Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
JULIETTE
“That prick! I’m going to gut him—who does he think he is?”
“My brother.” I sniff, voice wrecked. My nose is raw from all the blowing I’ve done, tissues piling up on the coffee table like sad little white flags. “You can’t gut him. You won’t get past the doorman.”
Blaire paces my living room like a general preparing for war. “Watch me.”
If I wasn’t so devastated, I would laugh.
Instead, another wave of tears wells up and spills over before I can stop it.
I feel so stupid.
Stupid.
“How long?” I whisper, staring at nothing in particular. “How long has everyone known but me?”
Blaire stops pacing mid-step. “Please. Do not give those morons this much credit. From the way it sounds, your brother and Aaron have been brooding around the arena like cavemen and keeping this shit to themselves. I don’t think men gossip the way we do.”
Not true.
But I don’t point this out to Blaire; I know when to bite my tongue.
Honestly, I haven’t seen her this angry since her ex-boyfriend, Carter, changed the Netflix password on her, pre-breakup, and she was cut off from free streaming. She drafted a nasty, biting two paragraph text before dumping him.
This is worse.
She is nuclear.
She plants her hands on her hips and glares out the sliding glass door like Aaron’s face might materialize on the balcony. Or my brother’s.
“I am an idiot.”
Declan was right; I am na?ve.
“You are not an idiot, Juliette Lillian Kennedy.” She says it so firmly I want so badly to believe her. “You were operating under the assumption that the men in your life weren’t complete lying fuck bags.”
Fuck bags?
That’s a new one.
I swipe at my cheeks again. My skin feels tight from all the crying I’ve done…
“Hey—sweetie, no—listen to me.” She comes over and goes down on her knees in front of me, taking my hands in hers.
“Your brother didn’t tell you he slept with another man’s girlfriend.
That’s on him. Aaron didn’t tell you he walked in on it and was petty about it.
That’s on him. None of this is your fault. ”
Logically, I know this.
“Look at me.” She squeezes my fingers. “You think that man was faking everything? Sounds exhausting.”
“I don’t know,” I admit, and that’s what hurts the most. “That’s the problem.”
I feel like I know nothing about anything.
“I trusted both of them,” I whisper.
Blaire nods. “I know you did.” Her mouth curves into a sneer. “Honest to god, I want to bury that man.”
She is not referring to Aaron.
I know her well enough to know she means Declan, her arch-nemesis since we were teenagers.
“Although, in his defense—and you know I loathe defending him…” Blaire sucks in a deep breath like it physically pains her. “He probably thought he was protecting you by not telling you.”
I tilt my head. “He was protecting himself so I wouldn’t know he can’t keep his wiener in his pants.”
“That too.” She nods solemnly. “And was it necessary for you to say wiener at a time like this? Couldn’t you say the word dick?”
“No.” I let out a lukewarm laugh. “Wiener feels more humiliating.”
I lean back into the couch cushions, staring at the ceiling. “I keep thinking about all the times he confronted me about the relationship, making it seem like Aaron was evil. All along, he was worried I’d find out he’d diddled Aaron’s girlfriend.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
I sniffle, reaching for another tissue. Blow loudly, another wave of tears streaming down my face.
“That’s it. I can’t take it anymore.” Blaire stands, stalking to the kitchen and snatching her keys off the counter.
I blink at her from the couch, mascara smudged down my cheeks, all the way to my chin.
“Where are you going?”
“To handle your brother.” She’s already at the door. “You stay here.”
As if I would leave? I look horrible.
Feel worse.
“Blaire—”
The door slams.
And then it’s just me.
Alone with my thoughts.
Which is, frankly, the worst possible company.
I pace.
I sit. I cry for the tenth time. I pick up my phone and attempt to thumb through my socials as if it’ll keep my mind off this mess.
It doesn’t.
Every passing minute stretches. I imagine Blaire marching into the arena. Or his condo. Or dragging him through a parking lot by the collar of his shirt, Neanderthal style.
Part of me is horrified.
Most of me is eternally grateful.
Two hours later, when the door finally unlocks, I’ve convinced myself she’s either been arrested or has murdered him and needs me to hide the body.
Instead, she walks in carrying two paper bags and the energy of someone who has assaulted a man with her verbal barbs and relished every single second of it.
She is charged.
Buzzing.
Exhilarated.
There’s a sparkle in her eye, and it replaces the murderous look she had before she left.
She kicks the door shut with her heel and drops the bags on the coffee table. “And before you ask, yes. I found him.”
My stomach flips. “Where?”
“His stupid condo.”
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Blaire has taken to using unflattering adjectives in association with Declan.
His stupid condo.
His dumb face.
His bullshit hockey game.
If I didn’t know any better, I would think she harbored a secret attraction to him that she’s not willing to admit. Not to me and certainly not to herself.
She begins unloading the takeout, containers thudding onto the coffee table. Pad thai. Spring rolls. Stir fry vegetables. Rice. Blaire tosses a handful of fortune cookies to the center of the table. “We’re probably going to need these later.”
“What happened?”
“He opened the door in sweatpants,” she tells me, opening the rice and dumping half the container onto a plate. “He looked like total shit. Hair was a mess. Looked like he hasn’t slept in days.”
Good.
This is weighing on him, too.
“And?” My voice is thin. “Then what?”
“I forced my way inside and told him I wasn’t there for small talk. I told him you were home, crying. I told him you felt blindsided.” My best friend slides a plate in my direction, forcing me to load it with food. “He had no idea Garrett Storm told you what’s been going on, and he felt terrible.”
Good.
He should.
I nod, throat tight.
Blaire tears open a soy sauce packet with unnecessary aggression. “I may have called him a piece of shit.”
I blink at her.
“I apologized, don’t worry,” she adds quickly. “But only in a technical sense. Like—sorry for saying that out loud, not sorry for meaning it.”
I muster a smile.
“He didn’t argue,” she continues. “Which almost made it worse. He stood there, taking it.”
“What exactly did you say?”
She points her chopsticks at me. “I said, and I quote, ‘You absolute bag of crap, there are hundreds of women in this city, and you chose your teammate’s girlfriend?’”
Blaire grunts, satisfied with herself.
“Like, sir,” she goes on, incredulous all over again. “Did the dating pool dry up? Did the apps shut down? Was every other woman unavailable? No. You went straight for the one person guaranteed to torch the locker room.”
“The audacity.”
I stare down at my plate, where a lonely spring roll sits.
“He kept saying he didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to hurt you,” she says with a mocking tone, chewing with her mouth open. “As if withholding the truth was less hurtful.”
A fresh wave of emotion climbs my throat.
“He said he thought you’d hate him,” she says matter-of-factly. “That you’d look at him differently.”
“I do look at him differently,” I whisper.
Blaire nods slowly. “I know.”
She chews, and for a while, we sit in companionable silence.
“Seriously. I almost felt sorry for him,” she confesses. “Almost.”
Her expression sharpens, getting cloudy. “I asked him point-blank if Aaron started seeing you out of revenge.”
“What did he say?”
Blaire hesitates. “He said… he thinks that might’ve been how it started.” She pushes rice around her plate with a chopstick. “Obviously, he has no idea what’s going through Aaron’s head. They are not on speaking terms these days.”
Oh.
My shoulders droop. “So, he thinks it’s true?”
“He’s suspicious. He has no proof.”
Right.
Blaire licks her fingers and goes on. “I also said, ‘You’re telling me you two have been barking at each other like two rabid dogs and you don’t know what his angle is?’” She stops talking and watches my face. “What are you thinking?”
My head shakes. “I have no idea what to think.”
“How many times has Aaron tried calling you?”
I shrug. “Not sure. Four?”
She hums. “At least he’s attempting to reach you.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I say warily.
“He’s not hiding.”
“He could be trying to get ahead of it,” I murmur. “Control the narrative.”
“Counter point,” she says. “He’s freaking out.”
“At the thought of losing me, or the thought that I could go to the press and tell the media what… what…?”
Blaire snorts. “That man has survived playoffs, press conferences, and online hate. I promise you he’s not shaking in his skates over a hypothetical headline.”
“That’s not fair,” I pout. “This could be a scandal.”
“Only if you want them both to look bad.”
True.
My brother may be a cheating, no-good homewrecker, but he’s my brother and I wouldn’t want to publicly humiliate him.
“Say it,” Blaire coaxes. “Go ahead, call them both dickheads.”
I laugh despite myself as she reaches over and flips my phone face-up before I can stop her.
My heart jumps into my throat.
Six missed calls.
Three texts.
All from Aaron.
My chest aches.
Blaire looks at me. “That doesn’t look like a man who’s smug about getting caught.”
No.
It doesn’t.
“Well.” I exhale shakily. “Thank God I didn’t march into HR this afternoon.”
Blaire blinks. “You were going to?”
“I considered it.” I press my palm to my forehead. “I was this close to humiliating myself by reporting the relationship. Can you imagine? ‘Hi, yes, I’d like to file paperwork because I slept with a hockey player who may or may not be revenge pucking me.’”
My friend’s eyes get wide. “That is an iconic phrase.”
I have the decency to blush. “Thanks.”
“Also, not true. No one was revenge pucking you, although, to be fair, it was high time you got thoroughly pucked.”
I sigh, a tear sliding down my cheek.
“Babe,” Blaire says softly. “What do you want to do?”
My shoulders move up and down. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know what I want.
Yesterday, I wanted it all—everything he was willing to give.
Now?
I don’t know if he’s worth the tears.
Or my anger.
I don’t know if I want to take his calls, or respond to his texts, or ever see his face again.
Blaire studies me carefully. “Okay. Strip it down. Forget Declan. Forget the policy. Forget the locker-room drama. If this was the two of you with no audience, what would you do?”
I stare at my phone.
“I’d make him tell me the truth,” I whisper.
“All of it?” Blaire touches the tips of her fingers to mine on the surface of the table. “Jules?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t…” I start, pausing when she arches a brow. “I care about him.”
“That was not the question.” She laughs. “Are you saying that because you think I cannot handle you falling in love this soon? Or that I’d judge you?”
“No. You would never.”
Even though you refuse to admit you’re in love with my brother—that’s a different conversation for a different time.
“Damn straight I wouldn’t.” She wiggles her fingers over mine.
“Well, to answer your question, even though you already know the answer because I have told you already—I think about him constantly. I replay our conversations. I think about him all day.”
“That’s very annoying of you,” she says lightly. “Don’t go replacing me with a slab of man meat.”
We giggle, and I take a small bite of spring roll.
“You are irreplaceable.”
“Correct.” Blaire presses a hand to her chest dramatically. “Thank you for acknowledging the obvious and, for the record, you’re not obsessing over his abs?”
“I mean, yes? But no.” I smile. “Though those are a perk.”
“Obviously.”
I set the spring roll down and wipe my hands.
“I hate that this is the situation,” I admit. “Because if it weren’t for the Declan part of it all, I’d be on cloud nine right now.”
“Or, you would have never had the chance to hook up with him.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“If your brother hadn’t stuck his dick inside Aaron’s girlfriend, he would probably still be dating her, and you would be on another bad first date with some dating app loser.”
I wince. “When you say it like that, it sounds so crude.”
“It is crude.” Blaire gestures wildly with her chopstick. “It’s also the butterfly effect—one terrible decision leads to you getting spectacularly laid.”
I choke on a laugh. “Do not glamorize this.”
She shrugs. “I’m not.”
Liar.
“So,” Blaire says, nudging my knee beneath the coffee table. “You’re thinking about him constantly, you don’t want to explode his career, you’re terrified of looking stupid, you’re mad. And you don’t think it was fake.”
“That about sums it up.”
“Great.” She claps once. “Call him.”
My mouth gapes. “W-what would I say?”
“Nothing! That’s the beauty of it—you did nothing wrong. You get to bask in silence and be gorgeous while he grovels at your feet and begs your forgiveness.”
Is it that easy?
Blaire says words like “grovel” and “beg” as if this were a fantasy daydream where the man shows up with flowers and a heartfelt apology and everything magically resets.
Real life isn’t like that.
Real life is messy and humiliating and full of things you cannot unhear once they’ve been said.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, tracing the rim of a coaster with my fingertip. “What if he apologizes and it doesn’t fix anything?”
Blaire blinks. “Well, yeah. That’s possible.”
I frown because she’s right; an apology doesn’t rewind time. It doesn’t give me back the version of him that existed before I found out he was dating me to get back at Declan.
I need to think.
Be alone, think this through.
The man who hurt me is the same man who let twenty kids climb all over him at story time at the library, answering their ridiculous questions as if they weren’t the silliest things anyone has asked him. Drops in to visit sick kids in the hospital without anyone knowing.
The same man who whispered in my ear and sends shivers down my spine.
Maybe that’s the worst part of all: I don’t know which version of Aaron Bishop is real.
I’m terrified it’s both.