Page 114 of The Thing About My Rival

“Ten-minute warning for the bus, folks,” Leo’s voice calls from the far end of the hallway.

Turning around and walking away would be my easiest option right now. But it would also be the dick option. It would be the option the me of two months ago—and my whole lifetime before that—would have taken.

Instead, pulse pumping, I step into the room to do the right thing. Not just because itisthe right thing, but because it’s what Iwantto do. I want to make this as right as I can make it. Which isn’t very right at all. But I need to do my best.

“Look, Drew?—”

“Drew?Drew?” Her face flames. “Since when do you ever use my first name? But now it’s allDrew?Like that’s somehow going to make everything okay?”

I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I was just trying to get her attention—something I’ve craved since the moment she breezed into the locker room that first morning at the end of August.

“We always knew only one of us could stay.” Congratulations to me, for managing nothing better than stating the unhelpful fucking obvious.

Wilcox will be devastated to no longer have any ties with this place. And the thought of her in pain makes me want to puke—the knowledge that I’m the cause of that pain makes me want to punch myself in my head, in my knotted guts, and frankly anywhere that might hurt enough to feel like appropriate punishment for ruining everything for her.

If I hadn’t been here, she would be thriving in this job. And so fucking happy.

But she’s the exact opposite of happy. And it’s all my fault. And my verbal ineptitude is just making everything worse.

“How long have you known?” She folds her arms, her hands forming fists, shoulders hunched. “Did you already know when we…did all…that…this morning?”

This morning was amazing. It wasn’t like sleepy morning sex. It was more fired up, more tossing each other around. We’d ended up on the floor. It was like we were trying to fuck ourselves to victory.

“Of course not.” How could she think I would possibly keep a secret like that from her? “They told me just a few minutes ago. Right before I was scouring the place for you, to see why you weren’t on the bus.”

“So you thought you’d stand outside the door and listen to the executioner deliver his death blow?”

“Shit, Wilcox.” I rub my forehead. “It must have looked like that. But it wasn’t like that at all. I just heard Leo talking to you. So I thought I’d better not interrupt.”

I step toward her, hand pressed to my chest, trying to hold in my heart, which feels like it’s on the verge of squeezing itself out between my ribs and flinging itself at her feet. “I had no idea you were going to find out now. It’s awful. Completely ruined a great day for you. I know exac?—”

“Remember when you stood outside this door and heard Ramon yelling at me? You didn’t decide not to interrupt that time.”

“And you gave me a right bollocking for it, remember? Told me I shouldn’t have charged in to save you. So I didn’t this time.”

“Only because saving me would have meant you losing. And we all know if there’s one thing the mighty Hugo freaking Powers must never do, it’s lose.”

This is a nightmare. An unwinnable position. I’m damned whichever way I turn. Torn in half.

She sniffs and rubs her nose with the back of her hand.

“Anyway, just now, I still didn’t want you to saveme.” Her eyes are full and pleading, her voice tight as a drum. “I wanted you to saveus.”

The crack in her last word is like a giant boot crushing the very essence of my being. I can’t let her think I’m giving up on what we have.

“This doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you.” I reach for her, desperate to pull her against me, to bury my face in her hair, stroke her back, do whatever I can to make her feel better.

But she retreats and looks away, making the boot grind down harder.

I’m aware that the heel of my hand is pressing against my temple, but the rest of me is numb. “Do you really think this means it’s over?”

Please, God, no. It’s taken me till I’m thirty-four to find the person who fits with me. I can’t lose her now.

“I love you, Wilcox. I want to be with you every minute of the day. I skip around this place not just because we’re winning and I love this job, but becauseyou’rehere.”

“Well, obviously I’m not going to be here any longer. So this is all yours.” She throws her arms wide and gestures to the office. “Exactly as you wanted right from the start.”

She stomps toward the wall joining the locker room and crouches down. What the hell is she doing?

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