Page 121 of Puck Your Feelings

"Can I..." He pauses, swallows. "Tell you something."

I sigh again, then shrug. "If you want to."

His eyes lock with mine, intense and unwavering. "I don't want to. But I need you to know."

***

Kane

"YOU DID WHAT?"

Becker's voice is so quiet it barely registers above the hum of the gym's ancient air conditioning, but the fury behind it might as well be a fucking train barreling straight into my chest.

We're sitting cross-legged on the gym floor like we're about to start some twisted version of show-and-tell. Except what I just showed Becker wasn't my cool rock collection or my favorite action figure—it was the complete and utter dumpster fire that is my decision-making process.

For the past twenty minutes, I've been spilling my guts like they're on clearance. The ultimatum. The threat. The earth-shattering discovery that it was all bullshit. My father's gallery of supposed victims who are all living their best fucking lives while I've been cowering like a scared child.

And Becker? He just sat there and listened. No interruptions, no comments, nothing. Just those blue eyes boring into me like he could see straight through to the wasteland of my soul. The silence was worse than if he'd started screaming.

Now I'm waiting for the punch.

My jaw's already clenched in anticipation. I deserve it. Hell, I'd probably throw it myself if I could figure out how to punch my own face hard enough to make up for the past seventy-two hours of concentrated stupidity.

"I'm sorry." The words feel pathetically inadequate, like bringing a squirt gun to a five-alarm fire. "I'm really fucking sorry. Had I known it was all just a story—"

"That's not the issue here, Jayden."

My name in his mouth stops me cold. Not 'Kane.' Not 'Robot.'Jayden.

"It's... not?" God, I sound pathetic.

Becker stares at me like I've grown a second head, complete with its own bad haircut and daddy issues. His eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, his hair a disaster zone fromrunning his hands through it repeatedly, and somehow he's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"The issue is, you didn't tell me!" The words explode out of him, not a shout but something worse—raw and wounded and so fucking honest it makes my teeth ache.

My eyes burn, and I'm fighting tears like they're armed insurgents. "I was trying to protect you—"

"Jesus, Kane." He drags a hand through his hair. "That's exactly the type of decision we were supposed to make together. Instead, you chose to make it for me.

Every word lands like a body check, and I deserve every bruise. Because he's right. Of course he's right. I made the same choice my father's been making for me my entire life—deciding what's best for someone else without giving them a say in it.

I hang my head, staring at the floor. "I'm sorry."

The punch I've been bracing for doesn't come. Neither does the storm-out.

What comes instead is somehow worse: silence.

Long, brutal, suffocating silence that that stretches between us like taffy being pulled to its breaking point..

Minutes pass. Or hours. Or fucking days. The gym's fluorescent lights buzz overhead, indifferent to the human drama unfolding beneath them. Outside, the sky gradually lightens from pitch black to navy to a pale, hesitant blue.

We sit there like statues, not yelling, not arguing, not speaking at all. Just existing in the same space, breathing the same stale gym air, while I silently catalog every regret I've ever had.

My ass is numb. My back aches. My throat feels like I swallowed sandpaper. But I don't move. I don't break the silence.

I would give anything to know what's going through his head right now.

Is he mentally packing his bag again? Planning how to avoid me for the upcoming season? Calculating the exact trajectory needed to knee me in the balls without getting a penalty?