Chapter Five #2
“Mr. Monroe!” Treva rushes up, already gesturing for me to head toward the door.
She doesn’t so much as flinch when she’s near me, which has me relaxing fractionally.
I’ve seen her at other events since I cornered her after the first game, and she doesn’t seem at all bothered by it.
Still feel like I should apologize again, though.
Maybe the full week of catering from five of Philly’s best restaurants for the PR team helped? Not that they knew it was me.
“Mr. Warden is waiting at the exit,” Treva says. “We’re ready for some shots of you leaving together.”
My eyes widen as the logistics of leaving together overwhelm every sensible thought.
I thought we were walking out together.
“I don’t—we aren’t, though? Like how far do we—”
Is he coming home with me? No. No, that’s … nope.
Is he going to get in my car? Will it smell like apples when he’s gone?
Treva gestures again, and I trudge along, Seb and Thio in tow. “We want some photos of you two walking out, hand in hand. Just go past the gate into the player lot.” She leans in as we duck around some reporters. “It’s for show, remember.”
Just walking out. It’s for show.
Simple. Easy.
We make our way through the stadium and to a side door that opens into the balmy September night.
The player lot is ahead, behind a gate and a brick wall, while an exclusive crowd of fans lines one side of the walkway between the stadium and that gate, held back by security and fencing.
They’re already screaming and calling out names as my other teammates leave. I spot Darian signing a jersey.
Movement by the open doors has all my attention swinging over.
Alexo steps forward. He’s changed, too, but where I’m in sweats, he’s in chunky white shoes, baggy jeans, and another crop top, this one a white tank.
No belly chain, thank the gods, but as he crosses the space to me, I’m stuck staring at his navel, the little line of hair on the lower part of his stomach that disappears into his jeans.
Fuuuuuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I pry my eyes up to his.
And then realize that Seb and Thio are still with me and Treva has abandoned us to make the pictures more natural.
So, like a very mature, professional guy in complete control of his faculties, I stand there. Staring.
And Alexo stands there, too. Only his eyes keep darting away, back to me, his hands clenching and unclenching on the strap of the backpack he’s got hanging off one shoulder.
Seb, bless him, breaks the silence by thrusting himself forward. “Well, hello there, cutie. You must be Alexo. O’s told me so much about you.”
I have?
I barely know anything about him, so what things I have found out I’ve hoarded like a greedy little dragon protecting its gold.
“He has?” Alexo echoes my thought, but he shakes the hand Seb extends.
“He has.” Seb beams at me and props one elbow on my shoulder.
Only he’s nowhere near my height and has to do this tugging shimmy move to get me to bend down, so by the time he’s relaxed on me, any sense of casual coolness is dead.
“I’m Sebastian. And that’s my fiancé, Thio.
We’re Orok’s found family, and by extension, we’re yours now, too. Welcome to the nuthouse.”
Seb doesn’t know this thing with Alexo is fake.
He thinks the photos he’s seen online and all our dates are the start of a sweet romance.
I haven’t had anything even resembling a romance in …
ever. It makes sense he’s immediately trying to adopt Alexo the way I did Thio, and turn us all into one big, if not dysfunctional, family.
But this isn’t real. Alexo won’t get to fit into my life, not this way, and the image of him sitting curled up on the couch in my apartment next to me while Seb and Thio argue over cooking dinner has the breath going out of my chest in a sudden free fall of need.
I shrug Seb away. “Give me a sec,” I tell him. “I’ll walk him out, then we’ll go.”
Seb frowns at the energy coming off me. I’m stiff, hands in fists, my tone flat. He sees right through me, he’s always seen right through me, and this is why I’ve avoided him, too—because he’s going to make me confront this. He’s going to be the killing tap on the fissure, and I’ll shatter.
I extend my hand to Alexo, eyes on the carpet they’ve rolled out for the players.
After a beat, his hand slides into mine. Just his fingers resting on my palm.
I curl my fingers around his and walk, pulling us farther past the doors and out into the area with the crowd.
Cameras flash. Voices call out to us. But we don’t need to stop for any interviews; we just need to walk. Get to the gate for the player lot, and go our separate ways.
His hand is warm. Delicate and thin. He doesn’t cling to me, just lets me hold him, and I risk a glance down at him, using my body to shield him from the worst of the cameras and crowd.
He’s staring straight ahead, at the gate, his jaw set, discomfort clear in the lines around his eyes and lips. He notices me watching him and only flicks his eyes to the side, not all the way to me, before he faces forward, shoulders pulling back.
There’s that free-fall sensation again. Tumbling down, down, because I lost my grip on something I was never supposed to touch in the first place.
We make it to the gate and security opens it for us. I don’t let go of Alexo’s hand until we’re blocked from the crowd by the tall brick wall, and even then, I stop walking, facing forward, keeping his hand in mine.
He’s the one who pulls away.
“Until next time,” he says, formal.
I’ve been pushing him away. I was the one to keep things surface level on our two dates—even after I told him I wanted to get to know him.
Even after our kiss.
Wanna know how many gods have been associated with regret? Exactly two. And neither are widely worshipped, or ever have been, because the concept of regret blows.
Alexo doesn’t look at me as he walks off into the parking lot. I stretch and curl the fingers of the hand he held.
A car’s running a few rows over, and he opens the passenger door but doesn’t get in. He’s talking to whoever’s in the driver’s seat, and I know very well who it is by the way Alexo’s face contorts in hurt.
That hand clenches.
“What the fuck, O?”
I whirl to see Seb and Thio followed us out.
Seb looks more than a little ridiculous with his arms folded and his expression crooked in annoyance while that foam dog head is wrapped around his face. “He’s not coming out with us? What was that? You two have met before, right?”
“Baby,” Thio tries, his focus pinging between us, and it’s really obnoxious having two perceptive people in my life now; what Seb misses, Thio picks up, and vice versa.
Seb looks at Thio, and they have a silent discussion that ends with Seb’s mouth going slack at me. “Did you—are you not together anymore?”
I look back at the car. It hasn’t left yet, but Alexo’s inside it now, the door shut.
My nails dig into my palms. “We’re still together.”
“That was not the attitude of two people in the early stages of a relationship.” Seb comes closer as a few more players and their families leave, a sudden burst of noise in the night-drenched lot. “He seemed … uncomfortable around you. What happened?”
I can’t tell him.
I signed an NDA.
And we’re in public, in a parking lot.
But Alexo got in the car with that guy again. And I’ll have to watch them drive away together, again, knowing they’re fighting. Is he safe? Why is that guy so pissed off with him? Why doesn’t that guy appreciate what he has?
Why don’t I appreciate what I have?
I tip my head back and unleash a frustrated growl to the sky before swinging on Seb and Thio and word-vomiting everything.
How it’s all fake. How I didn’t want it to be.
How I kept Urzoth as my patron god because the church offered to sponsor Alexo, and for whatever reason having Urzoth’s support was important to him, and I need him to have what he wants.
How I’m trying to keep this professional but we kissed at the first game and I can’t think of anything other than that guy hurting him and the way Alexo performs like they’re the only times in his life he’s ever fully himself, fully happy.
By the time I’m done whispering-shouting all this down at them, Seb and Thio are wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
Their heads crank toward one another and I throw a finger up.
“So help me, if you two have one of your silent conversations, I swear—”
Seb takes my hand, attention going behind me, then back. “Okay. O—we’ll talk about the whole Urzoth thing later, but right now, I think you need to go after him.”
“Go—what?”
I follow his gaze to see Alexo’s car starting to pull out of its spot. They’re leaving.
My hand twists in Seb’s. “I can’t go after him. He’s not really mine.”
“But he could be.” Seb releases me. “You want him to be. Your instincts are telling you something’s up, something’s wrong, right?
So listen. Talk to him. Find out what’s going on so you can make this real, because you owe it to yourself to go after it.
Now.” Seb waves toward the moving car. “Go. Chase. Talk.”
“I’m not—I’m not going to chase him. Like a stalker.”
Thio winces and cups Seb’s shoulder. “Fair point. Following him probably isn’t the best move. When are you supposed to see him next? You could talk to him then.”
“Correction: you will talk to him then,” Seb says. “Pull up your calendar. Let me see what you’re slotted for after this. I’ll hold you accountable.”
The car’s stuck in a line waiting to get through the parking lot’s exit.
Alexo and that guy will leave. Go back to the place they share.
I scrub at my hair, fingers burning on my scalp, and snarl down at Seb. “I can’t. I fucking can’t, Seb. I’m—it isn’t—it’s too much, okay? I was too much with you and I’ll be too much with him and I don’t—”