The team was used to my sour attitude by now. They’d stopped giving me hell about it, stopped trying to pry information out of me, too. Now, they just sort of avoided me, like I was a flu they didn’t want to catch.
I quietly undressed, leaving my Under Armour briefs on until I made it to the shower, mostly just for Riley’s sake. When it was just me and a few guys, I stripped the rest of the way down, sighing heavily as the first bit of steaming hot water rained down on me.
My skin burned in protest before it adjusted, and then my muscles all relaxed at once, and I stood there under the showerhead content to be that way for hours. I ran my face under the water, squeezing my eyes shut as the warmth enveloped me.
Until, very suddenly, the water ran cold.
“What the fuck!”
I reached out blindly for the faucet, but was met with a wet t-shirt instead. Then, in my blind disorientation, the water shut off, I was thrown a towel, and all but shoved down until I was on my ass with my back against the cold tile wall.
“Cover your anaconda,” Zeke said, his voice one I’d recognize anywhere. I used the towel to wipe my eyes clean before I laid it over my lap and looked up to find him and Holden standing over me.
“Out,” Holden said, snapping his fingers to the two other guys who had been in the showers with me. They gave me a look that said thoughts and prayers before dipping out at our captain’s orders.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“Riley,” Zeke called, ignoring me, and where the two guys had just disappeared, she peeked around the corner, making sure I was covered before she walked all the way in.
“Sorry for the barbarian ambush,” Riley said, crossing her arms as she joined the other two standing over me. “But we didn’t know what else to do to get you to talk.”
“Talk?”
“We want to know what’s going on,” Holden said, filling in the gaps. “And not the bullshit lie or half-truth you’ve been spitting when someone is brave enough to press you. You’re not okay. And if being with Maliyah was really what you wanted, you’d be over the fucking moon instead of a human version of Eeyore.”
I sighed. “I do want to be with Maliyah.”
As soon as the words were off my lips, Riley gave the guys a look, and they both stepped back just in time for her to turn the faucet and make icy cold water rain down on me.
“Riley! What the fuck!”
I held up my arms to shield myself from it — not that I really could — until she turned it off again. The towel over my lap was soaked now, and cold.
“You’re getting an ice bath every time you say some stupid shit like that,” she warned. “So I’d try again if I were you.”
I growled. “This is bullshit, I’m not—”
I tried to stand, but Zeke met my chest with a firm hand, pushing me back against the wall.
“Stop trying to handle whatever is going on alone,” he said, his voice loud and firm. “Goddamnit, Clay — can’t you see your friends are worried about you? You’ve been there for every single one of us at one point or another,” he continued, and I looked behind him at where Riley and Holden nodded in agreement before my eyes met Zeke’s again. “Let us help you now.”
Something raw and emotional snagged in my throat, and I tore my gaze from them, looking at the empty shower hall as I swallowed down whatever it was that was choking me. I was silent for a long while, shaking my head, intent to come back with some sort of argument.
But I didn’t have one.
Instead, I finally relented, sighing and letting my head fall back against the tile.
“It’s a long story,” I croaked.
Riley carefully lowered herself down onto the wet tile next to me, not a care in the world that it was going to soak her shorts when she did. She reached over and grabbed my forearm.
“We have time.”
Zeke and Holden sat down, too.
“We could move somewhere that isn’t the shower,” I suggested.
“Not a chance,” Riley said. “I need that faucet threat hanging over you. Literally.”
I smirked, then blew out a breath, and told them everything.
I was shocked at how easily the words came once I started, beginning with the deal I’d struck with Giana and ending with the nightmarish scene at her apartment — which was the last time we’d spoken.
All three of them leaned in, listening intently, and at the end of it all, they exchanged looks before Holden shook his head and said, “So, you did all this for your mom?”