Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Right now, we were in no-man’s land.
Or purgatory.
Every instinct that had been drilled into my brain for my whole life told me loud and clear: don’t let on that you know. Pretend you saw nothing. Just. Fucking. Act. Normal.
But another instinct was just as strong, and it was something… newer. An emotion I’d never really had before when it came to writing an article.
Protect him.
That one came from my heart, not my mind.
And what the fuck was I supposed to do with that?
“I need a glass of water,” Andrew said, clearly going into flight mode and trying to run away from the situation.
“Hold the fuck up,” I said, reaching out to grab his hand as he tried to walk off. “Talk to me.”
I gave him a little tug, bringing him back over into the alcove with the pool table.
“I can’t,” he told me.
I’d never seen Peachel shut down like this before.
A complete 180 from how he’d been before, all drunk, warm, and fuzzy.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“Nothing fucking good.”
“What does that mean?”
“You need to know, don’t you?” he said suddenly, anger and hurt rising in his face. “You don’t tell me shit about your past, but now I’m forced to. Because I misplaced my phone, like I always do. God, I can’t handle anything—”
“Andrew, it’s okay,” I said.
He met my gaze as he walked deeper into the alcove, leaning against a tall set of shelves behind the pool table.
People were still laughing, drinking, and dancing all across the bar, but Peachel was in a corner, looking like he’d just been deflated.
“He cheated on me,” Andrew said. “My… ex. If you can call him an ex. I thought we were exclusive, because one night, he told me he loved me, and said he didn’t want to be with anyone else. It was my mistake to believe him. And then I found him tongue-deep in a blond man’s mouth in a bar, just a few weeks later.”
He’d had his heart broken.
The heartbreaker himself.
Out and proud, able to have any gay guy he wanted, but this had happened to him.
“It was the dumbest thing I’d ever done, to begin with. Dating the one person I shouldn’t. Jeopardizing my fucking future. My career. Which is gone now, I guess, anyway.”
“How is your future gone?”
“Because I know you,” Andrew said, his eyes welling up as he looked at me. “You put a good article first. Before anything. And I know what you saw.”
I swallowed.
Andrew was right.
That was exactly what I would usually do.
CHAPTER 13
ANDREW
“Holy fuck, Peachel, it’s happening!” Luke’s voice came from around the corner of the alcove.
My throat was so tight I was on the verge of crying.
My heart felt like someone was crushing it in a vise, and Gray was looking at me with an intensity in his eyes I couldn’t fathom.
You know exactly what he’s going to do.
Coach is never going to trust you again, because of everything you’ve hidden.
And as usual, I had to keep it all under wraps, because Luke couldn’t find out about this, too.
“What’s happening?” I asked him as he bounded around with a beer in his hand.
“You’re about to be a star,” Luke said, smiling and happy as always. “Coach just called. ESPN wants to interview us. You and me, baby!”
I nodded, sucking a breath of air deep into my lungs.
My blood was still swimming in liquor. I’d been so drunk I texted Gray that I missed him.
How stupid could I have been?
“ESPN interview,” I said.
It was the kind of thing I’d been wanting for years. Any attention on me now only meant good things for next year, when I was going to be up for the draft. ESPN was already seeking me out, and I should have been overjoyed.
But I couldn’t feel anything right now.
“Finish your fuckin’ drink, Peachel, because we’ve got to go. They want to interview us out on the field.”
I furrowed my brow. “Now?”
“They’re going to be there in an hour.”
I was going to be sick.
“They can’t be doing it now.”
“They’re doing a tour of the colleges in Tennessee today and then Kentucky tomorrow.”
“Fuck. I’m too drunk—”
“Nothin’ wrong with that,” Luke said with a laugh. “I’m going to go close out our tab.”
Panic flooded my veins.
No, no, no.
I couldn’t handle this even if I were sober.
“First step is water, Andrew,” Gray said. He went over to the bar and I watched him walk off.
Everything was crumbling around me but I was still focused on his perfect ass. His hair.
Everything about him that I thought I was falling for.
He came back soon after with a giant glass of water.
“Chug it,” he said.
I nodded, gulping it down. “Still being nice to me?”
“Andrew,” he said. “I think writing about Danny would give me a very juicy article. And I’m also not going to do it.”
I shook my head, which made the ground a little spinny. “No. Just do it.”