Page 63 of The Official Problem
“Julie gave me a key.” Of course, she had. She probably called him to check on Matthieu after their fight, too. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. I’m ending it. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to shower.”
“Yeah, I imagine you do.”
After several minutes of silent staring, it was clear Alexei had no plans to leave. Fine. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Matthieu naked before. They’d showered near each other plenty of times after games. Matthieu slid from the bed, doing his best to hide where Kieran’s release had dried sticky against his chest. Falling asleep right after sex wasn’t like him. It felt dirty, almost perverse. He hated feeling so unclean.
Alexei followed him into the bathroom, hopping onto the counter and swinging his legs while Mathieu let the shower heat up. His heel tapped the cabinet in a repetitive thud, thud, thud, each one driving Matthieu closer to madness. Matthieu was pretty sure Alexei was doing it on purpose, annoying him with these small, calculated motions. Hovering expectantly until Matthieu caved to get him to leave.
Apparently, it was working.
“You’re seriously going to sit there?”
“Obviously.”
Matthieu tried to block him out, setting the water to near-scorching before slipping beneath the spray. He scrubbed his skin. The relief of feeling clean outweighed the regret of washing away every trace of Kieran. He didn’t want to erase Kieran. Maybe before. Definitely before. Now he wanted to cling to him, hold on to the moment, and refuse to let it slip through his fingers.
Goddamn, he’d wasted so much time.
If he’d just answered one of Kieran’s calls back then, he would’ve known the truth and maybe avoided all the years of heartache that followed. He’d been such a fool. But what was he supposed to think? Would he have even believed Kieran back then? Did he believe him now?
What he really needed was advice, something he wasn’t used to asking for. There was Alexei, perched on the bathroom counter, inspecting his nails with that performative casualness only someone waiting for a confession could pull off.
“Kieran and I were together in college,” Matthieu finally muttered into the spray.
Alexei’s tapping stopped. Matthieu risked a glance at his friend, whose eyes were wide, realization plastered across his face. “Wait. Kieran Lloyd isthatguy?”
“Yup,” Matthieu admitted.
“The one you found out cheated on you, the day your mom got diagnosed?”
“One and the same.”
Matthieu hadn’t known Alexei back then. They’d met years later while working together in the AHL, but Alexei had a knack for pulling the truth out of him.
“Or so I thought…” Matthieu searched for the right words. “Turns out… I might’ve had the whole thing wrong.”
He told Alexei everything, his voice low and muffled by steam. The misunderstanding. Kieran’s silence to protect him. The media stories that only confirmed the version Matthieu had already convinced himself of.
“Petrov? As in Ivan Petrov?”
Matthieu nodded. Alexei’s brow furrowed, not with confusion this time, but something else.
“Maybe he’s lying,” Matthieu sighed. It was clearly what Alexei was thinking.
There was a good chance Kieran had spun the story he told him last night, bending the truth just enough to force Matthieu into forgiving him. What did Kieran even gain from that? They’d been separated for years.
Sure, they were sleeping together again, but it’s not like anything real could come from it. Could it? Even if something could come from it, could Matthieu go there again when he wasn’t completely sure of the truth?
“I don’t know why I want to believe him so badly.”
“Because you love him,” Alexei whispered, meeting Matthieu’s eyes through the fogged-up glass. It wasn’t a question.
Matthieu shut off the spray and cracked the door, reaching for a towel from the rack beside Alexei’s head. He dried off in silence, then wrapped it around his waist and stepped in front of his friend.
“Does that make me an idiot? All I have is his word against years of evidence that says otherwise.”
Alexei seemed to be seriously considering that, so Matthieu left him to it and headed back into the bedroom to get dressed. It was a mess. Clothes and pillows lay scattered across the floor, tossed aside in a rush to clear the way. Matthieu hated it.
