Page 44 of Second Position (Astor Hill #2)

When he rolls off me, he takes me with him so my ear rests against his heartbeat. I listen closely, breathing with it in tandem, until it feels like my own.

“Sloane called me your girlfriend.”

His low hum reverberates through me. “She did.”

There’s a smile in his voice that has my stomach fluttering.

“Is that…what we’re doing now?” There’s a deep intake of breath, a shallow exhale, and then a pause.

“If a label feels rushed or too much?—”

“It’s not?—”

“I just need to be yours. Doesn’t matter to me what you call it. But you’ve been feeling like mine.” Relief washes over me as I wrap myself around, brushing my hands across the rough touch of his grown out stubble, pouring every ounce of my feelings for him into his gaze.

“That’s because I am.” I lean in, gently reeling him into my kiss, and let the truth of it seep into me through his touch before giving him a quick final peck.

I climb off him, knowing we could easily spend the rest of the night like this if I don’t peel myself off him. And Sloane is bound to come back.

“Where did Sloane go, anyway?” I pull my brush through my hair, running my curl cream through the strands once they’re sufficiently detangled.

“She didn’t say,” he says off handedly, and the vague memory of Sloane mentioning Connie has me changing the subject.

“How’re things with the team?” The question inevitably has me thinking about Will. I start pulling on my change of clothes, pausing when I see the sweatshirt Grant had on when I arrived. Cocooned in his scent, Will drifts to the back of my mind and out of sight.

“Tense,” he says on an exhale. “Ben and Will won’t speak to each other, but they’re both still captains. So.” He pauses over Will’s name, and I force myself to appear unfazed.

“Is having two captains even like, advisable?”

“Probably not,” he laughs, uneasy. “And I don’t see it getting better if Ben keeps sneaking around with Liv.” I feel my face drop at her mention. “You know, I feel like you’d actually like her.” I feel bad about the way my eyes roll at this, but I do it almost unconsciously.

“I don’t care if you’re friends with her,” I lie, trying my best to appear genuine. His head tilts, like he knows I’m bullshiting. “We’ve just never gotten along. Some people don’t jive.”

“It just doesn’t make sense to me, especially now.” He means now that Will doesn’t stand between whatever friendship we could’ve had.

“I know she’s your friend, but she’s not like…” I struggle to find the words that don’t sound cliche, “a good person. Before I even met her, Lily told me?— ”

“Lily?”

I think time stops for a second, and in the pause I wonder how the fuck that even happened.

I lock gazes with Grant and know why—the walls I’ve spent years building, the ones I’ve used not only to stave off having to be vulnerable, but to protect Will, are nowhere to be found. I’m defenseless around him.

And here I am, spilling secrets that aren’t even my own. Grant’s looking at me with honest, innocent confusion, and I consider whether I can avoid the worst parts of this.

“Uh, yeah. I kind of knew Lily before I knew Olivia.” My stomach churns.

“How?” And before I can answer: “I thought you met Olivia here?”

“I did.” I swallow, nervous to pull the dusty sheet off this old corner of my mind.

It would have been easy to forget about this, maybe even to forget about her, if Will hadn’t become so lost because of it.

Grant’s shaking his head, I realize, wanting to know more. I take a deep breath. He’s asking, and I don’t want to lie to him about something that isn’t even about me. It never was about me, and I shouldn’t have gotten involved to begin with.

“I met Lily the summer before our freshman year. Before we started here. Will and I were at a bonfire?—”

“Will met her?” A sense of urgency steadily grows in his tone, like he knows this isn’t all there is to it.

I nod my head slowly, biting down hard on my bottom lip. “They dated. It was just a summer thing though, and by the time college started it was over.” I attempt a nonchalant shrug, but I feel the tenseness in my shoulders. Saying it out loud, for the first time, sounds crazy .

“And Liv was just…okay with that?”

I don’t say anything for a beat, just think about how much I wish I hadn’t said her fucking name and how I should’ve known I wouldn’t feel this content forever.

“She doesn’t know.”

His jaw tenses and he doesn’t speak for a moment as he processes, staring past me at a point on the wall.

“What the actual fuck, Gen?” Disappointment and disbelief swirl in his gaze when he returns his attention to me.

I recoil, really not liking the way this feels. He’s looking at me like I’ve done some horrible thing, but this doesn’t even have anything to do with me.

“What?” Anger and annoyance try their best to pad against the sadness threatening to break the surface.

“Why haven’t you told her?”

“Because it’s none of my business,” I try to explain, but the sentence feels hollow.

His shocks morphs into sardonic laughter as he shakes his head, tilting it up toward the ceiling. “He told you not to tell her, didn’t he?”

Hot tears suddenly well behind my eyes and threaten to fall, but I look up, urging them to fall back down the way they came. “ It was none of my business .”

I watch as a flurry of thoughts race in his mind before he resettles his gaze on me. The disappointment is still there, but it’s coated in a layer of care that feels suffocating at present. That same care was everything I could’ve ever wanted just hours ago, but now? I feel judged.

“I know you guys had a fucked up relationship,” he starts, speaking slowly like he’s processing as he speaks. “But he never should’ve asked you to keep a secret like that. You can still clear your conscience. ”

The mention of Will and I’s dynamic, the way he’s so worried about what Liv knows or how she feels, the condescension I swear I hear in his voice—they have my voice hardening.

“My conscience is clear. I don’t care what she knows.

That’s friendship, Grant. You do things for the people you love; you keep secrets and let them confide in you and you’re there for them, without judgement. ”

His jaw ticks in frustration, his eyes heated for all the wrong reasons.

“Why don’t you care ?”

“I—” I pause, taking a clarifying breath, trying to reel this back. “It’s not that easy now. And you weren’t there when she died—you didn’t see him. I did what seemed like the right thing at the time—for both of them. And now…it’s like, too late. They’re not even together,” I justify.

His fingers pinch the bridge of his nose as he tips his head back, like he’s struggling not to argue back.

I catch a glimpse of the Grant I used to know—the judgey one, the good guy, the one who’d never do anything that wasn’t above board, the one who wouldn’t even consider disappointing someone, even if it was for his own sake.

We stare at each other, gridlocked on opposite sides of the board, and I desperately want us to pack this argument up, throw it in a dumpster, light it on fire. Pretend it never existed, because right now it feels like a stain on the most perfect thing I’ve ever had.

“Look,” he says, breaking first. He reaches for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, his expression still tense but I can see the softness returning. See the adoration coming back. “I don’t want to fight with you, but…you need to tell her.”

“Or what, Grant?” I dare to ask. He glances away, jaw ticking, before he looks back at me with anguish in his eyes .

“Don’t be like that. I’m not—” he pauses, raking his hands through his hair “—I’m not trying to give you an ultimatum. I just want you to be honest.”

“Why does it even matter, though? Why are you making this about us?”

“Because now I know. I know this insane secret, and you just expect me to keep it for Will fucking Chapman?”

I feel slick with unease because he’s right. I shouldn’t ask him to do that, but I can’t help but feel like he shouldn’t be asking me to reveal someone else’s secret, either.

“I expect you to keep it for me , Grant. You can’t let your morals lapse for this one thing?”

His gaze shifts and I know he’s wounded. But I hear something between the lines of what he’s saying, and I can’t bring myself to apologize. “Didn’t know honesty was so unimportant to you.”

“That’s not what I said?—”

“It’s implied, Gen.”

A heave a deep sigh. “Can we just forget this happened?” I feel tired, like the years of grief and dishonesty and living on the margins have finally caught up with me in this conversation, the culmination of every bad decision I’ve ever made.

It feels like a consequence well deserved; it feels like karma.

It feels inevitable, that this of all things would come between us.

But my question is a hail mary that goes unanswered, if his long glance away is any indication.

“I’ll tell her Grant. Will that help you sleep at night? ”

His head tilts slightly back as he regards me, something indecipherable in his gaze.

“Gen—” he starts with such softness, I feel his words beneath my skin.

“It’s fine. Really.” I plaster the same chipper face I always use when I need someone to agree with me, to move forward. “But I just realized I told Jean I’d watch the reunion with him. So.” I swallow hard, averting his gaze at the obvious lie.

“You don’t,” he says, wetting his lips as he watches me collect my things, “you don’t need to go. Let’s just—” he reaches for my arms and I stop moving the minute I feel his warmth, his touch my favorite tactile memory as I close my eyes.

“I do,” I say, letting my eyes meet his. “But I’ll text you about our costumes, okay?”

The hope in his gaze is tepid, weak, quickly fading from the pressure of this new ulcer we’ve uncovered. “Text me when you get home safely.”

My smile is small as I press a kiss to his cheek, something I never do, before I let him walk me to the door. I don’t linger there for fear that we’ll reopen the wound we’ve so tenuously stitched back up.