He stopped walking, his shoulders tensing hard. He turned, glared at me, and put his hands on his hips. He didn’t say anything, but he arched one brow, so I continued.
“Don’t take this out on him. You want to hate me forever, fine, but I’m not going to beg. I love you and always will. It’s just us. But Jonah…” My voice broke, thinking about what he was going through with both his parents. The fact I left him. God, the horrified look on his face when I said those words. “I need to go talk to him. You have no idea the shit he’s been through, and he needs support. He needs friends, teammates to have his back.”
Michael’s gaze sharpened as he ran a hand through his hair, pulling on the ends like he was more than annoyed with me. “You told me you werejustfriends. You lied.”
“Yeah, we are, but something else happened. He… I don’t know. Gets me. We fit. We haven’t talked about what it means yet because of the season and his fear of you sabotaging his scholarship. He must be terrified right now, thinking of the ways you’ll ruin him.”
Michael frowned and swallowed hard, shame filling his gaze as he looked at the ground. His shoulders slumped for a second before he said, “I’m not… I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Yeah, you can be.” I wiped under my eyes as the tears from earlier dried.
“I hate this. I really do.”
“I’m sorry.”
Michael sucked in a breath and studied me for a few seconds before he shook his head. “If he hurts you, or you hurt him… it could fuck witheverything. Your living situation, the team, hell, it’s already coming between us. How is that worth it?”
His words held truth to them, but it didn’t deter the manic need I had to talk to Jonah, to be with him. I’d dated and slept with other guys, but no feelings ever emerged like this. The pride I felt when I got him to smile or open up, the way he took care of me when he didn’t realize it—god, I loved him. I couldn’t believe it took me so long to realize it.
I sighed and waited for my brother to meet my eyes. “If it’s worth the risk for him, for me, then you’ll have to deal with it. And I think it is. I want to give this a real shot. We both deserve to be happy. You can’t dictate that. But even if this doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, I willneverforgive you if you do anything to him. You are a leader on this team, and people follow you. I mean it, Michael,” I said, stepping closer and pointing at his chest. “Nothing changes how you treat him on the team.”
“Fuck, you must really love this guy.”
“I do. I didn’t know how much until right now, but I do.”
He ran a trembling hand over his face and took a long breath. His face was pinched with dislike, but he nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated. “So, are we good?”
“Yeah. Of course we’re fucking good, Ry.” He rolled his eyes, and just like that, Michael and I survived our first fight since our parents died. We weren’t hating each other, throwing things, or crying.
“I need you in my life, and I might make dumb decisions, but just… let me and be there.” I took another step toward him, and he pulled me into a hug.
“Love you, Ry. Even if I hate knowing you’re dating my fucking teammate.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll do my best.” He set me down, and a half-smile crossed his face. “Of all the teammates… I’ve never seen him look at a puck bunny twice.”
“He’s not into that.”
“Thank god, because we would be having a very different conversation if it was Patrick.”
I snorted, welcoming the release, and stretched my arms over my head. “I need to find Jonah now to clear this up.”
“You should, yeah.” My brother got his phone from his pocket and grinned. “If you two want to party, you know where I’ll be.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled as he walked away. A nervous onslaught of butterflies overtook me.Jonah.God, I hoped he was okay. I sent him a text asking where he was and waited a beat.
Then another.
No response.
I headed back to the rink since we only walked a few minutes from it, but he wasn’t there. No sign of his dad either.
Must be at home.
It was dark out and the journey wasn’t long, but I didn’t put headphones in because walking alone on campus always made me a little nervous. It was safe and there weren’t any incidents I knew about, but it caused me to be hyperaware of the sounds around me. My pulse rushed in my ears at the thought of what Jonah must be going through. His parents, me leaving him… oh god. He had to be so upset.
