Page 145 of Offside

Griffin was quiet for a long moment. “Since September,” he said.

“Since September.”

“That’s the whole season.”

“That’s the whole season.” I didn’t look away from him. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I’d walk away from almost anything you could put in front of me and not feel it, as long as I got to keep her.” I stopped there, because the words that came next weren’t his to hear. I’d been carrying them for a long time, and the one place they were going to land was on her, first, before anyone. Griffin could do the math and see exactly how far gone I was. He could not have the words.

Griffin read my face like he always did. Whatever he found there, he didn’t make me say it.

“Do you love her?” He asked me softly and I thought for sure in that moment he already knew the answer.

The question landed quiet and direct, and I felt the whole weight of him asking. I could have said yes. Yes was right there, the simplest true word I had. But the rest of it belonged to Maren, and I should have told her sooner, and I wasn’t going to put the word in the air for the first time in someone else’s kitchen.

So I held his gaze and I nodded. Once.

Griffin let out a breath. He understood what the nod was.

Griffin pushed off the counter and walked to the window. Stood with his back to me for a moment, looking out at the city. The balcony railing threw its shadow across the floor. The television murmured.

“You know what the worst part was?” Griffin asked, facing the glass. “I wasn’t even—” He stopped. Started again. “I wasn’t surprised. That’s what I kept thinking after. I wasn’t surprised that it was her or that it was you, because if I’m honest, I’d clocked the two of you becoming friends or something since September and I’d told myself it was nothing because I trusted you. I just—” His voice dropped. “I felt like an idiot. Standing there in your doorway with a six-pack like some—” He turned around. “I feel like everyone knew except me.”

“No one knew,” I said. “Cole suspected. Eli suspected. But no one knew.”

Griffin’s jaw tightened. “The last to know about his own sister.” He said it dryly but the edge under it was real.

“I’m sorry.” I said it plainly. “Not for the relationship. I’m not sorry for that. But for lying to you. For every Sunday dinner and every practice and every conversation where I looked you in the eye and let you believe something that wasn’t true. That was wrong. That was me choosing my own comfort over your right to know the truth about something in your own life, and you deserved better from me.”

Griffin sat with it for a long moment. The city hummed outside. A siren passed somewhere far below, rose and faded.

“So you love her,” Griffin said, a statement of fact. This time he needed to hear it said plainly.

I didn’t look away from him. “Yeah. I do.”

Griffin held my gaze. Waiting.

“She makes me better,” I said. “Not the captain version. Not the guy who holds everything together so nobody else has to. The actual version. The one I don’t let most people see because most people don’t need to and it’s not useful.” I paused. “With her I don’t have to perform anything. I can sit in her kitchen and fix a cabinet hinge and eat two portions of dinner and be a person who enjoys her company, the calm that she brings me, not a C on a sweater. I don’t know when I stopped being able to do that with everyone else, but I know that with her, I never have to think about it. She just—-” I stopped. “She sees me. All of it. And she stayed.”

Griffin said nothing. He was listening.

So, it was time for my full confession. “I would give it up for her.” I met his eyes. “The C. The season. Any of it. All of it. I’m not saying I’d want to. But if it came down to it, if someone put it in front of me and said choose—-I’d choose her. Every time. Without thinking twice.” I held his gaze. “She doesn’t know that. I haven’t said it to her yet. But I need you to know it, because you’re the person who matters most to her.”

Griffin held it. His jaw worked.

“I don’t need your blessing,” I said. “I want it. Those are different things. And I want it because she loves you and because you matter to her and because this friendship—” I stopped and steadied myself. “She’s everything. If I have to choose, I’m choosing her. Every time. No hesitation.” I inhaled deeply before continuing. “I’m going to spend every day becoming the man she deserves. I’m going to take care of her. I’m going to make sure she never once wonders where she stands with me or whether she’s asking too much. I’m going to earn her trust. Every single day. Forever.”

The room was quiet.

“And she loves you,” Griffin said. Not a question.

I answered it anyway. “Yeah. I think she does.”

“I saw her at the arena,” Griffin said. “She shut the treatment room door and let me have it.” A ghost of something crossed his face. “In case you’re wondering where stood on the topic.”

“At least she didn’t reassign you to a different therapist.”

“Jesus Christ. She did that?” His eyes widened.

“Yep. So this conversation couldn’t wait any longer, Griff. She’s it for me. She’s the one. She always has been.”