Page 46 of Dared

“Leo. No. You have an open invite to every single one of my future games, okay? And my practices. I would be over the fucking moon if you came. I just didn’t want to put you in a situation where you felt like you had to say yes. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. The games are a lot more full-on than our training sessions.” I shifted closer to him, placing my hand on his thigh. “I just want you to be happy.”

His mouth fell open. “Oh.”

“Why are you so surprised by this?” Without waiting for him to reply, because I knew this whole conversation was awkwardfor both of us, I continued talking. “Speaking of surprised, who texted you? I’m sure your phone vibrated more times than mine.”

“JJ, and…Nic?” His voice lifted in a question, and my brows rose. Wordlessly, he handed me his phone, open to his messages.

JJ:

Hope you’re ok babe. If Finn isn’t looking after you say the word and I’ll come straight over

You know I’ll come over anytime. Here for you

You’re strong and I know you can handle anything

I saw that he’d replied to JJ, telling him he was fine and not to worry. Beneath JJ’s messages, there was a thread from an unknown number.

UNKNOWN:

Hope you don’t mind I got your number from JJ

Are you ok? I’m good at keeping secrets if you want to talk

Especially sex related things

Did I say I have a FanBoyzOnly account?

The only reason I mentioned that was because it means I’m confident discussing things

I’m not bragging

I couldn’t help laughing at what were clearly Niccolò’s messages.

UNKNOWN:

Bennett said I should unsend these messages but I don’t know how

Sorry. All I wanted to say was that I hope you’re ok and you can talk to me anytime because we’re friends

There was a short break in the message time stamps, followed by a couple more.

UNKNOWN:

It’s Nic BTW in case you didn’t work it out! I owe you!

Look at this!

Those messages were followed by the same picture Bennett had sent me.

“Nic,” I said, and Leo nodded, that cute little smile appearing on his face again as he took his phone back and replied after adding Nic to his contacts. I looked away, not wanting to invade his privacy.

My phone beeped, letting me know our delivery was due to arrive, and so I jogged downstairs, throwing open the front door and surprising the girl standing on the driveway with her hand raised to the doorbell.

I relieved her of the bags of food, setting everything up on the kitchen table since I didn’t have the space in my bedroom. When I called Leo and he came downstairs, I watched him carefully as he opened the individual cardboard boxes, waiting for the moment he realised?—

“Finn!”

“Yeah?” Leaning back against the counter, I raised a brow.

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