look at you like that and feed me the lie that it’s nothing. Zeke and I kept our shit hidden for weeks before anyone knew. I know what hiding it looks like.”
“Ditto,” Giana said, holding up one finger. “And you don’t even have the guise of pretending you’re dating to cover you.”
I sighed. “It’s… nothing. Really. We haven’t done anything.”
Riley arched a brow. “But you want to?”
My heart squeezed. ”It’s complicated.”
“Welp, no time like right now to unravel it,” Giana said, and she hopped into the bed with me. “Spill.”
I was already opening my mouth to make up some lame excuse or brush them off again when something kicked me hard in the chest. It came from the inside out, like the very essence of who I was refused to let me flee.
And I realized that I wanted to tell them.
I’d never told anyone — mostly because I didn’t feel close enough to anyone to tell. But here were two girls who’d become my friends — my best friends — and they were asking. They wanted to know what was going on. They wanted to help.
So, I took a deep breath, and I told them everything.
I told them about that summer, about how I’d fallen so hard and completely for the version of Leo I knew online. I told them about his texts and our late-night phone calls, about the times he wished so badly to know who I was. Then, with a tight throat, I told them about the day I revealed myself, how he’d rejected me, and finally, how I’d blocked him and killed any connection we had left. My voice grew a little shakier when I told them he had no idea who I was now, that my appearance had changed so much thanks to braces, my skin clearing up, and how I’d grown into my curves.
Various reactions crawled across their faces as I spoke, from shock and excitement to anger and hurt and everything in-between.
When I finished, Riley took a deep breath as Giana hopped up from the bed. “Okay, wait, so let me get this straight.” She held up her hand and ticked off fingers as she said, “You two were basically in love as teenagers, you told him who you were and he rejected you, then the dummy didn’t even remember who you were when you moved in across the street, then you ended up becoming roommates, and now he’s been being nice to you, giving you his jacket to wear and buying you candles and looking at you like he wants you so bad he has to sit on his hands to keep from acting on it, and through all this,” she said with a wave of her hand around the room. “He still has zero idea who you are?”
I shifted on the bed. “I mean, I think love is a strong word for what we had when—”
“Bah,” Giana said, waving me off in a huff. “Whatever it was, it’s strong enough that it’s had you in a grip all this time. And maybe Leo, too.”
“I’ve never seen him date anyone seriously,” Riley added.
I snorted. “Yeah, but that’s because it’s Leo. He’d rather bang anything with tits and legs than be locked down.”
“You sure about that?” Riley asked, and the three of us fell silent, considering.
After a moment, Giana clasped her hands together under her chin with her lashes fanning over her big eyes. “God, this is like—”
“Do not start listing off your smutty book tropes,” I warned her.
She pressed her lips together, face turning red like she would burst if she couldn’t get them out.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Riley said with an incredulous smile. “When are you going to tell him?”
“I’m not.”
They both balked at that. “What the fuck do you mean, you’re not,” Riley said, and Giana shook her head with the same notion.
I stood and brushed my hands over my dress. “Look, he doesn’t remember who I am, which just shows how insignificant I was to him. And even if he did remember, he was a complete asshole to me and ruined my entire high school experience.”
“It sounds like his friends did that,” Giana pointed out.
“Yeah. And he stood idly by and let them. He didn’t stand up for me. And when he saw what I looked like in real life, he decided I wasn’t worthy of his time anymore.” Just remembering it had me seething, and I was thankful for that anger, because it had been so absent lately that I wondered if it had evaporated altogether.
That anger was a blessing. It saved me from being stupid.
“He’s a prick and I’m over it,” I said with finality I only half felt.
At that, Riley and Giana folded their arms in sync. “Sure, sure, that’s why you two were all eye-fucking just a second ago,” Riley said.
“Don’t you think he’s changed since then? Grown up a little?” Giana added. “Maybe he deserves a chance to explain.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek as that foggy memory of the preseason game surfaced again. I knew we were talking about something when I climbed into bed, when he was about to leave the room…
God, what was it?
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember.
“Look, things with Leo are just too complicated and hold too much pain for me to rehash. Okay? It’s a lot easier for me to remind myself of all the reasons I hate him than it is to think of how he might have changed.”
Giana’s face crumpled at my admission.
“For now, we have a good thing going. We’re friendly and cohabitating. That’s all I want. And,” I added, swiping my jacket off the back of Leo’s chair. “To go out and have a good time with my girls tonight.”
They didn’t look pleased with my insistence to drop the subject, but fortunately, they did.
And after quickly applying lipstick and last-minute touches, we were out the door and on our way to the bar.
Leo
I felt like an unexploded bomb ready to detonate at the slightest movement.
Something lethal stirred in my veins as I drank at the bar with my teammates, a little too attuned to the door as I waited for Mary to walk through it.
I couldn’t place my agitation, couldn’t figure out how I’d managed to be completely fine around Mary until tonight. I’d survived that night in my room with her naked in my bed, kept my hands to myself and didn’t push her when she said she didn’t remember a thing. I had been content to live in this somewhat stable peace between us, knowing that was all I’d get from her.
But seeing her in that dress tonight, watching the way she took me in, how her skin tinged pink… it had wired me up tight enough to combust.
I had to have her.
At the very least, I had to shoot my shot, to tell her that I wanted her and not back down. I wouldn’t let her hide, either. If she didn’t want anything to do with me, she’d have to say it to my face — and the way she looked at me, I knew even if she could get the words out, they’d be a lie.