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Wes abandoned his food.
Before anyone could be any more confusing, I slammed my fist down on the table, rattling all the plates. “What’s going on?”
Everyone looked at Wes, who sighed. “I came out to Elite.”
My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “You came out?”
“Everyone was already wondering anyway. I just confirmed it,” Wes agreed.
“Rinkin is a class-A asshole,” Jamie announced.
A low rumble vibrated my throat, making my neck tickle. “That asshole I decked a few weeks ago still giving you trouble?”
Wes made a face. “You didn’t deck him, Max. It was a full-on brawl in the freaking diner. I’m surprised they still let you in the door.”
“That’s not an answer,” I deadpanned.
“He’s been running his mouth,” Wes told me. “So I called his bluff.”
My jaw ticked. “You telling me you came out at swim practice because someone outed you and everyone was gossiping and wanting to know if it was true?”
Out of the corner of my eye, Jamie and Ryan nodded.
I dragged in a deep breath through my nose, forcing it down into my lungs, feeling them expand as I told myself to keep cool. The urge to grab Wes by his neck and haul him home was like a second pulse. The desire to lock him in his room, then find that fuck Rinkin and make sure I made myself clear this time was so strong I practically tasted blood.
“You didn’t call me…” It wasn’t a question, not really a demand, but it absolutely required a response.
Wes’s dark gaze met mine unflinchingly. “Because my decision to tell the team I’m gay has nothing to do with you. Literally nothing.”
I sucked in a breath. My jawbone groaned when I ground my teeth together. I ran hot all the time. Rage was basically a personality trait or, more accurately, in my DNA. It didn’t take much to get me from lazy to lethal and there were literally only two people on this planet I would never unleash on.
Wes was one of those people.
But goddamn, if he didn’t make me want to rip literally everything apart. Sometimes he lit me up so hard and fast I wondered how the world didn’t burn down around him while he stood there unscathed.
“Excuse me?” I rasped like everything was indeed on fire and I was inhaling the smoke.
“I’m not sixteen. I don’t need you to fight my battles.” He glanced at the rest of the guys at the table. “I don’t need anyone to fight them.”
“I wasn’t fighting your battle,” Ryan said quietly. “But I will always show up for your war.”
“That’s my job!” I snapped, and heavy, surprised silence blanketed the table.
“Waffles!” Veronica’s peppy, light voice was like someone throwing a stone at frozen glass. All the tense air around us splintered and cracked as she set buttery warm waffles the size of the plates in front of everyone.
“And here’s your burger,” she said, sliding my plate in front of me. I didn’t say anything just waited for her to leave.
“Wes, I brought you another water,” she said, leaning across the table partly in front of me to give Wes a nice view of her rack as she handed over the fresh glass.
“Thanks, Veronica,” he said, using her name without her reminding him this time.
This fucking brat.
She giggled.
“You’re getting your tits in my food,” I deadpanned.
Kruger choked midswallow, and Jamie glanced up with waffle hanging out of his mouth.
