Page 39 of Offside

And I just wanted it back, but I couldn’t have it back–I was stuck. I couldn’t keep…loving him as Metal while lying to him, but I couldn’t just come out and tell him now as Sam.

“I’m glad to see you up and around,” I managed to croak out, swallowing down the bile creeping up in my throat. “My brother said he saw you getting forced into walking outside the other day.”

“I thought that might have been the DJ,” he half-chuckled, rolling his…pretty blue eyes at me.

Why was he suddenly so pretty to me?

“That was actually my mom's not-so-subtle way of kicking me in the ass–she finished raising babies over twenty years ago, and she refuses to baby me now, so,” he muttered, waving it off. “Torn MCL and getting dumped–not valid enough of a reason to wallow in bed–though I didn’t really mention the getting dumped part. That would require telling her I was seeing someone to begin with.”

That hurt.

We’d talked about him seeing someone before, and thanks to my insider knowledge, I knew he didn’t talk about me to anyone else. He didn’t talk about anyone he was seeing with anyone else in his life–he only did it with me because he needed our relationship to grow and work.

And this just felt wrong.

Hearing about me dumping him from him–that was brutal.

“No, I hear ya,” I mumbled, suddenly desperate to get out of this suffocating room–it was like a hundred degrees in there suddenly. “If you need anything, I’m just down the hall, but I’m gonna drag my mom away from yours before they start comparing baking techniques.”

“O-oh, yeah, sure–thanks,” he stuttered out, almost seeming confused at my sudden departure.

Maybe that was weird.

Was it weird?

Was I acting cagier than I usually did in forced social interactions?

Fuck–was I being weird?

Chapter 17

Sam

It being Christmas didn’t stop me from banging on Ash’s door, just in the hopes he was home. I sent my mom back to my place and told her I wanted to get some air–she was so excited that she didn’t even question me hitting the up arrow for the elevator.

Every second in Landon’s apartment was killing me, but I couldn’t keep this in anymore–I needed someone to tell me what to do.

Ash was an ass half the time, but we were friends, and he was outside it all–he could tell me what to do.

“Jesus,” Ash huffed, slipping through the crack of his door and shutting it behind him. “You have both my parents and Thayer’s thinking we’re getting raided. What's the issue, man?”

My mouth stuttered because where did I even start?

I hadn’t even spoken to Ash in a week, so he didn’t even know the biggest parts of the equation.

“Knight and I broke up,” I finally spat out, my jaw shaking because that was the first time I’d actually said it out loud.

And it sucked.

“Oh, shit,” Ash sighed, stepping away from his door and nudging me down the hall to walk with him. “Are you okay? Is that why you’ve been so AWOL with me all week?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, looking back, as if anyone else even lived on this floor, but still worried about protecting Landon. “I have to tell you some stuff, and I’m not looking for judgment, just direction.”

“I’m like the least judgmental person I know–I technically cheated on my last girlfriend with Thayer, so no judgment from me–”

“Not that!” I almost shouted, immediately catching myself and lowering my volume. “Look, I technically dumped him…or ghosted him, I guess–I don’t feel like saying I dumped him was fair, but it was me. I didn’t want to do it, and I’ve regretted it every single second since–”

“So, then why did you do it?” he asked slowly, hands on his hips at a full stop for all my attention. “You really liked the guy–you never shut up about him. He’s so sweet, he’s so hot, he just gets me, blah blah blah.”