Page 119 of Winning Brynn

I can do nothing but blink at him and gape. There’s a lot of gaping, actually, so much so that the stale air in the locker room dries my tongue to the point of pain.

He doesn’t know.

Relief like I’ve never felt cascades through my body, making me unsteady on my legs. Alex, seemingly overridden with his own guilt, mistakes my buckling knees for shock.

He launches from his seat toward me, holding my shoulders and staring into my face. “I didn’t kiss her back, Leo. I would never, I hope you know that. But—” His lashes flutter shut as he sucks in a quaking breath through his nose, “I must have done something to make her think I was interested.”

“Alex.” But he doesn’t stop.

“I didn’t mean to give her that impression. Truly I didn’t. Sure, I made some dick jokes here and there, but that’s just me, man. I like joking about dicks, you know that.” His shoulders sag with the weight of his needless guilt. “I don’t know what I did that made her think it was okay to kiss me, but I must have done something, and I’m just…you’re my best friend, and I’d never—”

“Alex,” I say again, firmer this time. But it’s like he doesn’t hear me, or if he does, he’s too desperate to get his next words out to stop.

“I’m so sorry.”

Fuck.

It’s like he’s driven a knife through my gut. Guilt rips its way through the wreckage, violent in its assault of my senses. I feel it in every nerve and blood cell as it smarts like an electrical burn.

Here I am, knowing I’ve been fucking the most precious person in the world to him behind his back for months. And here he is, so solemn and panicked in his confession, flinching as if waiting for me to strike him.

I don’t think there’s a person on this Earth who hates themselves as much as I do right now.

It doesn’t matter that I’m in love with Brynn. Alex won’t see past the betrayal of me having touched her at all. He especially won’t see past the fact that I’ve failed to tell him for so long.

“Alex,” I try again. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

His brows pull tight in confusion. “But I—”

“But nothing. Issy is the mother of my child, yes, but she means nothing to me beyond that. I have no claim over her, so even if you had kissed her, I wouldn’t care.” Swallowing, I force myself through the rest. “But thank you for letting me know.”

He slumps, relief billowing from him in waves. “I wouldn’t go there, though, even if you said it’s okay. You’re my best friend. Bro code, you know?”

The knife in my gut twists.

Goddamn bro code. Goddamn it all to hell.

Nodding mutedly, because I’m terrified of what I’ll say if I speak, I clap him on the shoulder.

He beams at me. “Thanks, man. I don’t deserve you.”

Gulping, I shake my head. Then quietly, so he can’t hear, I mutter, “It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.”

Wind whips through my hair as I launch myself down the right-wing of the soccer field, the crowd roaring louder the closer I get to the opposition’s side of the center line.

Ahead of me, Alex is doing his damndest to outrun an astonishingly fast defender on the opposing team. He tries to tell me something with his eyes, silently communicating with me in the way we’ve always been able to do. But I’m too lost in my head today to understand or even attempt to try.

A frown mars his face as he realizes I’m not picking up his cues, dipping out of the defender’s cover to make himself clear for a pass.

I send my foot into the ball, steering it in his direction, but I don’t put enough power behind it. The other team’s midfielder intercepts, sending it flying across the field to their striker, who receives it with perfect control and sends it seamlessly into the net with all the flair and aptitude that is usually expected from me.

“What the fuck, Sully?” Alex roars through the early spring air. “I was open!”

I can’t look at him. If I do, I’ll spill everything right here on the stadium turf, with the fans chanting our names and wearing our numbers in a sickeningly ironic display of loyalty.

So, I walk away from him, centering myself in the middle of the field and waiting for Arun’s goal kick to send the ball soaring through the air once more.

We concede another goal before half-time, and though Coach Carter reems my ass in the locker room during the fifteen-minute break, I don’t feel at all re-energized as I wait in my position for the ref to hiss a single blow of his whistle.

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