I watch the idea spark in his mind and thankfully have a second to brace for the impact before his fist makes contact with my jaw. The burst of pain spiderwebs throughout my entire face, leaving it throbbing as I blow out a wet breath. I brace a hand on the edge of my desk and use the other to rub at what I know will soon be a bruise.
“You get thatone,” I say tightly.
The taste of blood hits my taste buds as I run my tongue over the small cut on the inside of my cheek. I take a quick feel formissing or cracked teeth, but everything is intact. He didn’t hit me as hard as he could have.
Wes straightens and shoots fire at me with his glare. “Out of everyone here, you are the one who knew better. She’s too fucking young for you, and I don’t want you manipulating her. There are countless other women you could go for. You don’t need to be with her. Not Brielle. Not now.”
“That isn’t your decision to make. If you want to have a conversation about this like two grown men, we can do that. But I’m not going to stand here in my office and have you throw accusations around about a relationship you know nothing about.”
“I don’t need to know the details. The only thing that matters here is that you’re not right for her.”
I ignore the pain that shoots through my face when I tighten my jaw. “According to whom? You?”
“This isn’t—Brielle doesn’t think these things through. You knew full well that she’s off limits to every member of the Havoc. That includes you. Itespeciallyincludes you.”
“Why?”
He laughs darkly, his face filling with disbelief. “What do you mean, why? Because I know athletes just as well as you do. And whether you sit in this office or throw a ball on the pitch, you’re still a fucking athlete. One who’s also nearly double Brielle’s age and should know better. You can’t honestly look me in the face and tell me that if your sister was alive, you’d want her with one of us?”
My hearing pops.
I drop a second hand to the desk in front of me and lean my weight against it, squeezing so hard the wood groans.
I’ve never pretended that they didn’t know what happened to Lena. I was a fresh member of this team when she died, anddespite me keeping it all to myself, there were rumours. But hearing the confirmation out loud?
“That’s unfair,” I croak.
“Answer the question!”
The words rip out of me. They roar through the room, singeing my tongue and leaving an ashy aftertaste.
“The answer doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter because she’sdead. She’s dead, and if I had to choose between losing her all over again or letting her love a man who wore green and grey, then I’d choose watching her love him instead because she’s fucking dead, and I don’t actually have that choice!”
Wes staggers back a step. I fill my burning lungs with air that tastes bitter and scrub a hand down my face, pressing down on the ache in my jaw.
“You still have a family. She might be gone, but you have had a family here in this clubhouse who has wanted to be here for you since the moment you arrived.”
I sniff harshly, shaking my head as the burn in my nose grows. “I’m not here to be someone’s family. I’m here to work.”
“Why does there need to be some established line drawn in the sand separating the two?”
“This isn’t what you’re here to talk to me about. You’re here to give me shit. To scare me away from your sister.”
I know because while it was so long ago now, it almost feels more like a dream than a memory, I was Wes. It was my knuckles that throbbed from decking the guy my sister was dating, and who screamed accusations too similar to the ones I’ve heard today. The circumstances were different, yes. My sister was only a teenager, and there was an unborn baby involved. Yet it reads the same.
The protectiveness, the anger. The blood pumping in his ears so fast and loud he can hardly hear himself think. Can hardlyregister what he’s saying before the hateful, cold words are spewing out.
Wes is looking at me too deeply now. His eyes are too aware, too narrowed as he digs them into my skull.
“Well, that’s the issue, isn’t it? I don’t know you! None of us know jack shit about you because you don’t let us in. You don’t share about your family or your past, fuck—you don’t even talk about your career in the league. The only reason we know about your sister is because of Evie. Every invite we give you gets turned down, or on the rare chance you do gift us your presence, you don’t participate in any of the conversations. This is supposed to be afamily, but you don’t see us as one, do you? And now you want me to trust you with my little sister? The only sibling I have and the only member ofmyfamily who ever gave a shit?—”
He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. His eyes move through the room now, glossy and pained. I watch him start to pace the office, unable to stay still.
There’s a shared pain vibrating from deep inside his chest that calls to mine in a way that makes me want to run. To leave this office, this stadium, and fuck, this city even, and drive until the air around me is no longer suffocating.
I don’t move. I can’t.
“What happened yesterday?”
