Page 79 of Scoring Position

Ryan might barf.

“Don’t worry, I’m not asking. Just thinking out loud. I’ll leave it alone for tonight, but there is one last thing that should be taken care of today. Does Nico know you’re not sleeping at his place?”

He couldn’t meet Yorkie’s eyes.

“Who’s texting him?” But all Ryan could do was shake his head.

So Yorkie did it while Ryan choked down the rest of his meal, because “You need the calories. No arguing.”

Then Yorkie broke the news about the social situation. “Katja’s here. She didn’t want to be alone tonight, which is fair considering Kitty hasn’t been injured like this before. Also, he was really fucking high on pain meds at the hospital.” He quirked his lips. “It was kind of funny, but also a bit alarming for poor Katja.”

Yorkie dragged him into the den. “Hey, ladies. Ryan wanted to join the slumber party tonight.” Jenna raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask. She’d hear enough during pillow talk, Ryan was sure.

Katja gave him a shaky smile. “Nice to see you again, Ryan.”

“You too.” He sat on the couch and fervently prayed she wouldn’t ask after Nico. He knew she was fonder of his Russian-speaking better half—he cut that train of thought. “So—what are we watching?”

NICO TOOKhis time in the shower. After all, no one was waiting for him.

That hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped. It had slipped away from him like those bad games when he hadn’t been able to control his spiral.

Except this time, it wasn’t his fault.

Ryan read him so well, and he’d always been liberal with his affection. But affection was all it was. Nico had thought Ryan was just too scared to try, but that was obviously giving him too much credit. Either he had completely missed how stupidly in love Nico was, or he’d deliberately led him on. He’d showered Nico in kisses and pet names and incredible sex, long chats and massages and tea made just the way Nico liked it, fed him and watched movies with him and made himself fit inside Nico’s life.

But none of it meant anything to him.

And that made Nico angry. No,furious. Among other things. Sad. Hurt.

He finally dragged himself out of the shower and dressed in his street clothes. He’d given Ryan enough of a head start. He likely wouldn’t be home when Nico got there.

Good. Nico didn’t want to see his stupid face anyway.

He slung his bag over his shoulder, slunk out of the locker room, head down, and made his way toward the garage exit. But when he was walking through the ordinarily quiet atrium, voices started filtering down from the upper level.

That reminded him that he and Ryan hadn’t exactly had the most private of conversations—something Ryan seemed worried about. Now that Nico was removed from the heat and hurt of the moment, he was mortified. He hoped no one had overheard.

He glanced up at the second story offices visible in the atrium area. Was that the woman who’d been looking for Vorhees’s office the other day? She was talking to Genell O’Leary, the team owner’s executive assistant.

And that was the owner’s daughter too. “… all over the news before you know it. We need to get out in front of this.”

Great. If Nico could catch snatches of their conversation from down here, then peopledefinitelycould’ve heard him and Ryan from up there.

The woman who’d been looking for Vorhees shook her head, but she was facing in the other direction, so the acoustics were wrong for him to catch much of what she was saying. Something about more time, maybe.

Had they overheard what happened between him and Ryan? And now, what, exactly? They were worried about media fallout? No, Nico and Ryan had never made any kind of announcement; a breakup wouldn’t make the news. But then, what were they talking about?

Nobody was happy today, it seemed. Not Nico, not Ryan, not anyone who had anything to do with the Fuel, and especially not Kitty.

For a minute the anger and heartbreak had eclipsed the guilt.

It was snowing, and he took the excuse to drive slowly and tried not to think of it as giving Ryan more time to run away.

His heart still sank when he pulled into the garage and saw that Ryan’s car was gone.

“RYAN.”

Ryan groaned and rolled over. His head felt like an elephant was sitting on it. “It can’t be morning.” He buried his face in a semi familiar pillow.

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