“Reese.” It was Aiden. He was frowning at us. “Coach wants you back.”

Reese nodded to him, and after a questioning look at me, Aiden returned to the courts.

I started to go back, but Reese caught my elbow.

I stiffened, my insides shrieking. Code Red, people! He was touching me!

Reese was saying over my internal tornado alarms, “Just tell me. Does it have to do with a guy?”

Oh.

Damian.

And just like that, the tornado alarms switched off. A whole different form of storm was tearing me up inside, one that was way too fucking real for this conversation.

I gentled my tone, but I needed to let him know I meant business. “Look.” Fuck. I sighed, biting my lip. “Yes. It’s part of the tragically stupid thing from before, but I don’t even talk to my friends about it.”

Technically, I didn’t talk to anyone about it. The therapist had been a little over six months ago.

His hand was still on my elbow. He was leaning closer.

I gave him a little bit more. “It’s taken a full year for me to get where I am now, so…”

He nodded, new understanding dawning in his eyes. He held his hands up, and I tried to ignore how I protested the loss of his touch.

He straightened away from me. “Back off?”

Something shifted.

I felt it. I saw that he felt it too, and I didn’t think it was my delusional side imagining it. I nodded. “Back off.”

“No need to say anything more.”

He meant it, bypassing me.

He was almost to the courts when I followed him back into the gym. Someone tossed him the ball, and he was dribbling for his team within seconds, calling out the play as he went.

I stopped in my tracks, though.

God.

That look. His touch. The slight concern that I was just now realizing I had heard when he questioned me in the hallway. I didn’t know how it happened, when it happened, but there was something there.

Something real.

His shirt was flapping in the wind, showcasing a good amount of skin and a tattoo running vertically under his arm, and my heart just did a backflip.

All those flutters exploded in my stomach.

My head spun. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but I think, just maybe, someone had understood me without me saying a word about it? Maybe? I was in trouble, very real and serious trouble.

Chapter Fifteen

Over the rest of the week, I fell into a routine.