Kate stepped closer to me, glaring up into my eyes and raising her voice over the noise. “Nate, what decision? I swear, if someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to lose my mind.”
I hesitated to let a group of fans shove past us, their laughter echoing down the sidewalk. The moment stretched, her eyes locked on mine like she expected honesty I wasn’t prepared to give. My only option was to play dumb.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said finally. “I’ll drive you home.”
Suspicion tightened the corners of her eyes, but at least she nodded. “Yeah, okay, fine.”
She followed me to my car, one side of her lower lip tucked between her teeth and her brow furrowed. The drive back to the St. Regis passed in unusual quiet for the two of us. Traffic crawled through late-evening congestion, but Kate just stared out the passenger window, her fingers drumming lightly against her thigh. It made her seem restless, like she wanted to keep asking what was going on but kept swallowing it instead.
I gripped the steering wheel so tight, my knuckles turned white as my thoughts circled the conversations I’d had with Alex and with Hinds. The more I thought about them, the more it felt like my head was being slowly but forcefully pushed underwater.
There had been no misunderstandings. My brother hadn’t been making shit up—not that it was Alex’s style to do that—and the naive hopes I’d been trying to hang onto had been just as idiotic as I’d known they would turn out to be.
When we reached our building, I pulled into the underground garage and killed the engine. We rode the elevator up in silence, the air between us thick with everything I wasn’t saying, but I was acutely aware of her beside me, of every quiet shift of her weight and the faint warmth radiating from her arm.
Kate paused at her door as we reached our apartments, fumbling briefly with her keys before glancing at me. “Thanks for the ride.”
I nodded and then, before I could second-guess the instinct, I heard myself ask, “Are you seeing anyone?”
The question hung between us for a long moment. Kate’s eyes lifted slowly to meet mine. I watched confusion flicker across her face, not looking like it was directed at me, but rather inward, like she was sorting through truths and deciding which one to offer up.
“I am,” she said finally. “Are you?”
A dull, deep pang echoed through my chest and I swallowed, forcing myself to nod as I unlocked my own door.
“I am, too,” I said, the admission tasting like betrayal even as it left my mouth. “Good night, Kate.”
She studied me for another second, finally just giving me a small nod. “Goodnight, Nate.”
I went into my apartment and closed the door behind me, tossing my keys onto the counter and pulling the Cubs shirt off over my head. The adrenaline of the game had burned off and exhaustion settled into my bones.
After a long moment of just standing there, I dropped my shirt on the floor—which I never did—and went over to my laptop, opening it on the kitchen island. Emma’s last message stared back at me from my inbox. I clicked reply and glared at the blinking cursor, for the first time ever having trouble knowing what to say.
Emma, I needed to tell you something.
I stopped, deleted the sentence, and after inhaling a deep breath, I tried again.
I didn’t know how to explain this properly.
Another pause. Another deletion.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, the words I needed to say refusing to take shape. Across the hall, I imagined Kate moving through her routine as if this was just another night, and for a beat, I was really fucking jealous of her for it.
The cursor blinked steadily, waiting for me to come up with something,anything, that would be good enough to end a five-year-long cyber relationship. This was possibly going to be the last email I ever sent Emma, but I exhaled slowly and then closed the laptop without sending a thing.
I needed to say goodbye to her but I wanted to do it in person, which was why I had asked her to meet with me. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it through email.
Later, I decided.
CHAPTER 12
KATE
Monday morning rolled around and Istillhad a weight I couldn’t shake firmly lodged in the center of my chest. It’d been there since Saturday morning at breakfast, had gotten heavier after the game, and when my parents had apparently beentoo busyto see me yesterday, it had grown into a boulder.
I’d spent most of Sunday pacing my apartment, replaying every conversation from the weekend, trying to figure out why I felt so uneasy about this deal all of a sudden. Nothing had technically gone wrong.
If anything, everything was moving too smoothly. That should’ve been reassuring, but it wasn’t. I still had that nagging feeling that something major was happening behind the scenes, and at breakfast on Saturday, Nate had been out of the loop too, but that didn’t seem true anymore. I was one hundred percent confident Alex had let him in on the secret after they’d shut the door on me.
