Page 28 of The Goat in the Bedroom
Flynn appeared at my elbow as we trudged toward the locker room. “You want to tell me what the hell that was about?”
“Bad day.” Which of course was all caught on camera. Harry was a nice guy, but I wanted to dropkick his camera today.
“That wasn't a bad day. That was you being somewhere else entirely.” He grabbed my arm, stopping me before we reachedthe locker room, before we had to face cameras again. “Seriously, what's going on?”
I stared at my twin brother, identical in almost every way except for his ability to stay focused when his personal life was imploding. Flynn had fallen hard for Tempest earlier this year, and being in love had only made his game stronger. Then again, Flynn had never had to worry about his girlfriend moving to another continent.
I glanced around quickly to make sure Harry and his camera, or worse, Sloane and her questions, weren't going to overhear this conversation. Then I turned off my mic and nodded to Flynn to do the same. He pointed to the little power box and showed that he already had.
“Artie might transfer to Team GB,” I said finally.
Flynn's eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Her dad wants her to play for Great Britain instead of the US. I think his way of trying to connect to her now that she's not under her mom's thumb. She'd have to stop playing for Team USA now and wait three years, but it's possible.”
“And this affects you how?”
The question was simple, but the answer was complicated in ways I wasn't ready to examine too closely. And Flynn fucking knew it.
“She's my best friend. If she moves back to Scotland or England or wherever, I'll barely see her.”
“Right,” Flynn said slowly. “Your best friend.”
There was something in his tone that made me look at him more carefully. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“You've been weird about Artie since graduation. Even more so since we moved here.”
“I haven't been weird, you're weird.”
“You have. You get this look on your face whenever she talks like she's made of rainbows and unicorn farts, and you practically vibrate with anxiety whenever she's not around.”
What the hell did he know anyway. Maybe Artie was made of rainbows and unicorns. “I'm just adjusting to the roommate thing. Jules is the only girl I've ever lived with before.”
“Right. And it has nothing to do with the fact that you're clearly crazy about her.”
Flynn studied my face with the kind of twin intuition that made it impossible to lie to him. “Gryff. Do you have feelings for her?”
“She's my best friend.”
“That's not what I asked.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, to give him the same explanation I'd been giving everyone for years about how Artie and I were just friends, how we'd never crossed that line, how our friendship was too important to complicate with romance.
Instead, what came out was, “I think I'm falling in love with her.”
Flynn's expression shifted from suspicious to concerned. “How long?”
“I don't know. Maybe always? But definitely since we moved in together.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “And now she might move to another country, and I realized that the thought of losing her makes me want to set the entirety of the United Kingdom on fire.”
But not the Commonwealth. Canadians were too nice, except when it came to hockey.
“Have you told her?”
The center of my chest went hollow from the inside out. “Are you insane? No, I haven't told her.”
“Why not?”
Because I can't risk destroying the most important relationship in my life with my need to hold her, and pet her, and call her my squishy little strawberry. Which is not what came out of my mouth. “Because she's dealing with huge career decisions and family pressure, and the last thing she needs is her longtime friend and roommate complicating everything by declaring his undying love.”
