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Fuck.

I’d spent weeks telling myself this was just really good sex with my best friend. Turned out it was just really good sex with the guy I was in love with … who also happened to be my best friend.

Paige smiled—warmly now—and squeezed my fingers. “Does he know?”

“We … uhh … he.” I stopped, blowing out a breath and lifting my eyes up to the ceiling.

I barely knew Paige. Cally was … if not a celebrity, then celebrity adjacent. If I managed not to fuck things up, I might be famous someday, too—at least in hockey circles.

She patted my hand and slid hers away. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise your secret is safe with me.”

“There’s no secret,” I said, my voice strained.

She tilted her head slightly, staring at me for a long beat, then looked away. “Sorry. My mistake. I get silly when I’m tipsy.”

I appreciated the out—so much so that I didn’t bother pointing out that she’d only had one drink.

She gathered up her purse and pushed her chair back. Standing, she looked down at me. “Good luck, Michael … with everything.”

“You too,” I said, watching her go, my heart beating loudly in my chest.

I walked back to the apartment instead of getting a car, even though it was fucking freezing. I needed the air. Without it, I’d probably hyperventilate.

The entire walk, I thought about Cally, and when I got home, I stood on the sidewalk outside our building, staring up at our apartment, willing … fuck. I didn’t know what. That he’d know I was out there and come to the window, looking for me?

The light was on, which meant he was still awake.

Which also meant I was going to have to go in there and act like a normal person, like someone who hadn’t just realized he was in love with someone who didn’t love him back.

Assuming he ever decided to stop ignoring me.

After too many minutes, I went inside, hit the button for the elevator, my pulse skyrocketing.

Thirty seconds later—standing in front of our door—I made a plan that consisted of exactly one step: never let Cally find out.

How I was supposed to do that when a near-stranger had figured it out within an hour of meeting me was a problem for Tomorrow Mikey.

Current Mikey just needed to get through tonight.

TWENTY-TWO

CALLY

I picked the video game controller up off the coffee table and turned on the console. The start screen loaded, showing a dozen tiny racers lined up waiting to be picked. Mikey always chose the character I wanted to play just to fuck with me. With him out on his date, I could finally play who I wanted, but did I even want to?

I stared at the screen until it went blurry, then turned the console off.

I hauled myself up from the couch and moved to the kitchen, pulling up the grocery list app on my phone and began ticking off items—eggs, protein powder, the Greek yogurt I liked. I went to click on chicken thighs before I remembered Mikey was the one who ate those.I couldn’t stand the texture, too many weird tendons and fatty pockets. I deleted the entire list and dropped my head forward with a sigh, setting my phone face-down on the counter.

I went to my room, peeling out of my jeans and the sweater I hadn’t bothered changing out of when I got home, and pulled on one of my old college shirts and the softest, most comfortable sweats I owned. Then I padded back out to the living room, barefoot, my feet cold against the hardwood floors.

I turned off the bright overhead lights, leaving the lamp with the warm bulb on, and rolled out my yoga mat. I lowered myself down, folded into a cross-legged seat, and queued up my favorite meditation podcast on my Bluetooth speaker.

Soft chimes filled the room, followed by a man’s voice asking me to notice how the air entered and exited my lungs—my stomach rising on every inhale and falling on every exhale—while he encouraged me to let go, joining him in a state of deep peace and relaxation.

I tried. I really fucking did.

But when a few minutes later he told me to open my eyes and name five things I could see, all I saw was Mikey—his hoodie hanging on the back of one of the kitchen stools, a picture of him with his mom and sister on the bookshelf directly in front of me, on the shelf above that, the ceramic lobster he’d bought as a joke but now held the lone succulent we somehow hadn’t killed yet.