"She must be smoking if she's got you this messed up," Groover adds.
"I bet she's a model," Wall says.
"Or a doctor," Petrov suggests. "Smart and hot. Deadly combination."
"Maybe she's a spy," Becker says, completely fucking serious. "That would explain why he's so secretive."
"A spy?" Groover laughs. "What is this, a James Bond movie?"
Becker shrugs. "I'm just saying, we should consider all possibilities."
This is my life now. My teammates speculating about my nonexistent girlfriend who is actually a guy. I need to leave before I do something stupid like scream.
"No girl," I say firmly, shoving my gear into my bag. "No spy. No doctor. No one. I'm just tired."
"That's what they all say," Becker says.
"Who's 'they'?"
"People. In general. It's a thing people say."
I give up. There's no winning this conversation.
I shower faster than I ever have in my life, throw on my clothes, and escape to the parking lot before anyone can follow me with more questions.
My car is freezing. I start the engine, crank the heat to maximum, and just sit there, hands gripping the steering wheel like it's the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.
Which, honestly, it might be.
Because my reality has become this: I can't stop thinking about Devon. Not for a single fucking second. Not during practice, not during sleep, not during the five minutes I tried to meditate this morning before giving up because my brain kept supplying images of his face, and his laugh, and his—
My phone buzzes.
Sighing, I fish it out of my pocket, fully expecting more mockery, or worse, someone staging an intervention, which is the last thing I need right now. Instead, my thumb goes still, hovering over the screen that greets me with the absolute last thing I need right now. A Reddit DM.
I take that back. An intervention would have been much better.
I should ignore it. I'm going to ignore it.
Then I click on the notification, because I have zero self-control and open the app with the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution.
There's a video file. Just a video, no message, except for a caption that reads: "in case you need some more research??"
The preview image loads.
And then my entire cardiovascular system just... stops.
It's a hand. A small, soft-skinned hand with long, dexterous fingers.
Fingers wrapped around a cock.
The image is cropped—no face, nothing identifying—but I know. I know whose hand that is. I know whose cock that is.
Devon's hand.
Devon's cock.
Devon sent me a video of himself jerking off.
