No, I’m not going to focus on that now. I’ve done enough therapy and meditation and general feelings bullshit to know that emotional regulation requires time and space. So everything else can keep itself at a distance, at least for now.
Telling myself that doesn’t solve my throat or my eyes or, most pressingly, the ache in my chest that has nothing to do with the weights I’m lifting.
Distance. I just need distance, so I feel less like a powder keg that’s about to go off.
And that’s of course when Forsyth decides to come in.
He’s been at the clubhouse awhile, judging from the ring of sweat at his collar, the slight dampening of his hair at the temples. For a moment, we just look at one another.
“Put the weights down.” Forsyth’s voice is steady, but it’s a steadiness I know: one of carefully banked anger.
This wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’ve been punched—nowhere near the first—but it’d be the first time it’s happened when I’m an adult. Slowly, I rerack the weights. “What’d you say to everyone?” I ask.
Forsyth scrunches his forehead. “What?”
“The team. They clearly know something’s up.”
“I just asked if anyone knew where you were.” He’s using that same tone—in control.For now. “Why, are you worried about yourreputation?”
I shrug. “Not mine, but, yeah, I’d have an issue with it if you spread Sav’s business around like that.”
He steps closer to me, eyes going stormy. “Maybe you should stay the fuck out of Sav’s business.”
I don’t flinch. I don’t step back. If he wants to prove himself by slugging me, he can come over here and do that. “I wasn’t in Sav’s business any more than she wanted me to be.” I should just end it there, but I can’t help adding, “And it seems like she wanted me in herbusinessa lot.”
That does it. Forsyth stalks across the room, snatches the front of my T-shirt, shoves me against the nearest piece of equipment—a leg press machine—hard enough to send a ringing impact through my back. “You aren’t gonna talk about her,” he snarls. “You aren’t gonna think about her. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve never met.” He’s right in my face, his foot nudging mine apart, his fist balling the fabric of my shirt.
“This is your fault, you know,” I say. His gray eyes flicker. Sometimes the best insults don’t have to be the meanest ones, just the ones that are the most true. “She’s in a new city—she moved across the country to be with you—and all you did was ignore her. But I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re selfish on the field. Why wouldn’t you be selfish everywhere else?”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m not trying to—” His voice breaks and for a second, I’m not seeing Brayden Forsyth, who’s had everything given to him, but Brayden Forsyth, who’s terrified of losing what he has. “You think I don’t know that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me and that one day, she’ll be gone, and I’m going to be left with?—”
He cuts himself off. Breathes harder. Doesn’t say anything, just tightens his hand fractionally in my shirt, pulling us closer together. His mouth is very near mine. His eyes flick again, this time down to my lips.
Oh.Huh.
Usually I have a sense of these things—usually men who want me to fuck them aren’t that subtle about it. Which is good. Makes things easier when I fuck them. Forsyth…I don’t know if he knows that’s what he wants. I extend the tip of my tongue, just enough to wet my lower lip, watch him as he tracks the movement.
I take that as an opening, walking him back from where he has me pinned to the side of the leg press machine to a wall on the other side of the room. One sheltered from the opendoor where our teammates might come traipsing through at any moment. “What do you mean, one day she’ll be gone?” I ask.
“Because—” He swallows a few times. “I was just trying to help her. Help myself. I never meant for things to go this far.”
Pieces are starting to fall into place. How Forsyth was a church boy if ever I met one and yet had gotten married in a chapel in Vegas. How Savannah protested that he’d been there for her when no one else was. How their beds sat in different bedrooms almost like they were?—
“Are you really married?” I ask.
Forsyth barks a laugh. It doesn’t have much laughter in it. “Are you really asking me that? Especially if you heard what I think you heard from our room today.”
So he knew I could hear them fucking and he fucked her anyway—maybe because I could. “How much of that was for her?” I ask.
“All of it.”
“And how much of that was for me?”
Forsyth sputters. Shakes his head. Doesn’t answer the question. But he doesn’t push me off.
I press him further against the wall, until there’s only a slim, shivering layer of air between us.
That gets his attention. His eyes are thundercloud gray; his cheeks flushed from shoving me around. He’s resisting, but only slightly, muscles in his chest and shoulders tense. “You could shove me off,” I say, mostly to rile him.
