Except we’re keeping this big fucking secret from her, and I feel it’s about to implode and fuck everything up.
As soon as Addie disappears down the tunnel to her flight, Carson’s smile drops, as does his hand from waving, and he turns to me with a totally panicked look on his face. “We’re fucked. We’resofucked, Reid. What the fuck do we do!?”
“We have to tell her. Simple,” I tell him.
“How!?” He growls. “She just told us she wanted to add three guys to our pack. Two of those three are already in the pack—us!”
“I know,” I growl. “Would you calm down?” I hiss, looking around. Carson’s freak-out is starting to draw attention. The last thing I need is someone to pull out their phone and record two KP players having a meltdown and posting it online. Marilyn would kill us.
“Nothing about this calls for calm, man. We should have said something at brunch. We should have just said,Hey, about that. Waffle and Grim? Yeah, that’s us. We didn’t know how to tell you, but... surprise! Also, we’re totally in love with you, too, so no problems there.”
Honestly, he’s not wrong, and I’m normally the level-headed one. “We were having such an amazing weekend with her, anything that could possibly ruin it would have sucked.”
“Yeah, but how do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out? This is worse, so much worse, because now we’re lying to her face.”
Carson grabs handfuls of his hair as he starts to pace. Grabbing his arm, I pull him toward the nearest bathroom.
“You need to breathe! We’ll see her next week when we are there to play against the Royal Alphas. After the game, we’ll sit her down and tell her everything.”
“Okay, fine. What about Death, though? She said he messaged her and told her his feelings! So, what? We’re just supposed to welcome him with open arms now? This is all so messed up. We should have told Death that we happened to run into PastelPrincess, found out she was our scent match, and that we’re chill if he wanted to try to pursue something with her too.”
“But we’re not,” I point out. “I don’t have any ill will toward the guy, but we know nothing about him. He might be chill with us, but who knows what kind of guy he really is? He could be a fake, evil person in real life. It’s a gamble being friends with people online, people you don’t really know.”
“Dude, stop. It’s the same with people you do know. You hear about all the stories of couples who have been together for years and find out someone’s living a double life, or is actually a serial killer! Our mistake was not telling Addie as soon as we found out. We should have video-called her right then and there, and we’d probably have laughed about it. Acting like we didn’t have a clue was a mistake, and we just made it again!” He throws his hand toward the door.
Fuck. Fuck! He’s right. God, he’s so right.
“So what do we do?!” I shout back. “Call her up and tell her?”
“Well, no, she’s on the plane, and we’re about to get on ours. But we have to tell her soon.”
“I know.I know.Trust me, I fucking know.” I lean against the sink, heart pounding, head a mess.
“And what about Death?” Carson asks. “I say we message him, tell him we know about him talking with Addie about his feelings, and ask him to have a video call. Maybe we can vet him a bit before Addie takes things further.”
“Yes.” I nod. “Let’s do that. Maybe Death isn’t a bad guy. We did blindside him with our confession. I’d have reacted the same way if it were the other way around.”
“Okay then, first we talk to Death. Then we tell Addie. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Checking my phone, I curse. “Shit, we leave in thirty. Our terminal is on the other end of the damn airport."
“Fuck.” He rushes for the door. “We'd better book it.”
During the flight home, all I could think about was Addie. I feel guilty. I know Carson, and I haven’t really done anything wrong apart from not telling her who we are online. The whole thing is complicated, and it shouldn’t be this big of a deal. We only just found out who she is online, it’s not like we’ve been keeping a secret for months or years. But the longer we take to clear the air, the more it’s going to hurt her. I just hope she doesn’t hate us for keeping this from her, and she can understand where we’re coming from.
When we arrive home, we’re drained. I can feel my energy level crashing. We text with Addie for a bit before saying goodnight and going to bed.
The next day, we’re back to work. By the time we’re home again, it’s late.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with before life catches up with us again.” Carson says, throwing himself in his gaming chair.
He pulls upTwisted Valleyand finds our group chat with Death.
WaffleMaster_135: Hey, man. So, we just spent the weekend with Princess. She mentioned you told her how you felt. We are hoping we could talk with you about it.
Carson presses send, and I pull my chair over to his to wait for Death’s response. It says he’s online, and I can see that he read the message.
