But the look he throws me shuts me up cold and I close my eyes. I don’t want to see his face when he realizes. When it hits him what he’s looking at. He probably thinks it’s porn. Normal shit. Some anonymous scene I got hooked on. Not what it is. Not me. Not Nathan. Not that night.
Not the reason my entire fucking career, my life, everything went up in flames.
But then—He doesn’t stop it. I can still hear it playing. Nathan’s voice, low and intimate. My own voice, wrecked and raw. Skin slapping against skin. That disgusting little moan I used to make when I thought it meant something.
I open my eyes and Rafe’s staring at the screen. Frowning. His brow drawn so tight the scar through his right eyebrow pulls. “What the fuck is this?” he growls.
And just like that—my stomach fucking drops.
Rafe doesn’t say another word. Doesn’t move. Just keeps watching.
The room is filled with it now—me and him and that goddamn video that’s been rotting a hole in my skull for months. Rafe’s eyes are locked on the screen, unblinking, jaw tight, the muscle ticking in his cheek every time the moans get louder. Every time Nathan whispers something soft and fake and fucking perfect. I expect him to stop it. To throw the phone. To leave. But he watches it all the way to the end. All the way to that part. The smirk.
That last ten seconds where Nathan looks right into the camera—into me—and smirks like he just fucked a secret into my bones and left a bomb ticking in my chest. The part I can’t ever scrub from memory. The part that’s louder than the sex, louder than the shame, louder than the fall.
I watch Rafe’s nostrils flare. His chest stills, then he rewinds it. Again. And again. And again. Ten seconds. That smirk. That lie. That death sentence.
His fingers curl around the phone tighter each time until the whole thing creaks. Plastic casing groaning under the pressure. I swear I see the fucking screen bend. And I’m frozen. Too scared to breathe. Too ashamed to speak. I’m still half-hard, still sprawled under a blanket like a fucking whore in heat, like a wreck who gets off on his own trauma—and he’s still sitting next to me like I’m not filth.
I flinch when he finally looks at me. Because the rage in his face is volcanic.
My chest seizes. I start pulling my hand out of my pants, shame rushing up my throat like acid, but Rafe’s hand closes around my wrist fast and hard, keeping it right where it is. Like he gets to decide when I stop punishing myself. Like he’s the one who owns this body now, not me.
“Tell. Me. What. The fuck. This is.” Rafe growls, voice guttural, each word punched out like it’s being carved into steel. He’s looking at me now. Really looking at me. And I can’t hold it. I can’t fucking take it.
I drop my eyes, swallowing hard. “Nothing,” I say. My voice is a croak, weak and hoarse. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Even I don’t believe it.
Rafe’s grip on my wrist tightens—tight enough to sting, to ground me, to make my pulse skip like it suddenly remembers who’s holding me. His voice drops lower, rougher, quieter than before, which is somehow worse. The rage isn’t shouting anymore. It’sconcentrated.
“Jules,” he says, and the sound of it hits somewhere low in my spine. “Tell me you’re here because of a bet you placed against your own team.”
I freeze.
Iwishthat was the reason. Christ, Iwishthat was all it was. A bet. A bad decision. Greed. Something filthy but impersonal. Something I could admit to and survive.
But it’s not.
And Rafe’s eyes are on me, boring through me, already knowing.
My voice cracks as it leaves me. “I never placed a bet in my life.”
The words are barely out of my mouth before the phoneflies—Rafe launches it across the container so fast it disappears in a blur, crashes against the far wall with a shattering crunch of glass and plastic. I flinch, breath catching in my throat, every muscle locking up.
He doesn’t say anything. Not right away. Just sits there beside me, chest rising fast, fingers still wrapped tight around my wrist like he’s holding onto the only part of me not broken.
And maybe… maybe he is.
“Why did you throw the game?” Rafe asks, quiet but sharp, like he doesn’t want the answer—like it’ll gut him—but he has to know anyway. His voice is tighter now. Controlled, but not calm. Like he’s fighting not to break something else. Not to break me.
I can’t meet his eyes. My throat’s raw. My lungs feel bruised. I nod, just once, before the words fall out of me like rot. “They threatened to leak the video.” My voice is hoarse. “I didn’t even know we were filmed until I got the threat and the flash drive in my cubby. Game 7. Same night.”
Rafe doesn’t move, but I see it. The second he puts it together. The second the image of that ending flashes behind his eyes—Nathan, smiling right into the lens, smug and slow and fucking proud of himself. That last ten seconds Rafe watched on loop like a goddamn death omen.
“But he knew.” Rafe says, the words a snarl under his breath. He doesn’t say Nathan’s name.
“Yeah…” I whisper, barely more than a breath. “Yeah, he did.”
