Page 77 of Sin Bin

“We need to talk,” he says softly, though his tone remains hard, and I don’t think he’s referring to his plan to tell me that helovesme.

I nod, sucking in a quiet sob because Iknowwhat’s coming, and then move down the steps to meet him in the foyer. It’s then that I remember the picture of the little boy I’d seen a few weeks ago, when I’d first come to his house. The boy I thought belonged to hissister.

Not to his sister,though.

Tohim.

He doesn’t ham around, waiting for the “right way” to tell me. In a way, I appreciate the forwardness of his speech, even though I want to know why he waited all this time to say something. I wouldn’t have judged him. I wouldn’t have looked at himdifferently.

If anything, knowing his past would have opened the door to his soul—all the crevices and the wounds and theshadows.

His Adam’s apple dips with a swallow. “Hannah and I met in college at Northwestern. She was the sister of a buddy, and I’d be lying to you if I said that I didn’t notice her right offthebat.”

Although it stings to hear him say that, I nod anyway. Isn’t this what I wanted? To learn everything he hid away? My fingers clench into balled fists. I guess I didn’t think his “secrets” would be something as momentousasthis.

“We started dating in my senior year, right before I got drafted by the Red Wings. She moved with me, you know, never even put up a fight about not wanting to live in Detroit. I was her home, she told me over and over again. She’d go with meanywhere.”

I bite down on my lower lip, wanting to ask so many questions but not wanting to throwhimoff.

He continues softly, “Best years of my life and worst ones as well. Hannah had a way about her that kept me hooked onto the relationship, even though it should have ended in college. The more my career took off, the less she wanted to be seen with me in public. I didn’t understand. It was one thing if she was camera shy, but the way Hannah acted . . . it didn’t feel that way. We’d go to the movies, and she’d slip her hand from mine. We’d go to dinner, and she’d invite my teammates so it looked like we were one big partygoingout.”

My heart breaks when his mouth opens and then clamps shut, his fist coming up to rub his chest. I want to touch him, to bring him comfort, but something tells me he doesn’t want that. That if I touch him, the story will end and this is . . . this is something he needs to let out. Something, I suspect, he’s never toldanyone.

His caustic chuckle catches me off guard. “Eventually, I caught onto her game.” He moves to the entryway table, picking up the picture of the little boy. “She didn’t want the media knowing about us, because if they had, then all of her lovers would have known she wasn’t, actually, single. In the house, she slept in my bed and rubbed my back and sat on my lap. In public, we were strangers. Friends,atmost.”

“How did you find out?” I ask, already dreading theanswer.

“The usual way.” He laughs again, lips turning up in a smile I know isn’t real. “Came home early from being on the road to find another guy in our bed. After that, she came clean and I was done. She left without a fuss, didn’t even try to fight for what we had . . . or didn’t have, I guess. What I didn’t know then was that she was pregnant with our child. She’d never mentionedanything.”

My stomach plummets. This time, I don’t stop myself from going to him—Ican’tstop myself from going to him. I press a hand to his arm, dragging it around me so that I can slip my hands to his back and pull him into a hug. His hands hesitate briefly before following suit, tugging meclose.

His chest is rock-hard against my cheek, and I can feel the shiver that racks his body when I press a kiss to hisheart.

“For two years, I didn’t know a thing, Zo. How does someonedosomething like that? She didn’t call. She didn’t message me.” His big shoulders hunch around me, and I realize he’s trying to get closer. Heart squeezing, I palm his big back, rubbing in circles. “And then one day, she shows up at my old house in Detroit. Tells me that we’d had a son and that he’d caught bronchitis and had passed away. I didn’t want to believe her. It honestly seemed like just the sort of fucked-up shit that she’d do to get back at me, but she shared the birth and death certificates with me. Offered to have me do a DNA test before he was cremated, so that I knew she wasn’tlying.”

My breathing is rough when I ask, “Didyou?”

“Yes.” I feel his nod against the top of my head. “I got the results back the day that you and I slepttogether.”

For a moment, the words don’tregister.

And when they do, I reel back in shock, disengaging from his arms. No. No. My gaze searches his face, looking for any hint of dishonesty, but there is none. If anything, he looks more exposed, more uneasy, than I’ve everseenhim.

“So you used me?” I whisper, and wow, it hurts. I’d always known that I’d just been a random hookup for him. But this . . . The urge to vomit returns twofold. “Did you know that I would be an easy lay? That I wanted you so badly, and it wouldn’t take much effort on your part to charm me out of mypants?”

Andre lurches forward, his expression a mask of regret and panic. “No,” he hastily exclaims, “Wait, yes. But not because of how you’rethinkingit.”

I lift my brows. “Howelseam I supposed to think of this, Andre? You slept with me. You let me suffer the media alone when everyone found out from that stupid security footage. Youusedme.”

The aftereffects of our night together have always stung, but knowing the truth is like a knife to an open wound. In that moment, when his large hands had been holding me up, and my nails had been digging into his back, I had let myself think that it was just the start of something new. That Andre and I had a future ahead of us. The words “I love you” had been on the tip of my tongue, and meanwhile Andre had sought me out because heknewthat I’d give him what he wanted. Sex. Uncomplicated sex with someone he never planned to sleep withtwice.

None of this is news, but emotions aren’t rational and right now . . . right now my lungs heave in an attempt to yankinair.

Andre’s fingers encircle my wrist, stilling me. “Please, Zo, baby, justlisten.”

I pull away from his grasp. “I listened, Andre. And I can commiserate with your pain. I can understand why you’d be upset and how your world quite literally turned upside down. But we werefriends, and you used the fact that Ilovedyou against me. And when the pieces fell apart, you didn’t even bother to help put them back together. You walked away. Just likeHannah.”

He flinches at the sound of his ex’s name. “I’mnothinglikeHannah.”

---