17. Xavi
Chapter 17
Xavi
T he front door creaked shut behind me, the weight of the night pressing down between my shoulders. I kicked off my boots, exhausted from practice and checking in with Dad at Smokey’s. It was supposed to clear my head.
It hadn’t. I still couldn’t get her out of my head.
The quiet of the house didn’t help. It was different tonight, odd, too still to be normal. No music, no hockey game or replays murmuring from the TV, no off-key singing from Colton in the shower. I raked a hand through my hair, already gritting my teeth. Their cars were in the driveway — they were definitely here. The question was why it was silent as hell.
“Xav.”
The sound cut through the silence so hard it nearly made me jump. I could easily tell it was Cole, and I followed the sound of it hesitantly, dropping my keys onto the console table by the door and slipping through to the kitchen.
I paused.
Cole leaned slightly on the living room side of the kitchen island, a mug of tea steaming on the counter beside him, his body a little rigid in his pajamas. Colton had half his body sprawled across the kitchen side of the island, his phone face down in front of him, his chin resting on his hands as he leaned on his elbows. No cocky grin, just a look of pure determination on his face, his hair down for once and his hoodie slouching over the counter.
My stomach knotted immediately.
“What?” I muttered, already dreading whatever this was.
Cole glanced over at Colton, almost like he was waiting for him to say something, before sighing and opening his mouth. “We need to talk.”
This was either really bad or I’d somehow massively fucked up.
“Can it wait?” I asked, taking a single hesitant step in. I knew what the answer would be, but I was dead tired from practice this morning and I didn’t have the bandwidth for whatever this was. “I’m tired.”
“Ideally not,” Colton said. His mouth pressed into a thin line, his expression almost sheepish, like he knew what he was about to say was going to hit me like a slap.
My stomach sank before he even began talking.
“She called me,” he continued, pushing up from the counter with his palms flat. “This afternoon.”
I didn’t move a muscle. Colton didn’t need to say who — it was obvious. My thoughts spiraled immediately, the main one in my head screaming, You should have given her your number, you idiot.
“She needed someone, and I…” He rolled his lips between his teeth, glancing at Cole before turning his gaze back on me. “We hooked up.”
The air that left my lungs was the only thing that filled the bitter silence. He slept with her. He slept with Annie, he slept with her, he fucked her ?—
My vision tunneled.
“You what ?” My voice was low, ragged, gravelly in a way I couldn’t control. I took a step forward and so did Cole, his body moving almost as if he was ready to jump between us.
Colton’s hands came up in front of him, palms out like I was a feral dog he was trying to calm down. “It wasn’t planned, Xav. She was having a rough day and has been going through hell with the Elliot shit. She needed someone, and I was there.”
“She needed someone and you fucked her ?” My voice cracked across the space, loud and angry, my breathing sharp. It was more than an accusation of him being an absolute asshole — it was bitter, too. Bitter that he’d beaten me to it.
My hands flexed at my sides and I took another step forward, but Cole cut in front of me, blocking my path. “Xavi,” he said, his voice calm, his face steeled. “It’s not like that. Calm down and let us talk to you.”
“You’re okay with this?” I balked, one hand pushing flat in the center of his chest, his body immovable, but not mine. I shifted back, my mind reeling, bile rising in my throat. She’d chosen. She’d fucking chosen, and it wasn’t me, and as much as I wanted to be okay with that, I wasn’t. I wasn’t .
Cole took a deep breath and clapped me on the shoulder, his grip tight. “Yes. Just take a deep breath, Xav. You’re panicking, and that’s okay, but you know you don’t want to fight him.”
I tried to take another step back, my chest tight, my throat closing, heat building behind my ribs like a ticking time bomb about to explode. Cole was right, I didn’t want to fight him, but I’d let myself build up hope that I had no business holding onto and I couldn’t deal with this. I couldn’t handle being left behind again. This was why I didn’t have proper relationships often, this was why I avoided falling for anyone, and Colton ? Of the three of us, she went for Colton .
“Unbelievable,” I muttered, my voice a little broken, and I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed about it. “When shit gets real, why go for either of the two who actually feel something when you can ride the guy who treats everything like a fucking game?”
Cole winced on Colton’s behalf, his eyes blinking slowly with the utmost patience in the world.
“That’s not fair, man,” Colton huffed from behind him, his tone a little sharp. “You don’t know what I feel.”
I stared at him over Cole’s shoulder, my heart pounding, regret already seeping in for what I’d said. “So that’s it, then? You just get there first and I’m supposed to, what, step back?” My chest rose and fell too quickly, too angry. “I’m just supposed to forget about her?”
I felt like an idiot. I barely knew her, and yet here I was, getting emotional, getting angry over this. But I couldn’t help it, not when it brought up everything else, not when it hit on every single abandonment issue I carried around with me.
“Xav,” Cole said again, his grip on my shoulder tightening sympathetically.
“No, man, neither of us are saying that,” Colton sighed. I admired his ability to push past me lashing out and not rise to it, but I still wanted to punch him until blood coated my knuckles. “We have an idea—fucks sake, how do I explain it, Cole?”
Cole took a deep breath in. “We think there’s a way we can do this that won’t end up with two of us upset and one person winning .”
I stared at him, my brows knitting together, and laughed, the sound raw and harsh. “Right. Sure. What’s the brilliant idea, then?”
“Colton thinks she might be open to being with all of us,” Cole said, no buildup, just the idea dropped between us like a grenade.
I stared at him. Then Colton. “Bull. This isn’t the fucking locker room, that kind of shit isn’t a joke.”
Colton’s jaw ticked. “It’s not a joke this time, Xav.”
I pulled out of Cole’s hold, my patience gone, my ability to hold back from breaking something thinning. “I said it before and I’ll say it again, I only share flames. And she’s not a flame,” I huffed, pushing past them both and heading straight for the hall in front of me, needing the reprieve of my room, needing to scream into a fucking pillow or tear one to shreds.
“I mentioned it to her, Xavi,” Colton called after me, and I stopped dead in my tracks, not turning, just… standing. “Offhand. She didn’t freak out. If anything… I don’t know, man, it felt like she’d already been considering it but felt embarrassed about it.”
I blinked, trying to make the words line up into something that made sense. But it didn’t make sense. How could it? “You’re saying what, exactly?” I rasped, turning over my shoulder to look back at them. “That we all date her?”
“She’s clearly into all of us and we’re all into her,” Cole offered, taking a step toward me, his bare feet slapping on the dark tiles. “Yeah, it’s not traditional, but that doesn’t have to mean shit. It would be different, but we could try . I’m willing to try.”
I clenched my teeth, trying to imagine it, and surprisingly, the idea in general didn’t make my stomach turn. But it was the chaos of it, the downsides, that roared uncontrollably. “What happens when it stops just being different and turns into a mess?” I asked, looking between them. “You think it’s not going to get complicated? We live together. We’ve played together for years. You think something like this wouldn’t eventually blow up? You think it won’t end up online?”
“We can cross that bridge if it comes to it, but it doesn’t have to blow up,” Colton sighed. “We’ll talk shit through when we need to. We’ll make rules. We’ll figure out what works best for us, what we’re all comfortable with. And more importantly, we won’t force this idea on her if she ends up not wanting it.”
“She’s not a game,” I bit out.
“Exactly,” Cole agreed. “Which is why we’re going to ask her. No pressure, no expectations to agree, just an offer.”
I exhaled hard, running a hand down my face to try to clear my thoughts. The whole idea made my skin prickle, made my chest feel tight as hell, but the thought of her being gone or watching her drift toward one of them and out of my orbit entirely…
That felt so much worse.
“This is insane,” I murmured. “You two know that, right?”
Colton gave a tired, one-shouldered shrug. “Probably. But crazy’s been working for us so far in our lives, hasn’t it?”
I pursed my lips, nodding mostly to myself, not quite sure if I was genuinely going to be okay with this. “Fine,” I rasped. “We ask her. And if she says no…”
“We can each think about what that would mean for us individually,” Cole said, his shoulders relaxing a little. “But Colton’s going to invite her over tomorrow night. We can talk to her together.”
I dragged my tongue along my top teeth, my jaw tense, my stomach twisting. But at least this gave me a reason to not walk away and throw my hands up, and a reason to not punch Colton until the tiles broke beneath his head. “Okay.”