Page 96 of Full Split

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.