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“I figured it out on St. Patrick’s Day,” Rodney said before I could say a word to thank either of them. My lips parted slightly as I realized exactly what had happened on St. Patrick’s Day at the frat house party.

“Nope.” I shook my head.

“Yeah.” He nodded quickly. “You are a kinky little fuck! I’m scarred! Forever!”

My face burned so hot it hurt while the room lost it. Sam doubled over while Jude covered his face with both hands, collapsing on Wyatt’s shoulder as he shook with laughter. There were an obscene number of inappropriate comments thrown my direction.

“Oh my God,” I groaned, dropping my face into my hands. “I hate every single one of you.”

“I found out before Wyatt and Jude,” Forrest announced happily.

“What?” Jude demanded. Forrest immediately looked less pleased with himself. His grin slipped into something sheepish as every head in the room turned toward him.

“Yeah, I just didn’t say anything because it kind of makes me feel like a peeping Tom,” he admitted. “Two Halloweens ago, I didn’t have a mask for the party, so I tried to sneak in through a window. And I kind of saw you two in the bathroom. It took a while to figure out it was Rhodes, but you know… I think I still need therapy for what I saw.”

Everybody started talking at once. Jude’s head whipped toward me with a million questions written across his face, and Wyatt nearly slid off the couch laughing. Someone shouted two Halloweens ago like that was the important part, while Forrest threw both hands up defensively like he was the one on trial.

Meanwhile, I was dying. There were apparently layers upon layers to the humiliation I hadn’t known existed. I knew exactly what they’d seen me do, and while I loved it with Rhodes, I didn’t want them to know.

“I swear to God,” I muttered, dragging both hands over my face. “And all of you knew?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “I mean, at first it was a little sketch, you know? He was our coach and all, but it became clear real fast that you two love each other. You idiots just hadn’t realized it yet.”

Before I could reply, a pointed cough sounded from the kitchen. The room went quiet so fast it would’ve been impressive under any other circumstance. Every head turned, and I leaned back slightly to see Rhodes standing in the doorway. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and his shoulders were relaxed, but his expression was absolutely unimpressed. His gaze moved slowly over the room before landing on me. I wasn’t sure just how much he’d heard, but it was obvious he’d heard enough.

“I’m sorry,” Rhodes said loudly, making sure everyone could hear him. “It seems there were a lot of moments none of you should have been privy to. Clearly, we should have worked harder on the discretion part of our relationship.”

“It’s cool, Coach K,” Rodney replied. “If anything, Operation Keep The Secret was the best team-building activity you never gave us.”

“I’m going to get some pizza and pretend I didn’t hear that,” he retorted. The room broke into laughter again as Rhodes disappeared into the kitchen. The tension in my shoulders eased as the conversation changed, shifting to some stupid shenanigans I couldn’t focus on.

I looked around at all of them—at Jude laughing beside me, Wyatt still smug about winning the betting pool, Rodney looking entirely too proud of himself, and every other idiot crammed into Rhodes’ living room. I’d spent so long terrified of what would happen if people knew.

As it turned out, the answer was that they’d make a betting pool, roast the absolute hell out of me, and keep my secret anyway. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

CHAPTER 95

Rhodes

The party showed absolutely no signs of ending. It was well past midnight, and I could still hear the team through two walls and a closed garage door. Every few minutes, laughter erupted, followed by someone shouting over someone else. I’d stopped trying to figure out what they were doing somewhere around eleven.

Instead, I sat at the workbench with a random scrap of wood in front of me and an engraving tool in my hand. I had no plan, which bothered me less than it normally would’ve. I just dragged the tip slowly through the soft wood, carving one meaningless line after another. At some point, I’d started turning them into vaguely geometric patterns, interlocking angles, and curves that served absolutely no purpose beyond giving my hands something to do.

The garage had become my hiding place sometime after Rodney informed me that my relationship had apparently been the team’s favorite extracurricular activity for the better part of a year. I’d eaten two slices of pizza, endured approximately thirty minutes of questions I refused to answer, and decided Theo deserved some alone time with his friends.

That was the excuse anyway. The truth was that having them know intimate details about my personal life had exceeded my social capacity by a significant margin. I’d rather be alone than deal with any of them.

Another roar of laughter came from inside. I paused with the engraving tool hovering over the wood. Theo’s laugh rose above the others, and the sound made me smile. Whatever humiliation I’d suffered tonight was worth it if this was what Theo got in return. He’d walked into that house worried about what telling them might change, and within half an hour, those idiots had somehow turned his coming out into a betting dispute and a celebration.

There were worse ways to find out you were loved.

The door creaked open, and I glanced up to see Jude slipping into the garage. He didn’t say a word as he crossed to the utility shelves and grabbed a fresh piece of wood along with the second engraving tool I’d bought after he raided my garage. He settled on the stool across from me and started carving.

The quiet scrape of engraving tools filled the space between us as he did his thing and I did mine. The silence was comfortable and without expectation, the kind where neither of us felt an obligation to talk. Every so often, I glanced up at Jude to watch him tinker with his project. While I mindlessly did whatever, it was clear he already had a plan and was executing it.

“You’re good at that,” I commented.

“Eh,” Jude replied. “I just like the challenge of it. It’s the figuring-out part that gets me. Once I know I can do something, I usually get bored and move on to the next thing.”