Page 96 of Interference

I can’t get away from this illusion we have to maintain.

I can’t fucking breathe.

Staring at the numbers steadily ticking up toward our room, I exhaled slowly. The weirdest thing was that even though I was trapped with Simon like this, I also felt freer than I had in a long time. At least we weren’t pretending anymore. Not behind these tightly closed doors, anyway. Everyone else thought we were together, but we knew the truth, and once we were alone, we could drop the act. It was like sucking in our stomachs whenever we were around people, and then as soon as there was no one else around, we could release our breath and not bother pretending anymore.

I still couldn’t breathe as easily as I wished I could. I was still suffocating under the weight of the secret we had to keep. But at least I didn’t have to fake anything when it was just the two of us.

We should’ve broken up ages ago.

As much as I was relieved to be able to drop the façade, I was still pissed that Simon had declared this date night and yanked away any chance I had of a night out with the guys. And on a night when I actually had something to celebrate, too! Come on, Simon. What the fuck? All the way up to our floor and down the hall to our room, I stewed quietly. I didn’t dare start something out here. Too many cameras. Too much potential for someone to walk in on us. Too many ways our secret could get away from us.

But the second we were in our room and the door was locked behind us, I whirled on him. “What the hell, Simon?”

He blinked, showing his palms. “What?”

“Date night?” I rolled my eyes. “If you don’t want to go out with the guys tonight, fine. Just say so.” I loosened my tie and turned away from him. “Do we really have to fake date night just because you want to—”

I froze, my finger still hooked in my tie, when my gaze landed on the wine bottle and two glasses on the table.

Simon’s hands slid over my waist, and his stubbled jaw brushed the side of my neck. “I was thinking it wouldn’t be a fake date night.”

“Wouldn’t—” I stepped out of his grasp and faced him. “Simon. We’re not—”

“You don’t want to try again?”

I blinked, and for a few seconds, I was completely speechless. “I… You wanted this! You ended things.” I threw up my hands. “I spent a whole damn year trying to get us back on the rails, but now that you called it quits, you want—I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. “Maybe that was a mistake.”

I gaped at him, wondering how I didn’t have literal whiplash after his sudden shift from coldly ending things to… this. “A mistake?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “We had a good thing, you know?”

“We did. But then it wasn’t. And it wasn’t for a long time.” I crossed my arms, knowing damn well it made me look defensive, but I didn’t know what else to do with my hands that wouldn’t give away my sudden nerves. “We tried. It’s…” I trailed off, shaking my head.

Simon sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “And we’re stuck doing this”—he gestured around the room—“for the rest of the season. We might as well use that time to give it another shot.”

I clenched my jaw and looked away from him. He was deploying those soft eyes that had won me over in the beginning and were so damn good at disarming me during a fight. “Or we’ll just break up again, and it’ll be worse this time.”

He stepped closer, making my spine prickle unpleasantly. “You wanted to fix us before.” His hand landed softly on my shoulder, and it took all I had not to jerk away from his touch. “You’re right—you tried before and I… All I did was avoid it.” He sighed, squeezing my shoulder. “I didn’t put in the work like you did. I should have.”

I closed my eyes, pressing my lips together. There should’ve a deep ache of emotions cracking loose inside me. I should’ve been breathing a long overdue sigh of relief that he’d finally recognized that I’d been the only one actually breaking a sweat to fix our relationship.

But all I felt in that moment was the long simmering anger beneath the surface shifting to a rolling boil. The last year’s worth of frustration swelled at the same time exhaustion tried to push me right down to the carpet at our feet.

In the same moment Simon admitted that he finally got it, I truly understood what “too little too late” really meant.

I shook my head slowly. “We can’t, Simon.”

“Why not?” He stepped closer, though I still refused to look at him. “I love you, Anthony. I was wrong. We… Neither of us did anything, you know? No one cheated. No one crossed any lines.” He touched my cheek in that way I’d always loved, and his voice was soft and pleading as he said, “We can go back.”

I sighed, wondering if the only reason I hadn’t broken down in tears was because I was just too damned tired. Not from the game, either. I’d played twenty-seven hard minutes just a couple of hours ago, but the fatigue that kept my eyes dry tonight had nothing to do with hockey.

“Please, Anthony,” he whispered, running his thumb along my cheekbone. “We can do this.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Why not?” Panic rose in his voice. “We’ll see a counselor. I’ll move back in. Anything you want. We can—”

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