“What’s wrong?” Atticus still sounded sleepy, and Sammie felt a small measure of guilt at having woken him like this on a game day.
“I think I messed up.” That was a lie. Sammieknewshe’d messed up. “I told Kieran I know about his… other occupation.” She’d spent the days since that revelation and her subsequent confession hoping that maybe it would all just blow over.
Kieran still hadn’t responded.
One heartbeat passed. Another. Sammie was about to make sure she hadn’t accidentally ended their call when Atticus burst into peals of laughter.
“Fuck you,” she growled.
“Kai said it wasn’t an emergency,” Atticus finally said, glee still coloring his voice. “But nothing could have prepared me for that.”
“I hate you.” Sammie sighed. “Can I come over?” She rarely took time off of work, but they didn’t have a lot on the schedule for the day, and after Carson got the drains cleaned out they really wouldn’t have much more to do.
Atticus hummed, thinking over her question until Sammie was ready to hang up on him. “Can you give us half an hour? I gotta meet the team at four, so I need to finish up my routine, and I don’t play well if Kai doesn’t give me-”
“Attie,” Sammie interrupted. “If you finish that sentence I will never speak to you again.”
He laughed once more. “Give us thirty minutes, that’s all he needs.”
Sammie did hang up this time, contemplating chucking her phone into the sludge Carson was currently scooping while trying his best not to gag. Her stupid phone, the thing that was currently ruining her life.
It would be fine. She would talk to Atticus, Kai as well, and they would help her find a solution to this fucked up situation she’d gotten herself into.
Kieran hadn’t slept well.
Actually, he hadn’t slept at all. He thought about trying for a nap before meeting up with the team, but in the end he’d tossed the idea aside.
How could he sleep when he knew he would see Sammie at the game?
Out of a very newborn habit, Kieran pulled her messages up again, just as he’d been doing over and over for the last few days.
Sammie: Hey. I need to tell you something
Kieran reread the messages, then clicked his phone off and placed it on the table in front of him. His stomach was tied up into knots that had made eating lunch a miserable affair. His mind couldn’t seem to latch onto any clear cut thoughts.
And he hadn’t yet responded to Sammie.
Days of trying to come up with something to say,anythingto say, and he was still sitting there empty handed.
Kieran stood from the table, leaving his phone behind in the hopes he would stop thinking about it as he took a shower. He kept the water on the cool side, bracing against it, pushing his wet curls out of his face.
How had Sammie found his page? She sure did have a way of catching him off guard. Always had. Kieran felt just as blindsided as he had ten years prior, when she’d announced her feelings on that stormy day.
Sammie: That sounds too negative, I didn’t mean it like that. Sex work is awesome!
Heat flooded Kieran’s chest, his neck, burning his face as he rinsed bubbles out of his hair. He would just have to shower again after the game, but something about the process calmed him. The water washed away so much heaviness that built on his skin, invisible but smothering.
Sammie didn’t seem… put off by what she had seen. No, instead she apparently had questions.
Kieran had wondered many times since he’d begun posting explicit content online what it would feel like for someone he knew to find out about it. Would there be shame? Fear? Would it be too much at that point?
Would he have to stop?
Someone knew now. Someone that wasn’t just an anonymous name hidden behind a burner account’s profile picture.
Sammie knew, and Kieran didn’t feel shame. Fear? Maybe a little. Sure, Sammie seemed chill about it, in a particularly Sammie way. But Kieran had never talked to anyone from that side of his life about what he did in his spare time. Not family, not friends, definitely not his teammates.
It was uncharted territory, and with that came no small amount of fear.
