71. Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-seven
Leo
Alex knows.
If I had any doubts that he didn’t, they’re thwarted when I walk into the locker room to find him sitting on a bench, surrounded by cleats and towels, with his head in his hands.
My heart thunders in time with my echoing footsteps, the sound bouncing off the stone floor and lockers painted red in the team color. I toss my bag onto the bench beneath where my jersey and number are displayed on the wall, directly next to his.
We have twenty minutes before the rest of the boys are likely to roll in. Twenty minutes for my very best friend to kill me for betraying him by falling in love with his sister.
“Hi.” He doesn’t look up.
Acid rolls in my stomach. I think I’m going to throw up.
“Hey.” My voice croaks around a ball in my throat as I shift on my feet.
He says nothing, just sighs, long and defeated, into his hands. The sound is fraught with disappointment, and my heart plunges into the depths of my gut.
I want him to yell at me. Hell, I kind of want him to hit me.
God knows I’d deserve it. And I wouldn’t fight back, wouldn’t even defend myself. I’d take every ounce of his anger until it had drained from his system.
I expected anger. But I didn’t expect this.
His silent, harrowing disappointment suffocates the air around us, choking me until I can barely breathe.
I can’t do this.
“Alex, I’m so sor—”
“Issy kissed me.” His sharp statement cuts me off, his eyes finally rising to mine, guilt and nerves swirling inside irises the exact same shade as his sister’s.
I can do nothing but blink at him and gape. There’s a lot of gaping, actually, so much so that the stale air in the locker room dries my tongue to the point of pain.
He doesn’t know.
Relief like I’ve never felt cascades through my body, making me unsteady on my legs. Alex, seemingly overridden with his own guilt, mistakes my buckling knees for shock.
He launches from his seat toward me, holding my shoulders and staring into my face. “I didn’t kiss her back, Leo. I would never, I hope you know that. But—” His lashes flutter shut as he sucks in a quaking breath through his nose, “I must have done something to make her think I was interested.”
“Alex.” But he doesn’t stop.
“I didn’t mean to give her that impression. Truly I didn’t. Sure, I made some dick jokes here and there, but that’s just me, man. I like joking about dicks, you know that.” His shoulders sag with the weight of his needless guilt. “I don’t know what I did that made her think it was okay to kiss me, but I must have done something, and I’m just…you’re my best friend, and I’d never—”
“Alex,” I say again, firmer this time. But it’s like he doesn’t hear me, or if he does, he’s too desperate to get his next words out to stop.
“I’m so sorry.”
Fuck.
It’s like he’s driven a knife through my gut. Guilt rips its way through the wreckage, violent in its assault of my senses. I feel it in every nerve and blood cell as it smarts like an electrical burn.
Here I am, knowing I’ve been fucking the most precious person in the world to him behind his back for months. And here he is, so solemn and panicked in his confession, flinching as if waiting for me to strike him.
I don’t think there’s a person on this Earth who hates themselves as much as I do right now.
It doesn’t matter that I’m in love with Brynn. Alex won’t see past the betrayal of me having touched her at all. He especially won’t see past the fact that I’ve failed to tell him for so long.
“Alex,” I try again. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
His brows pull tight in confusion. “But I—”
“But nothing. Issy is the mother of my child, yes, but she means nothing to me beyond that. I have no claim over her, so even if you had kissed her, I wouldn’t care.” Swallowing, I force myself through the rest. “But thank you for letting me know.”
He slumps, relief billowing from him in waves. “I wouldn’t go there, though, even if you said it’s okay. You’re my best friend. Bro code, you know?”
The knife in my gut twists.
Goddamn bro code. Goddamn it all to hell.
Nodding mutedly, because I’m terrified of what I’ll say if I speak, I clap him on the shoulder.
He beams at me. “Thanks, man. I don’t deserve you.”
Gulping, I shake my head. Then quietly, so he can’t hear, I mutter, “It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.”
Wind whips through my hair as I launch myself down the right-wing of the soccer field, the crowd roaring louder the closer I get to the opposition’s side of the center line.
Ahead of me, Alex is doing his damndest to outrun an astonishingly fast defender on the opposing team. He tries to tell me something with his eyes, silently communicating with me in the way we’ve always been able to do. But I’m too lost in my head today to understand or even attempt to try.
A frown mars his face as he realizes I’m not picking up his cues, dipping out of the defender’s cover to make himself clear for a pass.
I send my foot into the ball, steering it in his direction, but I don’t put enough power behind it. The other team’s midfielder intercepts, sending it flying across the field to their striker, who receives it with perfect control and sends it seamlessly into the net with all the flair and aptitude that is usually expected from me.
“What the fuck, Sully?” Alex roars through the early spring air. “I was open!”
I can’t look at him. If I do, I’ll spill everything right here on the stadium turf, with the fans chanting our names and wearing our numbers in a sickeningly ironic display of loyalty.
So, I walk away from him, centering myself in the middle of the field and waiting for Arun’s goal kick to send the ball soaring through the air once more.
We concede another goal before half-time, and though Coach Carter reems my ass in the locker room during the fifteen-minute break, I don’t feel at all re-energized as I wait in my position for the ref to hiss a single blow of his whistle.
Against my control, my gaze finds itself drawn to the family stand. Brynn’s slender fingers are wrapped around a cup of something hot, steam drifting up from it to wind in her braided hair.
Even from here, I can see the pink staining her cheeks and the lines of tension by her eyes, almost hidden underneath the visor of the ball cap she stole from me this morning. Her jacket hides her jersey, pulled tight around her body as she shivers from the cold.
At her right, Isabella holds Salem on her hip. I watch as she twists, my eyes widening in shock as I realize what she’s wearing.
Rage is a red, violent mist as it tears through me. The number eleven on Isabella’s back taunts me every time she moves enough for me to catch it.
She stole one of my jerseys—the ones I’d given Brynn to wear when she watches me play. Even if she does have to hide my number under a sweater so her brother doesn’t notice, it was supposed to be a secret we shared to help me through every game. A reminder that she belongs to me, that she’s cheering me on, that she is mine just as I am hers. Isabella has no right to wear something with such significance.
I don’t even hear the whistle blow.
I’m only snapped into action when Roman comes steaming up beside me with a “what the fuck” expression on his face. He snaps me the ball with ease then thunders ahead into a clear space to allow me to pass it back.
“What’s your fucking problem today?” he growls before dribbling the ball past two offensive players and crossing it over to Alex.
“Nothing,” I grumble.
“Better not be, or you’re gonna lose this game for everyone.”
Minutes tick by as the team tries to equal the score. I watch my friends with regret as they bust their asses, picking up the slack for me every time I squander the ball or misread a signal.
In the eightieth minute, I find myself with a clear line to the goal. The other team’s keeper has come too far out in the penalty box, leaving the net wide open. I know what to do. I’ve done it hundreds of times before. I know how to score a scream-worthy goal like I’ve been doing it my whole life, because I have.
The crowd holds their breath as I boot the ball hard with my right foot. They know what’s coming. They’re readying themselves to jump up and chant in celebration.
The ball curves in the air in a near-perfect arc before hitting the post and rebounding into the stands.
I missed.
A perfect, fool-proof goal opportunity, and I missed like a fucking amateur.
Alex stands with his hands on his hips around forty or so yards away from me, though I can hear his sigh from here. He doesn’t yell at me, just tilts his head as he looks at me with disappointment.
I was right when I said I don’t deserve him.
Because we lose the game, and it’s all my fault.