“You’ve been dazed out,” he says, his eyes narrowing as he studies my face. “You’ve barely eaten your burger, and you’re completely tuned out. What’s going on with you?”
“I’m fine,” I say defensively, setting down my burger. “Just tired. Been a long week.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” he says, his knuckles tapping on the table. “I’m your brother. You don’t get this quiet unless something is wrong. Are you hurt? Hiding an injury or something?”
“No,” I say instantly. The last thing I need is for him to call our mom and tell her he thinks something is wrong with me. “I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Okay, then what is it?” Aiden pushes, his gaze intense and unyielding. “Because if it’s not an injury, it’s mental. You nervous about the game this weekend?”
I stare at him, and the urge to tell him about Eva presses on me until I can hardly breathe. Sure, he would understand thepressure Eva and I are under, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to feel like to betray his own blood.
“I, uh, I’m seeing someone,” I admit before I can stop the words.
Aiden’s brows shoot up in surprise, a slow knowing smile tugging at his mouth. “Seeing someone? That’s what has you so distracted?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. It’s just complicated,” I say quietly, my hands clenching into fists on top of the table. “Incredibly complicated.”
Aiden’s smile fades, his brotherly radar locking into the stress on my face. He leans back, eyes searching mine. “Okay. I’m listening.”
I rub my palms over my face. “She works in the industry. On the media side. She’s working as a field producer right now, trying to prove herself, but she’s worried that all the good ol’ boys in the business wouldn’t take her seriously if they found out she was sleeping with one of the players on the team she’s covering. She doesn’t want to lose her credibility while she’s building her career.”
Aiden nods slowly. “Okay. That makes sense for her. Sports media is brutal for women. I get why she’s drawing a line to protect her job. But Aston, why are you worked up about this? The league doesn’t fine players for dating producers to my knowledge.”
I swallow hard, the dryness in my throat making it feel like sand. I look around, mainly to avoid direct eye contact, before I meet his gaze. “I’m going along with it because of our family,” I confess. “Because of Ace.”
Aiden stiffens. The casual, relaxed posture gone. His eyes narrow as the pieces of the puzzle come together.
“Ace?” Aiden whispers dangerously low. “Aston, tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”
“I guess it depends on what you think I did,” I say. “It just happened. I didn’t plan it. We ran into each other a while agobefore the season started, and the connection was there. It’s always been there if I’m being honest. Like, since college. But I never did anything about it then because of Ace.”
“Evangeline Carrington,” Aiden says with a sigh. “You’re fucking Eva.”
Hearing her name come out of my brother’s mouth makes my stomach drop. And now that I’ve told him, it settles between us like a brick.
“Hey, it’s not like that. She’s not just some hookup,” I say defensively, my jaw tight, my eyes steady as I look at him. “But, yeah, we’ve slept together.”
Aiden doesn’t react badly; he just stares at me with an unreadable expression. Then he takes a long, slow drink of his bourbon and leans forward.
“I fucking knew it when I saw you,” he says.
I blink, confused. “What do you mean you saw me?”
“At the wedding. And I warned you to stay away,” he says, shaking his head. “While everyone was dancing and distracted, I was outside grabbing some air. I saw you two leave together. I watched you walk across the yard. I saw the way you were looking at her, dancing with her.”
A cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck. I stare at him.
“You saw us?” I say, my chest tightening. “You didn’t say anything before now about seeing us leave together.”
“Well, I guess I didn’t want to think about you two fucking,” he says, his finger pointing at me. “I also thought maybe you had enough sense to leave it one night. That you’d wake up and realize you were playing with fire, and leave it alone. But you didn’t. You kept going.”
“Aiden. It wasn’t a fling though,” I argue. “I did leave before she woke up, and I feel like a world-class asshole for it. But the guilt hit hard the next morning. Then I saw her again, and it was like she was in my veins. What happened between us isn’t a casual hookup for me. I wanted her in college before she andAce got together— hell, while they were together, if I’m honest— and I want her even more now. I won’t make the same mistake of not taking my shot twice. But I feel like I’m trapped in this twisted nightmare because she wants to protect her career, and because I don’t know how to tell my own twin, who has seemed to move on, by the way, that I’m into her.”
Aiden just stares, his disapproval turning into something like pity. He sees the torment on my face. He knows out of everyone in the family, he’s the only one I could ever lay this burden on.
“Secrets in a family like ours have a shelf life, little brother,” he says, his voice returning to a protective rumble. “We’re too close. You think you can keep this buried for a whole season while she’s standing on your sideline with a headset on? You think no one else will notice the way you look at her?”
“I can manage it,” I mutter, although I don’t believe my own words.
