Page 14 of My Brother's Best Friend

But I had. Badly.

I gritted my teeth. No, I hadn’t. My head was just messing with me.

After making it out of the sea of hockey guys and their groupies, I sighed in relief, closed my bedroom door behind me, and leaned against it.

Thank God I didn’t?—

My eyes widened when I caught sight of messy brown hair on my pillow. I ran over to my bed and ripped off the blankets to see Alec Wolfe lying in my bed, curled up in a ball and completely naked.

CHAPTER8

ALEC

“What are you doing in here?” Maddie asked, shoving my shoulder to wake me. “And why the hell are you naked? Please don’t fucking tell me that you slept with someone else in my bed!” She slammed her hand into my shoulder again, turning me over. “I swear to God, you’d better not have done that shit, Wolfe.”

I blinked my eyes open and stared up at a mess of frizzy red hair. “A good morning would have sufficed.”

Maddie yanked the pillow out from underneath my head and smacked me across the face with it. “If you slept with someone else in my room, I will kill you! You’re a disgusting piece—” The rest of her voice faded as she smacked me again. And again.

“Maddie,” I said between slaps.

Another mouthful of pillow.

“Maddie!”

Smack.

“Maddie!” I shouted, yanking the pillow from her hand and quickly turning us over in the bed so she lay underneath me. I pinned her wrists to the mattress and blew a strand of hair off my forehead. “Settle down. I didn’t sleep with anyone in your room.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and stared up at me through wide eyes, tears forming in them.

“What?” I asked.

“B-but you slept with someone else?”

My body stiffened as I thought about what had happened last night. I hadn’t slept with anyone, except her—at least not willingly. But, hell, I wasn’t about to tell her that. Because I … because how could I have let that happen? I should’ve been able to push that girl off, to protect myself.

A part of me … must have wanted it if I couldn’t even do that, right?

Right?

I squeezed my eyes closed and shook my head. “I didn’t sleep with anyone but you.”

Her eyes widened. “Y-you remember?”

Again, I froze.

Last night, I had led her to believe that I thought she was Sandra. It was the easiest thing for both of us to believe, apparently. But I had wanted to be with her for so fucking long.

And now, I would never be able to.

Not after … not after what had happened once I left her room.

What if I had come inside the other girl? What if she had gotten pregnant? Maddie would never want to be with someone like me, who had gotten an anonymous chick from Redwood Academy pregnant. And, fuck, I couldn’t be a dad now. All my chances at playing hockey in college would be flushed down the fucking drain. It was bad enough that the guys hadn’t believed me last night.

I stared down at Maddie, not knowing how to respond.

Guilt, shame, and fucking pain simmered inside my body. I wanted to hurl again, wanted to collapse into her arms and cry as I told her everything. But would she even believe me? She hated me—and for good reasons.

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