Page 46 of Full Split (Forbidden Goals #8)

WYATT

I'm at a loss for what to do. My son and the man I love are both suffering, and it's my fault.

If I was going to pursue this thing with Niles, I should have stepped far away from any official position as his coach.

Because I didn't, not only am I hurting Weston and Niles' reputations, but I could hurt Sid's.

I haven't gone to see Sid yet. I've been able to avoid him for the few days that we've been home, and he has another surgery for his foot today, so that buys me a few more days. More days to waste away, trying to come up with more excuses.

God, what is wrong with me? How did I become this person?

The most fucked up part of it all is that all I can think about is Niles. About being with him. Holding him. Comforting him. Loving him.

There has to be something I can do to stop this.

On our third night back, there's a tap on the back door. It's so quiet, I almost think I'm hearing things, but there it is again. I pull back the blinds and see Niles, in one of my hoodies and a baseball cap.

I unlock the door in a hurry and pull him inside. Before I can even say hello or ask him how he is, I pull him into my arms and crash my lips to his. I kiss him until I taste the salt from his tears.

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

"How is it your fault? I'm the one he's after. You're just collateral damage."

We sit on the couch, but even a foot of distance between us is too much.

I pull him into my lap. He rolls his eyes, but more tears fall, and my eyes are burning.

I think I've cried more in the past few days than I have in years.

Unlike Weston, I'm not much of a crier. I don't know where he gets it from.

But, here I am, red-rimmed and weepy for probably the fifth time today.

"Oh, Jesus. Is it safe to come in here?" Weston asks from the hallway, covering his eyes.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

"Fuck you," Niles says, voice muffled in my neck.

Weston snorts out a small laugh, and some of the tension bleeds from the room. I let Niles have a few inches of space, but he stays next to me. Weston sits on the other end of the sectional and rests his elbows on his knees.

"Have you heard from anyone?" he asks Niles.

"Nothing useful," Niles answers. "Just more questions about my personal business. Legal actually asked for access to my dating apps."

"You're serious?" I ask.

Niles rubs his eyes. "I told them I'd deleted and disabled all the accounts already."

"I'm sure they appreciated that."

"They asked me why and proceeded to ask me questions about who I'm currently seeing, if anyone. They asked for a list, seeing as word has gotten out that I’m a slut.” He huffs sardonically. “I swear it felt like we were one step from a fake dating setup to make me look better to the press."

Weston snorts. "A nice respectable young woman to be your beard so you can appeal to the straights?"

As thankful as I am that this conversation is bringing a small level of normalcy, the idea of Niles dating anyone else, even as a farce, makes me irrationally angry.

"Calm down, Daddy. I'm not going to date any girls."

I glare so hard my eyeballs hurt.

Niles rolls his eyes and laughs. "Or any boys!"

I think that's when he realizes he called me the D word, because his face turns red.

"What's wrong with you?" Weston says, scrunching up his nose. "You know what, never mind. I don't want to know. What are we going to do?"

"We're going to give Peter a win."

What?

Weston and I are probably thinking it at the same time, and a beat later, we say it out loud at the same time. "What?!"

"I've been thinking about it a lot. If I step back from my position on the team and admit to some part of the things that have nothing to do with either of you, then?—"

"No."

I'm pretty sure Weston says it too, but I'll say it again just in case he didn't.

"Absolutely not happening."

"You can't do that," Weston says. "You can't let him win."

"If I don't do something, you're going to get caught up in this even more than you already are," Niles says to Weston. Then he looks at me. "And it's not just your reputation on the line, it's also the reputation and credentials for the gym. Sid could lose everything."

"It's a hard no from me. Even if I thought it was worth considering, what exactly do you expect to achieve?"

"Stopping this media circus before it gets any worse, first and foremost. The story will lose steam if there's a boring resolution and they don't have me to chase anymore."

"But then they won't have you to chase anymore," Weston says. “Who will they turn their attention to next? Why not use it?”

Niles looks at him like he's lost some marbles.

"Think about what Mik said, about how you're a role model now.

Someone who is breaking glass ceilings so the next generation has a path to follow.

You can't bow down to this kind of pressure, not now when you've gotten this far.

All you'd be doing is proving them right, and what the hell good would that even do?

What would be the point of walking away from your dreams? "

"I can't let him take you down."

"I'm not going anywhere. They have no proof of anything. Not one bit of it."

"But if they find out even a single word of it is true, and I lied about it, or if anyone were to guess what you did about me and Wyatt, then the rest of it is as good as true in the public eye. I'm not willing to put you at risk. This is your dream too."

"It was only ever my dream because it was yours. I would have quit before middle school and played football to get girls, and you know it, but you're my best friend."

"And I love you too much to let anything happen to you," Niles says, shooting to his feet. He walks over to the door and turns around, arms folded. "I love you both too much."

Then he leaves without another word. Weston and I stare at the spot he was standing in only moments ago, dumbstruck.

No.

I can't let him do this. He's worked his whole life towards this goal, flipped, tucked, twisted, and back hand-sprung over every obstacle. There's no possible way in a hundred lifetimes that I would let him throw it all away like this.

I'll roll around in tar and feathers, burn every bridge, throw my career away, and set fire to Sid's gym myself to keep Niles from making this mistake.

Nope. This isn't happening.

I stand up to go after him, but Weston is already up.

"Let me," he says, pulling a jacket off the coat rack. "We needed to talk anyway. He might listen to me out of guilt, if anything."

The house is dead silent once he's gone. I feel sick, like the lump in my throat is impeding both my digestive and cardiovascular systems.

I pace for a while, drink a glass of water, pace some more. I drink another glass of water, this time too fast, and I end up bent over the sink trying not to heave it up.

My phone buzzes on the counter, and I lunge for it so fast I nearly send it flying across the room. I'm hoping for a text from Niles, or even Weston, but it's not. It's an email from Mik Reinier-Sanders.