Page 31 of Don't Puck Your Best Friend’s Girl

"I never fucking lied about cheating on Hannah," I remind her. "Everyone knew what happened. I owned it. I may have cheated, but I am not a fucking liar, Saylor."

She looks away, anger coursing through her. I watch as her fingers pluck at the mattress. The silence stretches between us, and it's painfully obvious she cannot admit to shit. She would rather sit here and lie and pretend like none of it is happening. God, it's fucking unbelievable how immature this girl is. How she handles things infuriates me. I clench my jaw to release some tension. If she's going to deny it, it has to be because she still loves him. I care for him, too, but lying about what we did isn't fair to me or Byron.

"Do you want him back?" I ask, the question that's been on the tip of my tongue since I saw her at the party. It's why he wanted me to talk to her in the first place, right?

She doesn't answer right away, her expression thoughtful, distant. Then she shakes her head slowly. "No," she says quietly. "I don't."

She chews her bottom lip as I shrug. I exhale, trying to find the right way to talk to this girl. I've never gotten anywhere with her in the past, and I don't expect that to change overnight.

"Saylor, we should tell him," I say. "Together, if you want. But he deserves to know."

She doesn't respond. Instead, her eyes search the ground for an answer. I watch as the first tear takes it form and spills over before she can blink them away.

"I don't want to," she whispers, voice breaking. "I don't want him to know."

"What kind of person do you want to be, Saylor? Someone who takes responsibility for their actions, or someone who lies and pretends nothing happened?"

She doesn't answer, but she starts to cry harder. Her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. I want to reach for her, to pull her against me and tell her everything will be okay. But I don't know if that's true. And I don't know if I have the right.

Her fingers reach for me, tentative and desperate all at once. The gesture breaks something loose in my chest — this silent permission, this wordless plea. I don't hesitate. In one fluid motion, I move to be near her, gathering her into my arms as her tears fall harder.

She feels small against me, her body trembling with each sob. I rest my chin atop her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo — something floral and clean that stands in stark contrast to the lingering smell of sickness in the room. My throat tightens.

I've never been good at this part — the aftermath, the emotional fallout. Give me a problem to solve, a strategy to develop, a game to win, and I'm in my element. But this tangle of guilt and desire and obligation feels like trying to navigate a maze in the dark, every path potentially leading to another dead end.

"I can't do it," she whispers against my chest, her words muffled by the fabric of my hoodie. "What you're saying makes sense, and I understand, but I…"

I understand that fear better than she knows. The thought of Byron's face when he learns the truth makes my stomach twist into knots. The betrayal in his eyes, the hurt, the anger — I've seen it all before, reflected in my own expression when Hannah revealed what happened. The memory of that pain is still fresh enough to make my chest ache.

"Listen," I say softly, pulling back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are red-rimmed, cheeks flushed, and still, she's beautiful. "There are only two ways this goes. Either we tell him, or he finds out from someone else. Which do you think would be worse?"

Her eyes search mine, looking for an escape route I can't offer. "I thought you'd want to hide it," she admits, voice barely above a whisper. "Keep it a secret between us."

The words settle, heavy with meaning. Would I? Two months ago, maybe. A year ago, definitely. Before Hannah, before I understood what betrayal really feels like from both sides, yeah, I probably would have selfishly kept this entire thing a secret.

"I probably would have," I confess. "Before everything with Hannah and my brother. But…" I pause, gathering thoughts that feel too big for the words. "Being betrayed fucking sucks. But hearing it straight from Hannah, knowing exactly what happened — it made moving on possible. Painful, but possible. She didn't sugarcoat shit. I only knew about what happened because she's a good person. She couldn't lie, and that alone was inspiring. Don't get me wrong, the entire thing was fucked, but it showed me how important the truth is…the entire thing changed me. I mean, I thought I was a good person, but she owned up to her mistake, and I will always respect that. Respect the truth."

My fingers find a strand of her hair that's escaped her bun, tucking it gently behind her ear. The gesture is more intimate than I intended, but she doesn't pull away.

"If I had found out from someone else, or pieced it together from rumors and sideways glances? That would have been so much worse. The not knowing, the questions that would never fully be answered would probably eat at me. It makes me still feel like shit…like the entirety of it, but I do feel a little better knowing that they're together now. Props to them."

A ghost of a smile touches her lips. "You haven't really moved on, though. You joined the hockey team to get back at him."

The observation startles a low laugh from me. "Yeah… Sandy and I have a ways to go before it's all water under the bridge." I shrug, the movement shifting her slightly in my arms. "But we're making progress. I'm sure we'll work it out eventually. We're brothers."

"Eventually?" she echoes, skepticism clear in her voice.

"I just needed a bigger problem first," I joke, the levity feeling strange but necessary in the heaviness of the moment. "And this situation definitely takes the cake. Sleeping with you? That makes the whole hockey revenge plot look like child's play."

She lets out a small hiccup of laughter, and something in my chest eases at the sound. Her tears have slowed, her breathing returning to normal as she wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"So," I start again, now that the conversation has smoothed into calmer waters. "Are you willing to tell him with me? We can just say we got drunk and accidentally hooked up. Keep it simple."

The word 'accidentally' hangs in the air between us, and her eyes find mine, suddenly sharp and clear despite her tearstained face.

"Is that how you feel?" she asks quietly. "That it was an accident?"

The question cuts through my carefully constructed explanation, straight to the heart of something I've been avoiding even in my own thoughts. Was it an accident? The alcohol, the party, the empathy, the circumstances — all of those were contributing factors, certainly. But I remember the way it felt to hear why she actually hated me, the way she looked in that lingerie like she wore it just for me, and the clear-eyed decision to kiss her back when she leaned in.

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