I closed my eyes, shaking my head, not because I was refusing to listen, but because I hated how much everything they said made sense. Maybe it was something I’d known all along, something that swam under the surface of my need to be the one to fix everything for my mom, for Maliyah, for anyone in my life who was in trouble.
“Where was all this sage advice two weeks ago?” I whispered on a sad laugh.
“Right here. You were just too damn prideful to come to your friends and ask for help,” Riley said.
“Fair,” I admitted on a sigh. Then, I looked at each of them. “I hear you. And I… I know you’re right.”
“How badly did that hurt?” Zeke teased with a smirk.
I tried to smile, too, but it fell flat as I considered everything. “I’ll talk to Cory. And I’ll call my mom, explain everything. Maliyah wants to get sushi right after this, so I guess I can face her first. She deserves to know the truth.”
My stomach curled at the thought. It would be back-to-back disappointment from each person, but I knew I had no choice but to face the mess I’d created.
“And Giana?” Riley pressed.
My chest ached. “She’s moved on.”
Riley frowned. “Okay, I love you, Clay, but how stupid are you?” She shook her head. “That girl is far from moved on. She…” Riley inhaled a breath that stopped her next word. “You need to talk to her.”
“She’s with Shawn,” I said, the words nearly killing me as I croaked them out. “I’m too late.”
“What are you talking about?” Riley asked.
“I saw them together on Sunday. They were at the coffee shop.” I swallowed. “He was hugging her, and she was staring up at him, laughing.” I paused. “As she should be. I want her to be happy.”
“Oh, cut the shit,” Riley said, abruptly standing. “She’s not with Shawn, you dummy. She met up with him to tell him everything that happened. She needed some sort of closure — and she knew it wasn’t coming from you.”
Zeke and Holden stood with her as I shook my head, confused. “How do you know this?”
She tilted her chin. “Don’t worry about how I know it. What you need to worry about now is how you fix this.”
My head was spinning, and I stood to join them, carefully maneuvering the towel so it stayed covering me until I could tie it around my waist.
“I… I can’t.” I said. “I fucked this up beyond repair.”
“Ugh, you are infuriating,” Riley said, hanging her hands on her hips. She looked at Zeke next. “Were you this stupid, too, when we were broken up?”
“Worse,” he answered.
Riley rolled her eyes, then turned her focus back to me. “You read her books, didn’t you?”
I narrowed my gaze. “How do you know that?”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes, I read her books.”
“Okay, well, did you only pay attention to the sex scenes, or did you read the end?” She threw her hand out at me, as if the answer was floating in the air between us. “She’s waiting on you. She’s waiting for you to tell her the truth — which is that you fucked up, that you love her, that you’re stupid and you’re sorry and you can’t live without her.” She smiled. “This is the part where you get the girl, you idiot.”
“The grand gesture,” Zeke added, and my eyebrows shot up as he shrugged me off. “What? I know how to romance,” he said in defense.
I shook my head, running a hand back through my hair as hope flitted dangerously in my chest. I wanted to snuff it out like a flame not meant to be started, but it grew and grew, raging into a full-on forest fire as an idea bloomed under the smoke.
“Your wheels are turning, aren’t they?” Holden asked on a smirk.
I looked at him, at Riley, at Zeke — at my friends, who had essentially run into a burning building to save me. And the amount of gratitude I felt was too much to hold, too much to speak into life — but I hoped they saw it. I hoped they knew.
“What do you have in mind?” Zeke asked.
“And more importantly,” Riley added. “How can we help?”
Giana
“Leo, I need you in the press room — now,” I said, tugging him by his grass-stained jersey.
He made a joke that I didn’t quite hear, because our intern was screaming into her headpiece about how Holden was being surrounded on the field and couldn’t break loose.