Page 170 of By His Play

Of course, it’s mostly blown over now.

I guess, in the end, it hasn’t hurt his reputation. Things like this never hurt the one the nation loves; it’s always the nobody that ends up with scathing messages and death threats.

Thankfully, while I may have received my fair share of the former, I haven’t seen the latter.

I’d like to think that if I had, I wouldn’t have taken it seriously, or to heart, but it’s hard to say how I’ll feel about anything these days.

Things that usually wouldn’t affect me are suddenly making me cry. I saw an advertisement raising money for sick animals the other day, and I bawled like a baby.

Once I can no longer organize anything else in my kitchen, I drag myself through to the bathroom to shower and quickly find myself decluttering my bathroom cabinet of all the liquids and potions I’ve bought over the years and never used.

Hours have passed by the time I finally make it back to my kitchen and embark on cooking dinner.

I may not have called Kieran, but my apartment is very tidy. I’ve fully unpacked, and I’ve sorted out my closet with very strict rules about getting rid of things. There is a huge bag sitting in the hallway ready to go to Goodwill.

I just wish the saying “tidy house, tidy mind” was right.

There is nothing tidy about the shit in my head these days.

After making myself dinner, I curl into my favorite seat on the couch. It allows me the best view of the stadium. It’s sad, I know, but if I’m here and I know Kieran is there training or whatever, then I feel closer to him.

You’re too dependent, a little voice says.

Closing my eyes, I suck in a deep breath.

I’ve never considered my closeness with Kieran to be anything other than a good friendship before.

But everything is different now. I’m overanalyzing everything. Especially the way he made me feel that weekend…

Dragging my hair away from my face, I twist it up into a messy bun before grabbing my cell.

I open the stream of messages that have come in from him throughout the day.

Kieran: Happy Saturday! Do you have much planned?

Kieran: What’s the weather like with you?

Kieran: I’m spending the morning in the gym, then out with Kingston and Kian later.

I glance at the time.

He’ll be with them now.

My stomach knots at the thought of interrupting his time with his brothers.

Nope.

I’ll just call tomorrow when he’s not busy.

Forgetting about the one thing I was going to do today, I open up Instagram instead.

It’s a risk, one which I’ve regretted every single time I’ve done it over the past couple of weeks, but still, I torture myself with it.

My notifications are off the charts, but I only open the ones from people I know. Which, embarrassingly, is limited to Kieran, Brax, Tate, Lori, and a couple of girls from work. My circle is ridiculously small.

That’s probably a part of my problem with Kieran.

I don’t have any other friends. No real ones.

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