If they’re still together?
If Connelly is actively screwing Griffin’s girlfriend under the same roof?
Oh god.
“Um…” I say, carefully, “So… is she still with Griffin?”
Hughie doesn’t even look at me as he responds in a flat, emotionless tone. “Yes.”
Fuck.
Yeah. That’s definitely not good.
“Are you going to tell him?” I ask, already bracing for another grunt.
And, surprise, he gives me exactly that. Another classic, useless Hughie grunt.
I don’t press him until we’re back inside our apartment. My brain is a screaming pit of moral conflict and secondhand panic. Hughie heads straight to the kitchen and grabs a beer, which… on a night before practice? That's basically DEFCON 2.
Awesome. This situation is so bad it’s driven my hyper-disciplined, no-fun-on-weekdays brother to drink.
“Hughie,” I say, leaning on the counter while I watch him like a hawk. “What are you going to do?”
He stares at the label on his bottle like it holds the answers to the universe. “Nothing. Or… fuck, I don’t know.”
I let him sip in silence because I don’t know either. I really didn’t want to know about this. It makes my skin itch. Theanxiety’s crawling up my spine and settling in the back of my throat.
Cheating’s always been a loaded topic in our family. My mom, not exactly a top-tier human, cheated on Hughie’s dad. That marriage blew up a few years ago in a spectacular mess, and honestly, the only miracle was that Hughie and his dad never turned that fallout on me. I’ve always been grateful for that.
But yeah. Cheating? That shit lives in the trauma folder.
And now I know Griffin’s girlfriend is pulling a full-blown betrayal with his roommate, and I can’t unknow it. I can’t undo it. And it’s not ideal.
“I feel like if I don’t tell him,” Hughie finally whispers, pitching his empty beer into the trash, “then I’m a shitty friend.”
I watch the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders, the way he won’t meet my eyes.
“But also?” he continues, rubbing the back of his neck, “Our team would fucking die if this got out. People would take sides. Connelly would get shunned. Griffin would go nuclear. There’d be drama we can’t afford. Not this year.”
I nod slowly. “But he’s your friend.”
He scoffs this short bitter sound. “We used to be friends.”
“Why aren’t you friends anymore?” I finally ask the question that has been sitting in my mind foryears.I was just too much of a coward to bring it up when they had their falling out years ago.
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. We aren’t friends anymore.”
I hum. “Yeah, but you’re teammates.”
He nods. “And I’ve got a lot of teammates who’d be screwed if this turns into a season-ending soap opera.”
And there it is. The core of it.
This is the year. The one they’ve all been working toward. The one with scouts and pressure and that tiny, shimmering shot at going pro. And all it would take to wreck it is one poorlytimed revelation. Not all the guys are going pro, obviously. But the senior class is big, and all of them have dreams of trying their hand at it. This would, without a doubt, make that more difficult.
Fuck me,I think, staring at the fridge. Hughie always has answers for my issues. He’s been a sounding board and a best friend for so long that I wish I could give him advice but…I don’t have a ton of good ideas for this particular situation.
“I could tell him,” I offer weakly, more out of instinct than logic. I just want to offer to take that weight off of his shoulders. “Then you wouldn’t have drama with your team.”
