Page 146 of The Penalty

He looks up at me and cocks his head. “Is that why you would lose your mind when I would turn on the tub during a storm?”

“Yes! See! I was saving your life!”

“That makes a lot more sense now.”

“I didn’t even know how to have real sex. Rhys had to show me.”

Tobi makes a face. “I don’t think I want to ask about that, even if it sounds objectively funny.”

“I’m still not sure porn is real.”

“What—no, don’t tell me.” Tobi sits on the edge of his bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. I think it’s like an olive tree or something, so I sit next to him. “I’m still mad at you.”

“I don’t expect any different.” I sigh. “You can punch me if you want.”

“Now that I have permission, I don’t want to.”

We sit in silence for a minute, just processing.

“We didn’t want to hurt you. We wanted to avoid hurting you. We fucked up.”

“No shit.” He looks at me with that unamused expression. “What’s the thing Mom always says? It’s better to admit when you’ve done wrong than to add more wrong doings by lying about it?”

“That’s a lot of words, Tobs. Not sure I understand half of them,” I scoff, but he smiles a little. “Be mad at me. Take it out on me. I’m the one who told Rhys we needed to keep it quiet. It was for a lot of reasons, not just you, but he wanted to tell you.”

He looks at me like he actually wants the answer. “What were the other reasons?”

“Hockey.”

“Of course it was hockey. What specifically?”

“Pacifically.”

“No, thePacificis an ocean on the west coast. Specific means explicit or detailed.” He pauses for a second, but I don’t have a response. “Anyway, what about hockey made you want to keep Rhys a secret?”

“You really don’t know athletes, do you?”

“I try not to, why?”

“We’re a competitive bunch.”

He fake gasps. “No way.”

“Yes way. And since I was fu—fooling around with a player on a rival team, I was afraid the guys wouldn’t trust me,” I say sheepishly.

Tobi nods. “I can see that. Do they know now? You guys just played against each other, right?”

“Yeah, we did. Some of the guys know now and I talked to Coach before the game. I told him to let Lancelot play instead of me.”

“Wait, what? You told your coach to bench you? What the fuck?” The fact that he’s mad on my behalf makes me smile a little.

“I felt like a traitor, like I was letting my team down by fucking the enemy.”

“Please tell me you didn’t actually say that to your coach?”

“I did.”

“And he still let you play?!”

---