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ERIK

I didn’t sleep that night after throwing Kayden out of my apartment.

It wasn’t just about the tossing and turning either.

The whole argument replayed constantly in my mind like an endless loop.

Even that seemed like the least of my troubles.

Like, was Kayden even my boyfriend anymore?

Had we broken up? You never get the clean break you want from these things.

I discovered that in a hurry. There’s always some problem left dangling, and our breakup was no different.

I didn’t expect closure anytime soon either.

Normally, I would’ve awakened to a text from Kayden.

Usually something about how sexy he found me, how badly he wanted me.

As much of a pain in the ass he could be, his texts were an awesome way to start the day.

When I didn’t find one that morning, the void couldn’t have been more obvious.

He’d gotten the hint, which stunned me. I’m not going to complain about it, though.

I’d thrown him out for good reason and had no regrets.

We’d broken up. Like I said, we hadn’t actually used those words, but it was obvious.

I’d been through this with girls. I knew the drill.

It hurt like hell, but the pain would be temporary.

The key here was to move on, keeping things as normal as possible.

Normal, in my case, meant going to practice and focusing.

Going to practice meant not only seeing Kayden but dealing with him directly.

Dealing with him directly would drive me insane…

you know, unless I turned into the kind of guy that simply couldn’t control himself.

Which I wasn’t.

After practice, we each stayed behind, just like always, but said nothing to each other. And why not? At that point, what was there to say?

I slung my hockey bag over my shoulder and headed out of the locker room. While walking through campus, Braxton flagged me down.

“Where are you going, bro?” he asked.

“Home. Need to get some rest. Didn’t sleep last night.”

“Got a minute?”

I offered a tiny shrug. As co-captain, I wanted to always be available to teammates like a good leader should. The last two days had tired me out, and I definitely wasn’t in the best mood. All I wanted was to collapse into bed, even if Kayden wouldn’t be there to break my fall.

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s about you and Kayden, bro. I’m worried.”

Now there was a name I didn’t need to hear. I couldn’t let on that there were any issues, but Braxton obviously wouldn’t be fooled.

“Why?” I asked.

“Something happened, didn’t it? Like, I can tell. So could the rest of the team. Coach Hardison too.”

“They did?”

“Uh-huh. But if it’s too personal to talk about then…”

“What makes you think it’s so personal?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling I’ve got. The same as feeling like there’s definitely something wrong. I don’t know what to call it exactly. I just know something’s up.”

That same feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach that always came when I thought someone had caught onto our secret appeared on schedule.

Only I didn’t care nearly as much. We’d broken up, remember?

We didn’t have to cover anything up. Maybe my teammate would think he’d finally discovered what our story really was, but there was nothing left to uncover.

We were finished. Done. Through.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked.

“Well, just that something obviously happened between the two of you. Maybe it was sudden, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. Maybe I missed something. We all know you guys have had a sort of love-hate thing right from the start.”

“I guess so…”

“It’s weird, though. You were doing just fine a week ago and now…”

I paused. How would I cook up a believable excuse on the fly?

It’s not like I had to or anything. What’d happened between Kayden and me was none of Braxton’s business.

I could brush him off if I wanted to. In fact, I could do the same to any of my teammates.

Given the state I was in, nothing seemed to matter.

“It’s personal.” He raised both hands in a stop gesture, like I needed to say no more. “That’s totally okay. I get it.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You two are going to learn to get along no matter what happened, aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

My teammate smiled. “How can you not know what I’m talking about, bro?

You might as well have admitted that something happened.

I’m cool with you not telling me what. But we’ve got game seven coming up.

It means the world to every one of us. We can’t risk throwing away everything we’ve done this season. ”

“I know we can’t.”

I realized that breaking up with Kayden didn’t mean freedom from criticism I didn’t particularly want to hear. At least I wouldn’t have to answer to Braxton in any other way, shape, or form.

“We’re this close to being champions.” He used his thumb and index finger to demonstrate how the distance between the Larkin Lions and an NCAA championship was little more than a hair.

“Trust me, I know it.”

“And you know what’ll happen if we aren’t all working as a cohesive unit, right?”

“Gee, Braxton, why don’t you tell me?”

“We can kiss it goodbye.”

I wanted to tell Braxton that he was crazy.

And he was. Think about it: I’d carried the team on my shoulders for an entire game.

We’d eventually won the conference title.

I didn’t care that Kayden had made a stink about it.

The only thing stopping me from doing it again would be if Kayden indulged in some game of sabotage.

And whose fault would that be?

For now, I would put the horse before the cart, like my ex-boyfriend liked to say. I would appease my teammate.

“I think we’ll be okay one way or another,” I said.

“But will you be okay?”

“Of course.”

Braxton paused, his eyes fixed on me, but he didn’t dare say whatever he was really thinking.

“Sometimes you’ve got to swallow your pride, no matter what,” he said. “And no matter what the other person has done.”

“But the guy showed up at my house. It was weird. The whole thing happened, right after I?—”

I stopped myself, realizing I’d nearly given away far more than I’d intended. Also, I wasn’t doing myself a damn bit of good trying to explain it to him. If anything, I should try to reassure him that everything would be fine.

“It’ll be okay,” I said. “Seriously.”

“You mean that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s good, because for a while there, it really seemed like you’d gone through a breakup or something.”

He started laughing, thinking he was so funny, but not realizing that he’d pretty much hit the nail on the head.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve broken up with a girl before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“This is kind of like that.”

“How do you figure?”

“Come on, you know. It’s always a little miserable for the first few days. Maybe longer. You don’t sleep, and if it’s really bad, you don’t eat either. I know what your appetite is like, but you do look really tired.”

I shut my mouth, knowing in what direction he would take this conversation if I gave him the opportunity. But I should’ve known better. Once a teammate got going on something you don’t want to hear about, you’ll never shut them up.

“It’s a little different in this case,” he said. “For the team, I mean. Usually, you just deal with one person that’s been through the breakup. We’ve got to deal with both sides of it.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m going to keep things in check, I promise.”

Until then, I hadn’t thought about it that way. Braxton Wilson was right. For now, I needed to get away from the topic as soon as possible.

“So, are you going to arrange a time to pick up stuff you’ve left at his house? Or is he going to do that first?”

My teammate smiled. That smile flatlined when he saw exactly zero amusement on my face.

Exhaustion aside, I really wasn’t in the mood.

Braxton was an okay guy, but no one ever said he was the most tactful person on earth.

At least he hadn’t asked how I would find someone who gave head as good as Kayden Preston.

Even that hadn’t really occurred to me until then.

“You know, you’re funny as a heart attack, dude,” I said.

But I couldn’t deny that he was on to something.

Like, if he thought of this as the breakup it really was, it was conceivable that they would learn our secret.

Now that we were finished, you would think I would really never want anyone knowing that I’d spent months in a relationship with a dude.

And I didn’t. But it would also become a disruption to the team and threaten the championship. And that I totally didn’t need.