Page 26 of Only ever you-Ana & Byron (Blindsided #2)

O ne Year Later

The game had been brutal. Byron's team had won after the last two losses, and the air around the VIP box was akin to excitement compressed in a soda can, ready for the tab to pop off.

Ana stood among the other wives and partners, casually sipping her water as one of them, some leggy brunette unimaginatively named Devon, eyed her dress with a tight smile.

"Bit... casual, aren't we?" Devon said sweetly.

Ana didn't even spare her a glance. She knew catty from a mile off.

"It's called understated. "

Devon's smile froze. Before she could think of a comeback, the door opened.

The players filtered exhausted , still damp from showers. Byron entered with a slow stride, talking in low tones to Kieran, a broad, tattooed wall of a man with a shaved head and an unsettlingly calm presence. Where Byron was swagger and sly innuendo, Kieran was steady and silent like a rock.

Byron clocked Ana instantly. She always stayed away, put off by the general ambience with the WAGs.

Whatever he'd been saying to Kieran, he forgot it mid-sentence.

She was already walking toward him.

Byron barely had time to open his arms before Ana jumped, arms around his neck like she'd done a hundred times. Her chin pressed to his shoulder. He held her tight for a long moment as the players moved around them. Losing a match was always hard, but winning made up for it.

He didn't kiss her with everyone watching. But he whispered into her ear:

"I'd do anything for a kiss right now."

"I love you," she murmured back, smiling against his neck.

When she slid down, Byron looked visibly happier, like just touching her was enough to light up his life.

Ana turned to Kieran, who had respectfully looked away during the PDA.

"You wanna come to dinner with us?"

Kieran looked startled. "I don't want to intrude,”he said in a cut-glass accent.

"You won't," she said easily. "Byron's cooking."

Byron raised an eyebrow. "Am I?"

Ana didn't miss a beat. "Yes, you are."

Kieran glanced between them, Byron in his pink-tinged post-match glow, Ana still smugly tucked under his arm like a mascot and finally nodded.

"Yeah. Alright. Sounds good. "

"Good," Ana said. "You look like you need someone to feed you and judge your life choices."

Byron eyed her like she was out of her mind, "He looks like he needs feeding, does he? Well, I am gonna be doing the feeding, ain't I, and you are gonna do the judging. Which she will. Mercilessly."

Kieran gave a rare smile.

"Lead the way, then."

***

Six Months later

The apartment was quiet when Ana walked in, too quiet, like it was holding its breath.

Her duffel dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. She winced as her shoulder protested the movement. Her body was one giant bruise. Black and blue in some places, yellow and green in others. The worst of the swelling had gone down, but her ribs still ached when she breathed too hard.

She wasn't supposed to be gone more than a week. It was supposed to be a safe mission.

It had stretched into 2 months of chaos.

What was meant to be a routine stint during a meeting between the leaders of two countries with the peacekeeping force had turned into an evacuation disaster.

Unrest had exploded across the region, and Ana had found herself caught in the middle, dragged from site to site, injured during the scramble to escape, and eventually airlifted out after a nearby blast had knocked her against the side of a transport truck.

It hadn't been serious, though she looked a mess. Bruised and battered. There were no broken bones. No internal bleeding. But Byron hadn't cared about technicalities.

He'd cared that she hadn't come home.

And worse, he hadn't been able to protect her .

Now she sat on the couch, her hoodie zipped all the way up, fingers fidgeting around the frayed edge of her sleeve. Her phone buzzed once, then went quiet. A moment later, the lock clicked.

Byron stepped in like a storm breaking.

His hair was tousled from the flight, backpack still slung over one shoulder and jaw locked tight.

She stood. "Hey-"

"Are you fuckin' serious right now?" he bit out. "You look like you went twelve rounds with a truck."

Ana's mouth flattened. "It was nothing."

"Nothing? Ana, you were stuck in a hospital in Jordan for more than a month, and you didn't tell me!"

"I didn't want you to worry. I was there because it was the only safe place. We were messaging-"

"Messaging?" He scoffed. "Every time we talked, you ended the call early or started a bloody fight. Don't think I didn't notice."

She folded her arms. "Because every time we did talk, you made it about you. About how worried you were. About how helpless you felt."

Byron blinked, as if slapped.

"Because I was helpless! I didn't know if you were safe, Ana. I had to find out from your dad that you had been airlifted. And I flew down the second your plane took off from Jordan. I've been on edge for two months, and now I walk in and you act like I am being a drama queen?"

She turned away.

"You haven't been to your psych appointments for about a year," he added, quieter now.

That one hit.

"Don't start," she muttered, "I'm fine "

"No, I will start. You promised. You said if something like this happened again, you'd stop taking these dangerous assignments."

"Byron, I need to tell you something."

"What? That you don't trust me. Believe me, I know."

She spun to face him, face flushed.

"Get fucked, Byron."

"You want to break yourself open and pretend nothing happened, that's on you. But you don't get to drag me along like I'm just some convenient... placeholder."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm tired, Ana. I'm tired of being hidden. We've been together nearly 5 years and you still stutter when you say you love me. You still won't go public. You still flinch like I'm gonna vanish."

She stared at him, heart thudding like it was trying to find a way out of her chest.

"Maybe we should break up, then," she said. Her voice was flat.

He went very still. His mouth opened, then closed again.

"Is that what you want?", he asked roughly. He sounded like he had swallowed rocks.

"I don't know what I want."

"You never do."

Silence.

She grabbed her bag.

He stepped forward, as if to stop her.

"Ana-"

"You said I don't trust you?" she cut in, voice trembling.

"You're right. I don't."

She paused at the door, fingers tight around the handle.

"Consider us broken up."

And she walked out .

Byron didn't follow.

He just stood there, chest rising and falling like he'd run a marathon, while everything they'd built together began to implode around them.