Not even hurt.
Just the quiet devastating knowledge of someone who had just seen exactly what they were to another person.
And understood, finally, that those two things were never going to be the same.
I texted him a million times.
No response.
And that’s when I started to panic.
Chapter 31
Rhys
I wait until the locker room clears out. It takes a while. We haven’t won a game in what feels like half a semester and the guys are celebrating like it, which is deserved, genuinely. I’m happy for them. But I’m also sitting on this bench with my jaw held tight and a very specific conversation waiting to happen, so I smile when I need to smile and clap the right shoulders and wait for everyone to leave, all congratulating me on their way out.
I’ve got a different kind of celebration in mind—one that’s been burning me alive for weeks.
Jamie knows I’m waiting. That’s probably why he’s moving so slowly — reorganizing his bag, talking to Fitch longer than necessary, finding reasons to have his back to the room. I’ve learned to read him well enough by now to know avoidance when I see it.
Fine. I’m patient.
Eventually it’s just us. The noise from the hallway fades. The locker room settles into the quiet that only exists after everyone else has left — the hum of the ventilation, the drip of a shower someone didn’t fully turn off.
Jamie’s at his locker and I’m sitting directly across, just watching him.
“Nash.”
He goes still before he turns around. When he does, the guilt isall over his face — shoulders slightly dropped, mouth rigid, the way it gets when he’s holding something in. He looks like he was hoping to avoid this conversation.
Nope.
“I know,” he mutters. “You got in my head.”
“How am I in your head when you won’t even talk to me?”
He doesn’t answer, so I stand up. Spread my hands. “Well? Say something. Anything.”
He exhales slowly. Looks at the floor. Then back up at me.
“I’m always in control.” His voice comes out small. Without any of the usual armor in it. “Everyone knows it. I know it. It’s the one thing I’ve always been able to count on.” He pauses. “And lately I’m just — slipping.”
“Okay,” I say, encouraging him to keep going.
“Do you not—” he cuts himself off, tries again, and steps closer. Drops his voice like even the empty room might overhear. “Do you not feel that? Being around you—it’s like I’m on fire. My blood’s fucking boiling. You make me feel like I’m losing my mind just by standing next to me. Especially when you do shit like—”
It sounds like a confession he hates giving up. Like it’s being torn out of him. Like it physically hurts him to be this honest. I know the real Jamie now, the one that’s all nerves under the armor. This, right here, is the barest he’s ever let me see him.
So I give it back. I step even closer.
“You think I’m fine?” My voice drops to match his. “You think I’m untouched by any of this? You think what I’m feeling just—what—evaporated because you ghosted me? Not even close.” He’s staring at me. Arms slightly flexed, weight balanced on his heels, that wild animal stillness he gets when he’s cornered and hasn’t decided yet what he’s going to do.
I’ve learned this too. Push too hard and he bolts or swings, hisfight or flight kicking into overdrive.
So I go still. You don’t corner Jamie Nash. You let him come to you. Wait. Stay calm. That’s how you win.
“There’s something here,” I say, even, unflinching. “We both know it. We’ve both known it for a while. So why don’t we just get it out of our system? Before it ruins everything for both of us?”
