"Andre, wait—" Liam stood.
"I can't. I need to go."
He found his coat on the hook by the door. His keys were in the pocket. His phone was still on the floor by the sofa and he grabbed it without looking at the screen.
"Please," Talia said quietly. "We should talk about—"
"There is nothing to talk about." Andre pulled the door open. The cold air from the hallway hit his face and he almost threw up again. "This didn't happen."
He pulled the door shut behind him and stood in the corridor, his back against the wall, his eyes closed. His heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his temples.
He pulled out his phone and opened the Uber app. His hands were shaking so badly it took three attempts to type the address. He ordered the car and then stood there, in the dim hallway, waiting.
The realization of what he had done — the gravity of the mistake — washed over him like a tsunami. He had fucked his friend's girlfriend while his friend watched, and then he swallowed his friend's cum. All while Blake was ten thousand miles away, telling him he loved him.
The Uber arrived seven minutes later. Andre got in without speaking. He sat in the back seat, his forehead pressed against the cold window, watching the lights of Waterloo blur past. The driver had the radio on low — some late-night talk show, voices murmuring about nothing.
When the car stopped outside the flat in South Kensington, Andre paid and got out. He stood on the pavement for a long moment, looking up at the dark windows. The bakery was closed, the metal shutters pulled down. The street was empty and silent.
He let himself in and climbed the stairs in the dark. He didn't turn on any lights. He walked straight to the bathroom and threw up again — though there was nothing left, just bile and the taste of his own disgust.
He sat on the cold tile floor for a long time, his back against the bathtub, his knees pulled to his chest. The cannabis was still in his system, making the edges of everything soft and unreal, but the nausea and the shame were sharp enough to cut through it.
He had to tell Blake. He knew that with absolute certainty. He couldn't carry this. It would poison everything — every kiss, every touch, every "I love you" would become a lie built on top of the truth he was hiding.
But not over the phone, ten thousand miles away, the night before a quarterfinal.
Andre pulled himself off the floor. He brushed his teeth twice, scrubbing his tongue until it hurt. He changed his clothes, shoving the ones he'd been wearing to the bottom of the hamper. He got into bed — their bed — and lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, his body rigid, his mind racing.
He did not sleep.
Chapter fourteen
Enough
The guilt was a physical thing.
It lived in Andre’s chest, a heavy, leaden weight that made it difficult to draw a full breath. It sat in his throat, making food taste like ash. It followed him to the studio, standing behind him while he stared at blank canvases, the brushes feeling foreign and clumsy in his hands.
Three weeks had passed since the night in Waterloo.
Blake had returned from Melbourne a week ago, carrying the runner-up trophy and a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. He had walked into the flat, dropped his bags, and pulled Andre into a hug that lasted for five minutes.
Andre had stood there, his arms wrapped around the man he loved, feeling like an imposter in his own life.
He had tried to act normal. He had cooked dinner, asked about the matches, listened to Blake complain about the heat in Australia and Doug’s relentless practice schedule.
But the lie was a corrosive acid, eating away at the foundation of their relationship.
Every time Blake touched him, Andre flinched internally. Every time Blake smiled at him, Andre felt a fresh wave of self-loathing.
And then there were Liam and Talia.
They had come over for dinner two nights after Blake’s return. The evening had been agonizingly tense. Liam had been overly loud, his jokes landing flat, his laughter forced. Talia had been unusually quiet, avoiding eye contact with both Andre and Blake, her hands gripping her wine glass with a noticeable, awkward intensity.
Blake wasn’t stupid. He had spent his entire life reading the subtle shifts in body language across a tennis court. He noticed the tension. He noticed the way Liam and Talia left early, citing an early rehearsal. He noticed the way Andre immediately started washing the dishes, scrubbing a pan that was already clean until his hands were red.
“What’s going on?” Blake had asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.
