16. Brooke
”You ever consider yoga?” Nova puffs, her pink ponytail bobbing and her earmuffs making her look like a kid.
”Too slow,” I say as the trail turns. My legs power me higher, the leaves crunching under my feet. My lungs burn from the exertion and cool air as we stop at a lookout point with a waterfall.
Nova oohs and aahs over the sight.
“You should paint it,” I suggest.
“Not lugging my supplies this far up,” she counters.
I grab my water bottle, chugging gratefully.
“So, you looked pretty close with Miles last night,” my friend says.
The images she sent me documenting our fake romance flash through my mind.
Us laughing.
Him holding me.
Finally, one in which Miles’s lips were pressed to mine.
”We had to make it look convincing,” I say.
Nova’s smile is wide and genuine. ”Well, you definitely convinced me.”
Me too.
My body heats with the memory of how it felt to take those pictures, how natural every move and touch seemed.
“We kind of hooked up in his car,” I admit, and my friend claps her hands in delight.
“Tell me it was life affirming.”
“It was good,” I groan. “Until he shut it down.”
“Maybe it threw him? When I started dating Clay, he was totally closed off. But it was only because he was so used to everyone wanting things from him, expecting him to be a certain way.”
I never suspected Miles could be so committed to anything.
Anyone.
But seeing him with his grandmother proved that idea wrong.
It had me questioning how much of him is the way he acts in public and how much is real.
Blurring that line is the fact that I kissed him.
He obviously decided it was a bad idea because he pulled back, cool as anything, as if it was all part of the game.
“I’ve never had a guy look out for me the way Miles does. I’m not sure what to think of it,” I say.
“Not even Kevin?”
“Especially not Kevin,” I snort.
We start our descent down the trail, the leaves crunching under our feet.
“You never told me what happened with him,” Nova says.
I’m almost grateful for the distraction from Miles as I swipe the back of my neck, at the sweat collecting under the collar of my Lululemon top.
“He came from an important family that donated to my mom’s campaign. My mom loved that we were dating. We were an ‘it’ couple on campus, everyone going out of their way to include us. Until one of my sorority sisters was going through my room and found—well, let’s say it’s something that violated sorority rules and school ones.”
“It can’t have been that bad.” Nova frowns.
“It was.” A pang of regret rises up at the memories I’ve always tried to downplay. “My name got raked through the mud. My mom covered for me. She made a contribution to the school, and they agreed to let it slide. I talked to Kevin about it, we got on the same page, and I thought it went away.
“A week later, Kevin dumped me by text. He said I wasn’t the person he thought I was.” The back of my throat tastes bitter. “We were supposed to go to a big party that night to celebrate the end of exams. Instead, I spent the night in my room trying to reach him. He never got back to me. I didn’t see him all summer, and he avoided me the next semester.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. I was young and stupid.”
“Feelings are strange like that. Just when you think they’re in the past, you get triggered and they’re fresh.”
I wish she was wrong. “If only I could take out the part of me that lived through that. The part of me that cared so damn much.”
“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be you, and I love you.” She hooks an arm around my shoulders. “You know, this weekend could be the perfect time to come to peace with it.”
I laugh. “Peace is a strange word to apply to college.”
My friend’s eyes glint. “Even so. It does seem like a big coincidence that everything’s coming back together at once, doesn’t it?”
* * *
MILES
“Huh. New max,” Rookie says as I finish my leg press.
I grunt. “Better be.”
Rookie nods for me to swap out with him for his set.My thighs shake as I rise and step out, letting him work in as I reach for my water bottle and chug the contents.
We’re on the road for two games this week. After last week’s positive momentum, we dropped the first one. It felt like a setback, though no one’s saying it out loud.
“Shooting guard tomorrow had thirty-five points last night,” Jay comments.
“Miles will crush him tomorrow. Right?” Rookie asks.
“Uh-huh,” I say absently as I open my socials.
There are too many comments to respond to today. Lots of women, including a few in my DMs from the city I’m visiting.
Busy, I start to type.
But the truth is… I don”t want to.
I click into the pics of me and Brooke that Nova sent me this morning with a text saying, You should look at these.
Never understood the impulse girls have to take pics, to obsess over them, but I’ve looked at these half a dozen times.
Maybe more.
One frame after another of us close, me touching her, her smiling at me.
We look good together.
She”s beautiful, smart, and funny. She sees another side of me, one I’ve never thought too hard about.
But it’s one thing to play a game with her. It’s another to be so consumed by her I can’t think of anyone else, to think that she might be the prize.
I’ve got a lot of casual friends, but letting someone in close is a big deal. They leave, there’s a hole in your heart.
Brooke’s worked her way in.
I want Brooke Ellis.
There, I said it.
Since she asked me to be her fake boyfriend, my cock is always hard, my brain is useless, and the way she looks at me like she could either fuck me or eviscerate me is my Roman Empire.
She’s the one setting all the ground rules, but she kissed me.
Her perfect body was over mine and I could have easily worked off her pants, been inside her in that car in under a minute.
I know because I’ve pictured it a thousand damned times since.
Problem is, she’s not some woman looking for a good time that I can easily part ways with after one night or a couple.
She’s a part of my life, and through Jay, of my job.
Which is why the last few days with her brother have been guilting the hell out of me.
I know what I should do: shut this down, tell her I can’t go with her, find her someone else—someone who doesn’t want her like I do.
I’m supposed to be looking out for her but I’m questioning whether I can do that without having my own reasons.
My guys need to trust me, and I need to trust myself.
I click into her social media and scroll through pics. Her laughing with friends. Posing with cute captions.
There’s one she reposted with a name visible in the corner that has my fist flexing.
“The hell is that?” Jay asks.
I spin to find my teammate looking over my elbow at the screen.
“It’s social media. I can teach you how to use it if you want,” Rookie calls.
Jay flips him off. “I mean this picture.” The story’s changed to a repost of one from the account for her sorority.
The caption reads: Three days! Can’t wait to see everyone this weekend!
Posted by someone with the handle “Carobear,” who must be the Caroline she’s competing with.
I press a finger to the screen to freeze the image.
One of the people tagged looks familiar. I click through to his profile, and the name and face have the hairs on my neck lifting.
Kevin Waitrose.
“No fucking way.”
Jay grimaces.
“What’s wrong?” Rookie asks as he gets up from his set, wiping a towel over his face.
“An asshole my sister went to school with,” Jay says. “They dated a while.”
“Too long,” I spit.
Rookie cocks his head. “You say that like you know the guy.”
Jay and I exchange a look.
“I don’t like this,” Jay grunts.
“I know. But it’s not your decision,” I point out.
“You didn’t see how hard she took it after everything went down back in school, man. You didn’t see that prick trying to talk to her at my mom’s fundraiser.”
This is news to me.
I close the phone and switch back in under the leg press. “Another set. More weight.”
”You”ve already set a new max today,” Rookie says.
”More.”
His smile fades when he sees I”m serious. ”Your funeral, man.”
A few other guys on the team look over.
Halfway through the rep, there”s a moment I swear it”s going to crush me.
I think of Kevin. Prep school grad. White teeth.
Thought he could get away with anything.
Sweat beads on my forehead, streaking down my skin.
I might be a low-key kind of guy, but there are things I won’t stand for.
Every ounce of me goes into lifting the weight, as if it’s the only thing between me and his piece-of-shit face.
”Everything chill?” Atlas asks when my set is done.
I rub a towel through my hair. ”Yeah.”
But I”m not chill.
It”s unsettling how not chill I am right now.
I spot Jay near the pull-up bar on his phone with an expression like storm clouds.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Brooke. I’m going to tell her not to go.”
No. She needs this event. Plus, it’ll piss her off, start a fight between her and Jay, and that will distract our captain from the work we need to get done on the court.
I wanted to step back, but now there’s no way I’m letting her walk into that alone.
I know what I have to do… even if I really don’t want to do it.
I grab the phone out of his hand and hit the “Call End” button.
“The hell?!”
I take a breath. “You don’t have to worry about her going because… I’m going with her.”
The air evaporate from the room.
Everything reduces down to my friend and teammate’s expression as he processes my words.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
Anger.
“You what?!”
Fuck.
This is not a conversation I planned on having, especially not today.
The Miles Garrett the league and the media know would play it off, joke that it’s something casual.
But that’s not true, and I’m not sure I could fake it if I wanted to.
“Let’s talk about this outside.” I nod to the door, unsure of whether he’ll deck me before we get there.
We manage to make it into the hall without any bloodshed.
“Talk,” Jay demands.
So I skirt as close to reality as I can.
“She wanted someone to have her back this weekend. She asked me to go with her.”
“Why you?”
I measure my words. “I think all this sorority stuff got in her head, and she wanted to take someone she could trust. Plus,” I deliberately add, “I know you’ve been worried.”
Jay’s nostrils flare. “And that prick Kevin is going.”
“Guess so.” My abs flex.
He paces halfway down the hall before turning back to me. “And you’re sure this is a good idea?”
“I’ve got it under control.” I flash teeth in what I hope is a reassuring smile.
He rubs a hand across his hair. “And this is just a favor. You’re not hitting on my sister.”
The lunch I had an hour ago is suddenly giving me heartburn. “I’m not hitting on your sister.”
Jay exhales, nodding.
“Don’t do anything stupid. We’re not kids, we’re the fucking defending champions. And we need you.”