The words stabbed deep in my gut. I’d told myself I did. I believed I did. She was the only thing standing between Jake and me. But it wasn’t true anymore. Instead of an obstacle, she’d become the thing to cement us together.
But seeing wrecked and glowing, clinging to me just as desperately as Jake, it unhooked something inside me.
The truth slipped out in a rush. ‘No. I don’t hate you. Maybe I never did.’
Her lips parted as her eyes misted. Jake’s hand reached across my lap and caught hers, tangling their fingers together.
‘I think I just hated that you had Jake. But I never imagined I could be here, with you both instead of taking him for myself.’
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was heavy. Thick. Binding.
Sarah’s cheek pressed back into my thigh while Jake kissed the inside of my wrist.
And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like the outsider clawing at the door.
I felt like I belonged.
TWENTY-TWO
JAKE
The air reeked of adrenaline as the crowd roared from the stands.
But all I could hear was the pounding of my pulse.
Three weeks of late nights with Drew and Sarah. Three weeks of growing closer in our shared depravity. Three weeks of nothing but training through the day and fucking through the night had brought me to that spot on the field. Exhausted and exhilarated. Terrified because suddenly I had even more to lose.
This is it.
The final.
Scouts in the stands. Mum’s eyes burned even from a hundred feet away. Sarah watching. Drew was somewhere behind me in person, but also lingering inside my head.
Fuck.
The scrum reset, the pitch a churn of mud under our boots. Shoulders slammed into me, and I shoved back, gritting my teeth as the ball is fed into the skirmish.
Pain flared through my arms, but I ignored it.
There was no time for weakness. Everything was riding on my performance. Couldn’t stop. Not with everything on the line.
We drove, inch by inch, the pack holding tight despite the intensity. Shouts bled into one another. My muscles screamed, but I dug deeper, imagining facing Mum’s despair if I fucked it up.
Thinking of Drew’s dark gaze.
Sarah’s soft smile.
We broke as the ball spun wide, and I was off.
Sprinting and dodging. Mud sprayed up my calves as I tore down the wing. Only one man left to beat. When we made contact, it rattled my bones. Somehow I stayed upright, ball gripped in white knuckles.
Almost there. The burn of everyone’s stares had me sweating.
Almost.
And then I was on the ground desperately gasping for air that wouldn’t come. Vision blurring. The whistle blew, but I couldn’t get up.
Couldn’t shake off whatever pulled me down.
